Amar's Blog

French Gallery, Reopened

2012-01-30T15:57:00.002-05:00

Vincent Van Gogh painted a still life titled "Vase with Pink Roses." It's one of my most favorite paintings and now on display to the public at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

In a ceremonious Saturday afternoon, with live music and plenty of visitors, the museum opened up this art piece and many other impressionists works in a section referred to as the "French Galleries" on January 28th, 2012.

Vase with Pink Roses (1890)

"Vase with Pink Roses" one of my favorite paintings because of the variation in how roses and leaves are painted. His color choices are emotionally positive, bright, and festive. Vincent, who chose to use a complementary color palette of green, yellow, blue, and pink; also gave the painting a 3D feel with the texture. The texture is created by the way the oil paint is laid on canvas by the painter. I have seen other artists do this, too, and I think it's a very cool and high technique art style. Not all of the painting is itself textured, some of leaves look more like sketches, which adds variety and complexity to the painted flower arrangement.

When originally painted, the roses were pink. Over time the pink has faded and the roses now looks different than originally painted.

The above photo is an alteration of a photo I took on Saturday. Using a free digital photo editor Picnik, I added a mirror frame, a daisy, a butterfly, and increased the saturation and contrast. I got curious about how the painting would change if it was altered like a photo. It's a fun exercise, I recommend downloading a picture of the artwork and tinkering with it in a photo editor. The original looks closer to the photo below.

Vincent Van Gogh - Vase with Pink Roses (1890)

The artwork looks better and more vivid than the photo when viewed with the eye in person. The museum is free to the public; I recommend checking out the French Galleries. Also, the website also has tidbits like sound bits of the proper pronunciation of his name. You'll be surprised by it.

Van Gogh

Van Gogh is another famous self-taught artist. He started painting in his late twenties and produced some of his more well known works in his last two years. He didn't formally attend an art school nor apprentice himself at a young age.

During his life, he would confer with other art masters and ask them for advice and input in the process of becoming a master artist himself. Like all innovators, he developed his own art style. Vincent himself practiced his style extensively through self-portraits and still life paintings and sketches.

As an artist, this man was productive. He created a couple thousand paintings and sketches. When I viewed "best of" lists like this one on the web, there were a common twenty or thirty works mentioned. More interesting, when a complete list of works is viewed, like the one on Wikipedia, the sheer number of artworks created per year stands out. After scrutinizing the year column in Wikipedia list, I gained the impression that he produced two - three pieces of art per week!

The poor guy suffered emotionally and mentally quite a bit, he checked himself into an asylum at one point in his life. He would write letters to others conferring to "not live like me." He sadly committed suicide to escape his personal mental hell in 1890, at the age of 37.

We today have so much more knowledge about the mind through the fields of neurology, nutrition, sociology, and psychology. I wonder what Van Gogh would have changed in his lifestyle had he known what we know today about life and the mind.

He was not well known while he lived. In fact, his paintings gained acclaim only after he passed away. Today, his more famous works are valued in the millions of dollars and on display at some of the most famous art museums in the world. ❏

Shoot Into The Light

2011-11-14T18:42:00.001-05:00

"Shoot Into the Light": the concept is to aim the camera at the sun to produce a silhouette. It is also the title of a chapter in Jim Zuckerman's book "Pro Secrets to Dramatic Digital Photos."

We are generally taught to not point the camera at the sun, though it turns out that it's ok for a camera lens. It's just bad for our eyes to look a source of light directly.

Here are some recent silhouettes I have produced using the technique described in his book. Don't worry, looking at photos of light is safe. What is dangerous is looking at direct sunlight with your eyes!

Outdoors

Memorial statue with sun behind it

When the sun is close to the horizon, it's possible to acquire the angle necessary to photograph a silhouette. For example, in the morning when the sun is rising or in the evening when the sun is setting. In the afternoon, the sun is directly overhead, and it's harder to line up the sun behind the object you are photographing.

In the photo above, taken in the early evening, I caught the sun when it was setting. I ended up with a silhouette of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, which I visited this past Veteran's Day.

Indoors

Jay-Z in concert with a spotlight behind him

Shooting in the light, turns out, can be done indoors, too. For example, at a recent Jay-Z & Kanye West concert, Jay-Z was perfectly lined up in front of a stage spotlight. The spotlight behind him created the white glow that is behind him, which is a cool effect in the dark indoor concert hall.

Lasers

Kanye West with lasers behind him

It's not just light bulbs or the sun, you can even shoot into the light with lasers. Kanye West's silhouette formed when he had stage lasers behind him at his concert.

Shooting Elsewhere

Jim Zuckerman's book has many other photography tips and I am going through them one by one, practicing them when I am taking photos. This one stood as as really easy and particularly fun and is easy to learn. So try shooting into the light! There is a group on flickr dedicated to photos that use this technique for more examples that are free to view. ❏

Thunderbolt Thrown To Save My Desk

2011-10-24T00:20:00.002-04:00

I needed a monitor to enable my efforts to develop a new creative photography software program. So I purchased an additional computer screen to complement my laptop's display. My new Apple 27" Thunderbolt display has been a productivity booster, I am happy to say.

Here are a few thoughts about the monitor. Given that so many of our memories and present moments are captured in digital photography and video, there is a newfound, pronounced value to viewing those memories in higher quality ways. It is purposeful.

Why a better monitor?

The market for computer display monitors is very competitive and offers a variety of choices. High-end professional monitors costing thousands of dollars promise color quality, accuracy, and sharpness.

There is a difference between monitors beyond resolution. To see it, view the same photo across a variety of monitors. Look at the same photo on your television, your mobile phone, your laptop screen, and a high-end computer monitor. It helps when you view the different displays side by side. You will be shocked at how the same photo looks so different across different monitors, especially when viewed side by side.

Better monitor ahead

For example, I have looked at photos on a television that came across as too dark and not worth looking at. By chance, I looked at the same photo on a high quality computer screen, and the same photo looked different, with more detail and brightness viewable on the high quality monitor.

So, that's the value with a high quality monitor. The value in a higher quality monitor is more than just screen size; the same pictures look different and better. Photos, which capture our memories and moments in life, are easier to value and appreciate.

Worth the money?

Apple's 27" Thunderbolt monitor costs about $1,000. I use it with my Macbook Pro. It bought me several things that I value:

Organization - The monitor doubles as a notebook hub and power cord, so I simplified the wire jungle on my desk.

Screen size - Viewing street maps on a 27" 2560 x 1440 display is less frustrating and more productive. Photo editing on larger screens is also more productive and accurate.

Second display - Software development across two monitors is more efficient.

Quality - My previous monitor did not display photos well. When I shared my photos, my friends and others were experiencing them differently than me.

HD WebCam - The monitor comes with a High Definition camera, so I can come across more clearly and presentable in online video conferencing.

Ergonomics - The screen can tilt to different angles.

Health - My eyes don't water after viewing the screen for one hour.

If there is any message to emplore, it is that computer monitors can now offer more than just better resolution and more pixels. This monitor improved the technology experience and simplified my work area. Many other monitors will do this for you, though not every monitor will.

My Setup

I use a headset, a graphics tablet, and external speakers. The required wires for these devices were running around my desk left to right because my previous monitor, a television screen, didn't have USB ports.

My Setup

My new monitor has removed the headache of having to deal with the wire jungle of wires strewing from the left where my laptop was and coming over to the right. The wires now come straight from in front, which is more manageable and less frustrating and less intrusive. No more left-to-right wires.

The Thunderbolt monitor's cord powers my laptop too, so I gained an electric outlet back with my new setup, which now requires only one electric outlet.

Two screens or One

Two screens, not one

This monitor's feature set design intention is to complement a Macbook Pro very, very well. In fact, Apple markets the Thunderbolt Display as a complement to the Macbook Pro laptop model. If you work more efficiently on a single monitor, the Thunderbolt display has a nifty feature where it can operate even when the lid to the Macbook Pro is closed. This is a nice feature for people who utilize one monitor at a time.

Admittedly, two monitors with different sizes and resolutions has workflow challenges. My Macbook Pro's screen is 15" 1680 x 1050. For example, moving a window between one screen and another can be frustrating. Sigh, I wish the operating software just adjusted window sizes for me as I move a window from one screen to another. Bottom line: it took me a week or two to adjust how I work and find my own tips and tricks to gain benefit from the two screen setup. That learning period goes away if you just utilize one screen and close the lid to the laptop or use two monitors of the same size and resolution.

Technicals

The Apple monitor serves as a laptop hub, so the 27" Thunderbolt Display specifications go beyond screen details:

Specifications:

Model Number: A 1407
Resolution: 2560 x 1440 @ 60 hz
Ports:

Three high-speed USB 2.0 ports
One Gigabit Ethernet port
One Thunderbolt port
One FireWire 800 port

HD Camera and Microphone
Built in Speakers with 49 W Output

Dimensions:

Weight: 23.5 lb. (10.7 kg)
Height: 19.2 inches
Width: 25.65 inches
Depth: 8.2 inches
Viewable: 27 inches

❏

The Website Popup

2011-09-18T23:42:00.001-04:00

Imagine being able to lookup information from sources with a single click. Say you see the word "Shutterfly" in an email. You select the text with the mouse and make one click: command click and select "Lookup in Wikipedia." The result: a small window popups showing the definition of Shutterfly in Wikipedia, with no web browser needed or typing needed. Screenshot:

A popup showing Wikipedia

Mac OS X Lion 10.7 has a new feature that will please programmers. It is called "The Website Popup." Above, I programmed a website popup to lookup any word in Wikipedia. I also programmed my Mac to always show my new program, "Lookup in Wikipedia," in the familiar right-click menu:

The context menu shows up with command click

The general idea of efficiently retrieving and displaying information is a broad concept, and what's new here is the programmatic ease of creating software services. This has me excited. For example, instead of looking it up in Wikipedia via a web search (think of all those clicks and seconds waiting), I just select my "Lookup in Wikipedia" service.

Is this really new?

Mac OS X has had a feature for years that allows you to program "services" that can act on what you have selected with the mouse. What's new is the ability to create an Automator service that displays a result in a Website Popup. And Automator is *easy* to program. Previously, accomplishing the same would have taken Objective C coding, which is currently out of my skill set, because I understand Automator, I can now create software services on my Mac.

Want to lookup an artist in iTunes or an actor in IMDB? Want to select an employees name and display quick information from an internal HR website? Want to lookup an order number, quickly? The general idea is automating all the steps from seeing the item you want to lookup and getting the end result - a web page.

Creating the Service

Creating services is a programmers task. I created services with Automator, a software that comes with the Mac operating system. Take a look at the screenshot for my service "Lookup in Wikipedia" and see how it is programmed - not much code here!

Lookup in Wikipedia Automator service

I set the website popup to show in a window the size of an iPhone and to tell wikipedia that it is iPhone sized, so that popup displays the the slimmed down mobile version of wikipedia.org. This is a key configuration, because it makes Wikipedia display information tersely.

Automator is a pretty cool because it can also leverage unix tools instead of Applescript like I used above. For example, I built another service that lookups any place or building name with Microsoft's Bing and display a map. Here I look select text in Evernote, the "Renwick Gallery" use my "Lookup Location in Bing" service, which results in this map in a popup:

Popup showing a Bing map

"Lookup Location in Bing" uses the UNIX sed command to process the text I selected and return the result to stdout. Here is the Automator script:

Automator script "Lookup Location with Bing"

Automator can execute shell scripts, Applescripts, even call SOAP web services directly, so if you want to display HTML content that is not from a web page, you can easily do that to with a service that creates a local HTML file.

Again, I take advantage of the software option to pretend to be an iPhone. Many websites like Google Maps and Wikipedia display slimmed down versions of their sites for mobile phone users. I prefer the mobile version of websites because the information displayed in the popup becomes very space efficient.

Contextual Popups

I have also set both these example Automator scripts to show up in the right-click menu when I have selected text, as opposed to selected images or files. Automator lets you pick precisely what applications your service shows up in and what type of data is operates on in the combo box select items at the top of the Automator script.

The Mac then does some important heavy lifting here: it only shows the service when it is relevant, and you decide when it is relevant and program that in. With text, you can even get very specific with the taret type of text, like "addresses" or "people" or "phone numbers."

Is this really a big deal?

It's pretty exciting and as a small business owner, I can see myself automating many tasks and building several custom services to make myself more efficient. Productivity is key, and saving seconds here and there automating routine tasks like looking up information mathematically adds up to whole work days over a year. Not an exaggeration; check the math yourself!

I also have to limit my daily time typing on a computer because of CTS issues with my hands, so using software to eliminate typing and clicking is a matter of health, too. So I am excited with this new feature, and hopefully you are too! ❏

Top 20 Upcoming Innovations

2011-07-26T23:48:00.002-04:00

Here is my personal list of technologies that I am excited about. Excitement, to me, comes when a technology enables a new class of devices, superior efficiency and performance, more natural interactions and work style, or offers a means of achieving a visionary idea or concept.

OLED
Solid State Disks
3D Printing
HTML5
GPU as 2nd CPU
Thunderbolt
Photonics for microprocessors
Gesture Control (hand & body)
Cloud Computing
Internet Printing
Wireless Monitors
Near Field Communication (RFID)
1 GB WiFi (802.11ac)
Augmented Reality
Adaptive Keyboards (Keyboards using dozens of small LED screens)
3D Televisions
3D Cameras
Racetrack Memory
Spintronics
Portable Hotspots (make your own hotspot, hardware)

There are other exciting developments like self-driving cars, mobile payments, innovation in fiber optics, new versions of Angry Birds, that I didn't include, so this is not a comprehensive list. Broadly speaking, these innovations impact computer storage, microprocessors, electronic displays, device user interfaces, and computer network capabilities.

Also, many computer scientists are excited about the advancements that software and software algorithms can make, and I believe that the emphasis is well placed. Most of the power of technology in the last 25 years has come from software algorithm improvements, not hardware improvements.

The rapid technology development and adoption over the past twenty-five years has touched most everyone in developed nations. Even developing nations are adopting communications systems such as a cell phones and Internet connected devices at a incredibly rapid rate. While each technology might not change every person life on its own, each listed item enables new tools and capabilities that each individual reader can personally envision and potentially be excited about.

OLED

Concept: Am Organic Light Emitting Diode is an electrical component that can emit light, made from organic components, an innovation that permits different shapes and sizes of displays.

Benefits: Lower power consumption, brighter displays, can be placed on flexible materials like plastic.

Description: Light Emitting Diodes are used today in electronic displays, such as flat-screen televisions, computer screens, and mobile devices. OLED's are a type of LED that have different power consumption patterns and different construction that allows novel placement. For example, imagine a piece of plastic, shaped like a ruler, thin as plastic, that can display photos, movies, and information on it, just like a television - it would be an ultra-thin display. You could even bend the display, taking one end of the ruler and touch it to the other forming a loop, and the display would work just fine.

Market Potential: OLEDs have made it into products and out of the R&D labs in the past two years. Many mobile phones now sport AMOLED displays, such as Google's Nexus phone. OLED displays are currently expensive, though superior, and used in small screens. So, OLEDs have made it to the market, and with wider adoption and manufacturing innovation, the costs of OLED displays should drop. Also, innovation is needed to permit larger screens. If this innovation can occur, OLED should become a popular choice for television manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers.

Learn More: OLED-TV & Wikipedia: OLED

Comment Driven...

I wrote this list up a while back and never published it, since I intended to write at length about each one. It turned out to be very tedious to create an extensive write up and detail how I envision them in practical use for even one item. If you want a specific write up like I did for OLEDs, leave a comment on which ones, and I will respond. You could say that I am letting the future posts be comment driven, so leave a comment! ❑

Katy Perry, Blue Haired California Girl

2011-06-17T03:08:00.003-04:00

Katy Perry's California Dreams tour stopped by Columbia, Maryland on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011. Her current concert tour is breezing around the world. In attendance, it dazzled me as an music experience with a twist: elaborate, feminine clothing, a story unraveled with sketches and video in between songs, and lots of lights to go along with the music, music that has elevated to pop culture status since 2008.

Video Slideshow, Annotated

Motivated, I put together a YouTube slideshow of photos I snapped at the concert, picking the ones that came out most clear and sharp, and adding a voice annotation. Check it out, it is embedded below:

Not Just MP3s

When I described the experience to a friend, a concert goer used to rock bands playing at standing, floor-only-no-seats venues, and then also showed her my photos, she commented the event somewhat departs from a traditional concert format and moves into Broadway theater. It's very true, I think, and Ms. Perry, who's albums have sold world wide in the millions, has demonstrated a concept. The concept: that talented innovation in music, weaved in parts: part visual experience, part music, and part skits, can draw a crowd and sell out a world-class, large venues one after another.

The created concert experience blends very well with the multimedia access music fans have now, with laptops, mobile phones, and internet connections that augment the music experience from the radio or compact disc. To me, this is the link between a theater concert and the responsiveness of the crowd.

Some bulleted comments on the experience:

Katy sings her songs live, which is no longer a given and hasn't been since the 80's. It helps her stand out. She even does a solo with the guitar, playing right in front of the audience. No lip sinking here.
She performs most all of her well known songs, and the crowd lets her know that they appreciate it with a lot of energy.
Mothers and daughters came out to party. Privately, I debated if this was Maryland or Katy Perry. So, if you are not a father chaperoning, you may feel a little out of place, make sure you comfortable in your own skin if you attend.
Snoop Dogg is not present for California Girls. Though I don't think the 12 year old crowd knows who he is. To them, he's simply pop music trivia, more known for lyrics parents try to shelter their kids from. He sneaks into their scene via a duo with Katy Perry. And it works, too, people enjoy the song and music.
The musician setup varied throughout the concert. Starting out with a full band, backup dancers, and Katy Perry, is winded its way through a set of cover songs with only two guitarists, a solo by Katy, and even a routine where Katy went off stage, putting the dancers front and center.
A few concerts that I have been to, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rihanna, Jay-Z, make heavy use of the jumbo background televisions throughout the concert. Ms. Perry's experience largely uses the screens to tell a story of how she met the baker's boy and fell in love. It gets minor use during the song performances, which contrasted to Jay-Z, for example, who's stage design is purely driven by the graphics on the jumbo television on the stage.
19,000 people attended, selling out the venue. And she will be touring through November 22nd. That's star power.
The crowd got into the music, with a lot of concert goers dancing and singing throughout. It means something when a pavilion concert crowd gets energized and off their seats.
The opening artist, Robyn, a Swedish artist who brings a rock group with her, is worth listening to. If you are unfamiliar with her music, consider listening for the rarely seen band membership: two drummers, two keyboardists, and one lead vocalist.

So congrats to Ms. Perry for an energized concert experience and creating an awesomely impressed crowd. ❏

NoMa, a D.C. Neighborhood

2011-05-17T18:49:00.002-04:00

NoMa, a recently minted neighborhood in the District of Columbia, carries a very unfamiliar name to most DC citizens. The locale, in the Northeast quadrant, is under major change and visibly developing, year by year.

Some recognize the area by its landmark, a water tower visible from the metro stop and bears the words "NoMa Station." The old nickname "Swampoodle" is a verbally descriptive moniker of the sort of neighborhood that the area aims to develop beyond in the next ten years. With all the planned development and new residences, NoMa may sooner than later shed that swampy name.

NoMa Map

NoMa Map

Above is a map of the region. It's a jagged boundary, not entirely defined by streets alone. The concept of the neighborhood is to establish an area and bring together businesses, residential real estate developers, hotels, and government to develop a well architected neighborhood. If you walk around NoMa, you will see many construction cranes, an visible indicator of the millions of dollars being spent on developing the real estate. It's exciting to see an area on the rise.

It's a very different neighborhood than an Adam's Morgan or a Georgetown. There are a lot of cafes and fast food places that cater to the some 40,000 people who work in the neighborhood. About 1,400 live in NoMa, and there are only a few restaurants, so it's more lively during the day than during the evening. The one exception is the night club Ibiza on 1st Ave NE, which draws a party crowd on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. So today, you are more likely to come across someone who works in NoMa vs. lives there.

Getting to NoMa

As transportation options go, it is easy to get in and out of the locality. The New York Ave metro stop on the red line lies within NoMa's boundaries, and there are many Capital Bikeshare Stations, too. Close proximity to I-395 makes it easy to get to Virginia, or you can shoot up North Capital Street, the left-hand border of the neighborhood, to Maryland and I-495. The National Mall is a few blocks south of the southern border of the area.

A Developing Neighborhood

The NoMa effort is a organized and driven by strong leadership, aiming to make the new neighborhood prosper. A website titled 'NoMa BID' offers a lot of information about current usage and planned upcoming development. The website hosts documents with information: number of businesses, residents, square footage, and map boundaries.

Five years ago, I believe NoMa was just an idea. Given the completed development, the organized nature of attracted more development, and all the construction currently in progress, I believe it will continue to change dramatically. Renaming the metro stop to 'NoMa' would help DC citizens locate the area more easily and be an award for truly having created an identity for itself.

NoMa is labelled on some online maps and the area is becoming more discoverable. Using Google's Mapmaker, I added the neighborhood's boundaries, and my edit is currently pending approval. Blogs dedicated to the area like "dcnoma" are popping up and you even see DC icons like the "Curbside Cupcakes" van stopping by.

Rainbow over NoMa Station Water Tower

I think it takes guts for a city to pull together and create a neighborhood. The nature of creating a region for business development is very different than creating a residential area. Some may even rather call it a business district rather than a neighborhood, though given the number of people moving to live in NoMa and the planned construction of apartment complexes, I think it will carry an identity that fits its zoning, "mixed use." ❏

Garmin Forerunner 410 Review

2011-05-07T13:22:00.001-04:00

Executive Summary

The Garmin Forerunner 410 is an advanced GPS device, designed to aid athletic activity. It size is closer to a sports watch than previous Forerunners and is operated through a bevel with a touch interface. It can wirelessly link to accessories like a heart rate monitor and can wirelessly transmit your history to a computer, where it can be viewed on a free Garmin website, Garmin Connect. View a video of the Garmin Connect website I made here.

Garmin Forerunner 410

As a casual runner and biker, I like to keep track of the distances and time of my physical activities. GPS devices like the Garmin Forerunner 410 have fit the bill for me over the last decade. More recently, Garmin's sports devices have become even more enjoyable to use now that they can optionally upload your history to a Garmin athletic website, Garmin Connect.

Design

What does a Forerunner 410 look like? The above sketch is, well, not as accurate a depiction of the Garmin Forerunner 410 as a photo. I am in the process of teaching myself how to draw. From a photo, you can more realistically understand what the device looks like. It's slightly less bulky than previous GPS devices from Garmin and much closer to a typical watch than previous Forerunner models. I use it to track my time, pace, location, and heart rate during my physical activities. The 410 works with a wireless heart rate monitor accessory that I strap to my chest - the Forerunner does not directly capture heart rate.

Touch Interface

One feature I like about the 410 is its touch interface. The bevel around the digital display has four labels on it: menu, training, GPS, and Time/Date. These labels can be touched to operate, much like touching a trackpad on a laptop. To move through sub menus that the watch displays when you want to change settings, you swipe along side the bevel in a clockwise or counter clockwise motion. If you touch the bevel in two different places, the watch's backlight turns on. So there are several different means of interacting with the touch bevel. The screen itself can't be touched, so it is not like an iPhone in that respect.

Any design that favors fewer moving parts is better, in my opinion, so I prefer the bevel over devices with numerous buttons. The 410 does have two side buttons, one to start and stop the timer, the other for lap splits, so the Forerunner 410 retains some design from the traditional digital sports watch, though the touch bevel is novel in a GPS sports watch, and pretty cool too.

Battery Life

As for a GPS device, the 410 has longer battery life than my previous GPS devices, so I am happy with having to charge it less often. I would say it acquires satellites, a small procedure the device goes through when you start to use the GPS tracking feature, in about the same amount of time that other GPS devices, do. I still am waiting for portable GPS devices that can acquire a GPS signal as fast as the GPS devices in my car, which seems to near instantaneously pick up a signal!

Wireless

The 410 also can wirelessly send data to your computer through a USB device that comes with the watch. The USB device, called an ANT+ sensor, automatically detects the watch when it is physically close, and if configured, will upload your physical activity history to a website, Garmin Connect. This is where the complete experience of using a Garmin Forerunner starts to get really cool.

Garmin Connect

Garmin Connect allows you to view your GPS track on a map within a web browser. It also allows you to play through your GPS track, showing side-by-side elevation gains, your speed, and heart rate, too. Here is a video I put together showing the player feature with a recent three mile run I did through Washington, D.C. to a small local playground, Trinidad Park, from the New York Avenue Red Line metro stop:

In the video above, the player moves through the GPS track for my three mile run. Since I have made the activity public on Garmin's website, other Garmin Connect users can see the activity for themselves and decide whether to embark on it on their own. So the website allows you to share your activities with others, a fun feature if you are looking for running routes in your area. ❏

Movie Review: Hanna

2011-04-19T23:35:00.002-04:00

Hanna, a movie now out in theaters in the United States, which has nothing to do with Hannah Montana, btw, is fun to watch. I liked it enough, cinematically, to want to write about it. It had emotional appeal.

I would recommend the film to movie fans who can get into a spy thriller story. The movie, directed by Joe Wright, had several elements that I enjoyed. Let me list them.

First, the soundtrack is by The Chemical Brothers. Their style of music is my cup of tea, and if it is yours too, you will get into the movie more than you would with an average movie. I would describe the music as upbeat, techno, and electronic.

Another engaging element of the film is "the chase," which is the basic plot of the movie. The story is this: the CIA attempts to track down two individuals, Hanna, a young woman who is a trained assassin, and her father, who is a former spy. The chase leds to suspenseful moments. So, I liked the chase element of the story.

I also enjoyed some of the scenes because of the videography - there were some very cool camera angles and shots that brought to view visual elements that I personally enjoyed. A few particular shots come to mind, where the camera is on Hanna with the sky in the background, spinning. There were a lot of cool shots that used depth of field techniques that I liked, too. If you watch the film, look for them.

Finally, the acting is great:

* Saoirse Ronan plays the main character Hanna, and does cold, heartless, and young very well.

* Eric Bana, who is Australian, plays a European man who wants to help Hanna learn to be self-sufficient and take on the challenges stemming from the situation.

* Cate Blanchett's role of a CIA handler who wants to kill had a few elements I like. It's not a cute character, it's a little heartless, almost a little aggressive, and not soft at all. I think that breaks the typical movie mold for females.

* Tom Hollander surprised me with his character. There was subtle humor to the individual he played, a Russian mercenary, and I didn't expect it, because the character is a mean, evil killer guy.

I think a lot of movies have these individual elements, but the movie was of interest to me, I think because of the central idea, a highly trained assassin and being chased by the government. It just has appeal. The chase itself, I believe, would be done differently in real life, though that's not really the point of the story, to say how it would be done in real life. It's just a story. So I wouldn't say how the individuals are chased is very realistic, but I enjoyed it anyway, because it was fun to me to see people on the run.

You'll have to watch the movie to see what happens in the end. I won't write it here. Though I would reiterate my recommendation, if you like spy thrillers, or a story about a young person finding their way though a soldiered, less orthodox upbringing, check this film out! ❏

What I learned, Apple TV

2011-04-15T16:43:00.000-04:00

An annoyance with having all my music in mp3 format and on my laptop has been removed! With a recent purchase of a set top box, an Apple TV, I can now use my home audio and television system wirelessly from my computer, with far greater ease than before, and all digital.

What is an Apple TV?

An Apple TV is a set top box that connects to your television or receiver and allows you to hear or watch content from the Internet or from your computer. It comes with a user interface which you experience through the television and control via a remote.

Previously, I would connect my laptop via the video out on the computer to my television to watch Netflix movies or show photos and movies I have created to others at my home. With a set-top box, which connects to the Internet wirelessly through my wireless router, I can stream content from my computer to my living room audio and video systems.

So why use a set-top box? I think experiencing a slide show of your favorite photos, which you almost always view on your computer, and for the first time viewing them on a large screen the size of a television, you will feel the benefit of being able to view photos on your television. As for audio, I no longer need to connect my laptop to my speakers, I can stream music wirelessly, which is great for personal use and for entertainment purposes when friends are over.

How does it work?

An Apple TV, second generation, comes with a remote control, a power cord, and an instruction pamphlet. You can see the contents above in the photo. You bring your own HDMI cable to the party. After I connected my Apple TV set top box to my television via HDMI, I configured the device to access my home wireless network and it had access to the Internet, from there on.

As for playing content on my computer on my home audio system, I had to utilize a feature called "Home Sharing" and "Airplay." Home Sharing is Apple's solution for connecting devices to televisions and speakers. When my laptop is on, and iTunes is running, and home sharing is enabled, I can view on my television the music and video contents in my iTunes library on the television screen.

I can also direct my computer to play video and audio through my Apple TV. For example, I can go to iTunes and pick a song to play. Instead of hearing the music from my laptop's built-in speaker's, it plays on my home audio system. In this sense, I am using an external monitor or speaker, wirelessly, though be careful to distinguish streaming content, which the Apple TV allows, from screen mirroring or using the television as a secondary monitor or projector, as we have more commonly experienced with our laptops. I recommend looking at the screenshots on Apple's website to see what the Apple TV user interface is like on a television.

YouTube

Because the Apple TV is connected to the Internet, it can access YouTube and other media content supported by the device. It was interesting, to say the least, to explore this feature. I went to YouTube on my Apple TV and searched for Bollywood videos, and found many to watch. The audio is amazing and the Bollywood music sounded great, though the video quality is still YouTube-ish and not as great as HD television.

My Setup

Above is a photo of where I placed my Apple TV in my living room. It sits right next to my television. Since the Apple TV is controlled via a remote, it needs to be visible from where ever I am sitting. I would highly recommend buying a set top box that works with your computer, if you have a lot of content like photos, videos, or music on your personal computer. Experiencing your own media in the living room is 10x better on a larger screen and home audio system than on that tiny laptop screen with built-in speakers.

There are many devices out there that support AirPlay, Apple's technology for wirelessly playing music on a speaker or watching a movie on another screen. So you don't have to get an Apple TV to accomplish the same, there are other electronics options, too. An Apple TV costs $99 USD. I recently saw a Pioneer receiver which supports AirPlay, to give an example of how other electronics are adopting this style of wireless use. The trick is that you have to have your music and movies within iTunes or playable with the Quicktime Player, your media can't just be on your computer and viewable as with screen sharing.

It's a pretty cool experience, because it's digital end-to-end. No analog cables required or used. ❏

A Peak Inside the 23andMe Package

2011-04-09T02:42:00.004-04:00

Here's a description of what the genetic analysis company 23andMe sent me when I signed up for their personal genetic analysis service.

23andMe package

After I placed an order, 23andMe sent me a kit for me to place a saliva sample for me to send back to the company for analysis. The box arrives shrinkwrapped. It turned out to be the same box I must send back to the company, postage pre-paid, so I did not treat the cardboard box like disposable packaging.

23andMe package, flap opened

When I opened the flap, I immediately saw instructions and a web address, http://www23andme.com/start. It encouraged me to register my kit online. When I did so, I saw detailed information about the company's privacy and security information before proceeding. I also got to choose whether to send my analysis to third parties, anonymized, for future medical research purposes.

23andMe package contents

Here, the flap is up and the contents are removed from the box. Three main items, from left to right. First, a bag clearly marked as biological material. Second, a plastic spittoon for me to store a saliva sample in. Finally, a page with instructions offered in several languages. I read the instructions in English.

Sent

I followed the instructions and sent back my genetic sample to the company in the same box, postage pre-paid. I received an email stating that my package had been received by the company and now I must wait six to eight weeks for an analysis report.

Cautioned

Friends and family were very surprised that I voluntarily purchased a genetic analysis service. I was told that I am naive about how this genetic information, if it reached potential employers or health care providers, would be taken into consideration. I do not believe 23andMe would release my information without consent.

Within the United States, genetic information is governed by the "Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008." Even with this act now passed an in effect, family members in the health care field still urge caution, saying that when I am older it may down the line impact me, and staunchly discouraged me from trying the service.

Without direct experience, it is hard to say whether I am being naive. The primary concern is if the genetic information got into others hands and was used unlawfully. If anything currently unknown to me was discovered, such as a predisposition to ailments, the concern is that health care providers would increase my premiums, perhaps making health care unaffordable, or that employers would see my potential and prospects as less bright.

Caution also came at potential psychological impact of learning about a severe health concern that I am currently unaware of. Will I be happier knowing what I am in for now or should I not research the matter? It is hard to say. I would benefit from talking to others who have learned about life changing health matters, like early stage cancer, to get a better understanding of the emotional impact. Or when I read my report, I may find out for myself.

Wait and See

We will see what comes back in the report and if anything life changing is learned. From that point, it will be up to me to guard the personal information, to trust 23andMe to not disseminate the information voluntarily or involuntarily, and that other entities lawfully abide by United States regulation around genetic information. I am truly looking forward to learning about my health and genetic ancestry. ❏

A Mac Laptop Shipped from China

2011-04-08T14:01:00.001-04:00

This may be the very first time I have received a parcel shipped from China.

I ordered a computer from Apple from the company's online store. With minor customizations from the standard configuration, such as the amount of memory and the processor speed, Apple assembled my computer in Shanghai, China. Apple then gave the computer to FedEx to transport to me here in the United States. It is new to me to see an international city as the origin of a parcel.

FedEx website tracking information for my Apple laptop on order

We hear ounces of words about the global economy, almost daily. Sometimes to me, as an individual, the global element we hear about often is not visible. For example, Apple does not state on its website that my item will come from abroad. Which is not a fault - it did not matter to me in the purchase decision.

Where has it been visible before? I have manufacturing labels on a linens or the "Made in Taiwan" stamps on plastic molded toys, like most others. Though, the sighting or glimpse of the origin is often by accident or happenstance. I rarely look for it intentionally. Seeing the shipment originate from China in the travel history brought into view what I often under appreciate or even forget about - the global origin.

I wouldn't say it brings exuberance. It invokes thoughtfulness. Most everyone knows that high-tech manufacturing and assembly is predominantly done in Asia, though as a consumer, I can't think of many times like this where it is presented to me during the purchase experience. Very often, I just assume global origin - here I am seeing it in the shipment information. And that, to me, is what I find interesting. The visibility.

Not every part, I am sure, came from across the Pacific. The Intel processor, with high probability, likely came from the United States, given that Intel manufacturers a high portion, roughly 70%-90%, here in the US. The factual microprocessor origin would be an interesting truth to research and discover. The final assembly, without question, happened in Shanghai.

So I am getting my first parcel from China!

Getting to Cityville

2011-03-27T15:11:00.002-04:00

After four months, I still find myself engaged and enjoying Cityville. I'm trying to think about all the video games that I have played over several continuous months. It's a fairly long list, accumulated after playing video games for over twenty-seven years:

Amar's Video Game List:

Tetris - Gameboy (Kid)
Castlevania - Gameboy (Kid)
Sim City - Mac SE (Kid)
Falcon - Mac SE (Kid)
Quake II - Mac IIsi (College)
Kid Icarus - Nintendo (Kid)
Super Mario Brothers - Nintendo (Kid)
Track and Field II - Nintendo (Kid)
Halo - Xbox (Adult)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Xbox (Adult)
Street Fighter II - Arcade (Teenager)
Scrabble - Facebook (Adult)
Blaster Master - Nintendo (Kid)
Top Gun - Nintendo (Kid)
Load Runner - Apple IIe (Kid)
Contra - Nintendo (Kid)
ExciteBike - Nintendo (Kid)
Cityville - Facebook (Adult)
Kirby's Epic Yarn - Wii (Adult)
Spy Hunter - Arcade (Kid)
Tennage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Nintendo/Arcade (Teenager)
Hearts - Yahoo (College)
Poker - Yahoo (Adult)
Metroid - Nintendo (Kid)
Frogger - Atari (Kid)
Pac-Man - Atari (Kid)
Civilization - Mac IIsi (Teenager)
Prince of Persia - Mac IIsi (Teenager)
Crystal Quest - Mac SE (Kid)
Halo 3 - Xbox 360 (Adult)
Super Mario Cart - Super Nintendo (Teenager)

This list highlights how I played games on the Nintendo, a Mac SE, a Mac IIsi, an Apple IIe, a Wii, a Gameboy, Yahoo, and now, of course, Facebook.

Incomplete Game List

This list above is just the games I ended up playing over several months that I can recall. Friends had other platforms such as Nintendo 64, Playstation, Wii, PCs, so I have played more than this set of games.

Some games I remember playing at arcardes in movie theaters, bowling alleys, or amusement parks, though I haven't played a video game at those venues since being a teenager. I also don't play games on my mobile phone, which surprises many, though that may change after I move beyond my Env3 to a smartphone with internet.

Some games are multiplayer, like Street Fighter II, others were solo such as Sim City and Kid Icarus. With the internet, massive multiplayer games like Quake II and Halo evolved, where up to thirty two people played together at the same time.

Some games challenge you to build a construct, others are mazes that challenge you to solve puzzles. To play Sim City, Cityville, and Civilization, you must build virtual cities. With these games, it's almost impossible to get the same game experience with each play. It is unique each time. Super Mario Brothers, Halo, and Tetris are games where the experience is very repeatable, from the players perspective.

There may even be more games I have played for a long stretch. There are several games I remember playing but no longer recall the names. Many were not well known or popular, so even with descriptions, it would be hard to track them down:

A navy strategy battle game on the Mac, B&W, Mac OS 7
An adventure game with puzzles, hard to describe (Apple IIe)
A game where you played a cargo ship in space (Mac IIsi)
A CD-ROM based game, color, you played a hero (Mac IIsi)

I remember playing, though not very long, others games like Tecmo Bowl and Brain Age. I briefly owned a TurboGrafx-16 though returned it out of dissatisfaction. I also played lots of games on my Mac SE, Nintendo Gameboy, and Atari that I don't recall since I was in my youth during my interest in those systems.

Cityville as a Diversion

So my latest game now is Cityville. One recent article I read in the ACM Communications, April 2011 discusses how many people are enjoying games now to fill holes in their day, such as waiting for someone to call, or during a commute. It's mental downtime, where you don't have to think analytically, though it keeps your mind occupied and not idle. So it's a diversion. It can even be a means of creativity, if you see the challenge of designing a city with housing, roads, decorations, businesses, and community buildings as a design challenge instead of a video game obstacle.

Cityville, while deemed a social game, would not lead to social interaction in the sense we are accustomed to offline, though it can in others means promote social development skills. For example, you have to build up relationships with neighbors and keep those relationships going, through basic human relationship concepts like reciprocity and understanding what your neighbor needs at the time of play. These are fundamental concepts in the psychology of positive human relationships in any form, whether online or offline.

Though, again, the social development is in a very minor form, because you are not in the same room, and the interpersonal dynamics of face-to-face communication and the social development that comes along with it is not present in Cityville gameplay. A psychologist, then, would see it as a means to promote interaction with others, though benefits limited to what can be gained through a video game.

Some Cityville screenshots:

Cityville Police sauntering right by two smiling robbers

Adventureville on Sunday, March 27, 2011

Adventureville on Friday, December 17, 2010

NCAA 2011 DC Photos

2011-03-18T12:01:00.001-04:00

The 2011 NCAA Tournament in underway, with a few games being hosted by Georgetown University here in Washington, DC. A couple photos from second round action, taken by me.

Winning shot at the buzzer that put Butler over Old Dominion, 60-58

Cincinnati shooting a 3-pointer in a win over Missouri in the 2nd round

Connecticut blew out Bucknell. The cheerleaders were more fun to watch that this debacle of a game.

Adjusting Exposure

After taking a photography class in January, I learned how to use the light spectrum analysis feature of my digital camera. This spectrum helps me gauge whether my photos are over or underexposed, and can prompt me to adjust the exposure upwards or downwards. This little camera technique has allowed me to take much better photos with my point-and-click Olympus Stylus Pro 6000.

23 Cityville Tips

2011-03-16T01:52:00.001-04:00

Here are twenty tips I offer other Cityville players. I have been playing the social game, hosted on Facebook, for a few months now and really enjoy it. Here's what I've learned and offer as tips:

Play to win the click streak bonus
Be selective about who you let franchise
Get each franchise location to five stars
Get crops from neighbors instead of growing them
Use shipping to get goods inexpensively
Visit neighbors to get energy
Identify your best neighbors
Send energy to your best neighbors daily
Get more neighbors from the Cityville forums
Post messages for help to your wall via Cityville
Get critical inventory like Zoning Permits from neighbor's wall posts
Play the quests to get free rewards
Don't waste a neighbor's help
Play to win a variety of collections
Don't play too often
Get the payout bonuses from decorations
Franchise headquarters pay a bonus like decorations
Use Charlie the Train
Use the factory at least once per day
Play daily
Accept neighbor gift help requests first
Sign up for Rewardsville
Look at online resources

1. Play to win the click streak bonus

Cityville offers players a way to get coins for clicking items very quickly. When you click on a star experience point, a cash bag or item that pops out from a business, or a crate of goods from a crop, Cityville starts the click streak. Consecutive clicks made quickly, with no more than a second in between, keep the click streak going. The coin payout comes after the click streak ends, and the value of the payout grows with longer click streaks.

You will notice a bar in the top left hand corner shows up after you click on of the mentioned item with the word "Bonus." As you continue your streak, you will see words like "Outstanding" or "Insane" pop as the streak gets longer and longer. You can earn over 4000 coins just by keeping up a click streak.

Here are three example opportunities to take advantage of a click streak:
a. When visiting a neighbor

You can get 293 coins out of a click streak of 10, clicking five hearts and five crates, for example, quickly.

b. When collecting from your city

Because energy is the only constraint when click your own city, you can get large click bonuses when going through housing or crops or municipals or businesses.

c. When letting neighbors work on your city

When a neighbor visits your city, you "accept" the neighbors help, and the neighbor starts to do work on your city. Each action the neighbor takes, such as visiting a business or harvesting crops, will generate an experience star and other items. Quickly click on those items for each neighbor visit to get 296 coins from your neighbor's visit to your city.

2. Be selective about who you let franchise

Franchises are a great way to build relationships with neighbors and get businesses in your city without having to pay for them. Once you get a large number of neighbors, be selective with whom you let place a franchise. Prefer players who play daily and will supply your franchise every day.

3. Get each franchise location to five stars

When you place a franchise in another city, you must supply the franchise location with goods. The amount you earn every time you supply your franchises can grow. To grow the payout, you must get the franchise location to five stars. Supplying the franchise daily over a period of time increases the number of stars. For example, each coffee franchise I have at five stars pays out 1000 coin every time I supply the franchise location. A coffee franchise takes 50 goods, so I am generating 1000 coin for just 50 goods with a five star franchise location. Not bad! You can see the number of stars next to the name of the neighbor in the Franchise screen.

4. Get crops from neighbors instead of growing them

You don't have to grow all the crops you need. Neighbor who grow crops are also a source of goods. You get can 15 goods every time you harvest a crop from a neighbor. This means you can devote less real estate to growing crops in your city and free up space for other uses. You can also unload goods from a neighbors ship if there are no grown crops to harvest in a neighbors city. Bottom line: devote less space to crops in your city when you get crops from neighbors.

5. Use shipping to get goods inexpensively

When you advance to a higher experience level, Cityville unlocks shipping as a means of getting goods. Getting goods through shipping is less expensive than farming. I recommend the "Paris Parcels" route for your ships since it arrives once a day.

6. Visit neighbors to get energy

If you run out of energy, start visiting neighbors. Each time you visit a neighbor you can earn one energy bolt. You can only get one bolt per neighbor per day.

7. Identify your best neighbors

Figure out who your best neighbors are and when your time is limited, favor helping their cities. As you play the game, you may end up gaining hundreds of neighbors. It becomes to time consuming to visit every neighbor every day. So focus on your best neighbors.

8. Send energy to your best neighbors daily

Send energy, either +1 or +2 or +3 energy to your neighbors, for free, through the daily gift feature. Cityville limits how many free gifts you can send out per day, so focus the gifting to your best neighbors.

9. Get more neighbors from the Cityville forums

Cityville becomes more fun and playable when you have more neighbors. If you go to Zynga's user forum website, you will find every day hundreds of people posting messages that they are looking for neighbors.

10. Post messages for help to your wall via Cityville

Cityville can posts messages to your wall when you ask it to. You can use these wall posts to acquire goods, donuts, and items for collections. There are times in the game where you will need items to complete collections or quests. While having wall posts from a game is annoying, if you sacrifice your wall to the cause, you can get help from neighbors who click on your wall posts. Getting stuck on a quest is more annoying than the wall post. Also, when you no longer need the wall post, you can always delete it from your wall.

11. Get critical inventory like Zoning Permits from neighbor's wall posts

When you are playing a quest, say the St. Patricks Day quests, you will need items like Face Paint. Other players are also in need of Face Paint to complete the quest, just like you. When you go to the Facebook wall of a neighbor and click on their wall post asking for an item like Face Paint, you can one Face Paint too. The secret: use the wall posts to stock up on items like Zoning Permits, so you have plenty when you are ready to expand. In the example photo above, you can get a free donut for your police station if you click a similar wall post on your neighbor's wall.

12. Play the quests to get free rewards

Cityville quests are hard to get through because they require items from collections. However, my recommendation is play all the quests. In fact, I recommend playing the quests over trying to get your experience level to 80. The quests, when you accomplish them, will reward you with novel items that you can place in your city. If you ignore quests, you will not get the special items.

13. Don't waste a neighbor's help

This is a very advanced tip. Imagine that two neighbors visit your city and their profile picture is hovering over, say the same set of farm plots. If you accept the help from one neighbor, they will harvest the crops for you. However, the second neighbor, who visited the same five plots, will be of no help because the neighbor help you just accepted cleared the five farm plots. So, before accepting the second neighbors help or even canceling the second neighbors help, take action like planting crops on the five barren farm plots and then accept the second neighbors help.

14. Play to win a variety of collections

Many collections pay out coins, experience, and goods. Try to play to complete a variety of collections and win the rewards from them. If you plant a variety of crops, say carrots and peas and cranberries, you will over time gain items from all three collections. This is a different strategy than just going with one crop, say corn, and planting only corn, since you will only get items from the corn collection.

15. Don't play too often

The game gets boring if you play too much. It's really up to you what too much is. Because so much of the game is time based, for example, you have to wait on your crops to grow or wait on businesses to gain customers, it makes sense to give your self time in between sit downs.

16. Get the payout bonuses from decorations

Decorations, such as flowers or trees, can increase the amount of money a house or business pays out when you collect rent or collect the business income. A flower, for example, will increase a houses payout by one percent. To gain the payout, the flower must be placed within three squares of the business or housing. You will see the region of the decorations payout bonus's affect when you move the decoration, using the move tool, as a larger blue square around the item. When a business or house is within the range, you will see the amount of bonus impact, like 1% above with the Blue Flower example, and the total amount of bonus impact that the business or home has, as in 19% above.

17. Franchise headquarters pay a bonus like decorations

Many players place their franchise headquarters in far corners of their city. Franchise headquarters are like decorations - they can increase the bonus payout of businesses. So place franchise headquarters with three squares of business. Also, the higher the tower, which grows in size by one floor for each franchise that you have, the higher the bonus payout affect. My coffee headquarters gives a 28% bonus to the businesses within three squares of it, as an example of how high the bonus can get.

18. Use Charlie the Train

If you are in a pinch for some goods, use the train to acquire goods. I recommend buying goods using Charlie the Train since it takes only five minutes to get 300 goods. When you start to buy more expensive businesses, like coffee shops, the goods will pay for themselves even at a cost of 4 coin per good. The trick to making the economics work: place decorations around the coffee shops, as explained in tip #16. My coffee shops pay out over a 1000 coin each, which is great because they require only 100 goods. So my 300 goods, costing 1200 coin, can payout 3000 coin, making the train financially sensible. You have to complete quests in order to unlock the Charlie the Train in the buying goods menu of the train menu.

19. Use the factory at most once per day

I don't recommend playing the factory more than once per day. It takes up a lot of time to utilize.

Now, factories produce goods that you can use to supply a business. You don't see a factory in your city at the start of the game. A factory comes later after your experience level rises.

I suggest the "Hardwork Harry" job, which pays out once per day. Also, hire your friends for factory jobs! I recommend sending a small number of factory job help requests to a select group of your best neighbors. I recommend against sending out factory job requests to a large group of your neighbors since it decreases the likely hood of your neighbor getting the job - when you send out too many requests - your neighbors end up fighting for the requests. Hardwork Harry takes one whole day, which is plenty of time for your neighbors to accept factory job work.

20. Play daily

It's the best frequency to play. You get the daily play bonus and can be responsive in a timely manner to your neighbor’s requests for help.

21. Accept neighbor gift help requests first

When you start Cityville, you may see a bunch of messages from neighbors. My recommendation is to accept all the requests asking for help first, when your inventories of energy and other items are at zero. Accepting a neighbors request for help won't deplete your inventory if you have zero of the item you are giving since the item will be a free gift instead of being deducted from your inventory. After you have responded to all the requests for help, go through your messages and accept the gifts and help from your neighbors.

22. Sign up for Rewardsville

Rewardsville is a website by Zynga. You get free items for your city from it. The website url is http://rewardsville.zynga.com. Rewardsville has strict limits on how much reward you can get per day. In fact, you can only give eight gifts per day to other Rewardsville players. So be selective and prefer to give Rewardsville gifts to your best neighbors.

23. Look at online resources

There are several great websites that explain the game. I recommend the Cityville wiki at http://cityville.wikia.com and Cityville Goals athttp://cityvillegoals.com/.

Consumer Platform Proliferation

2011-02-07T17:24:00.003-05:00

A rising trend in consumer electronics is the creation of new application platforms. Customers are now exposed to more than Windows vs. Mac, the most common question asked ten years ago. I aim to catalog the various platforms I am seeing today and their distinguishing traits.

Application Platforms in Consumer Electronics:

Google Android	mobile phones, tablets
Verizon Android	mobile phones
RIM Blackberry	mobile phones
Apple iOS	mobile phones, tablets
Apple Mac OS X	personal computer
Microsoft Windows	personal computer
Microsoft Windows Phone 7	mobile phones, tablets
Microsoft Xbox	television video game
Sony Playstation	television video game
Nintendo DS	hand-held video game
Google TV	televisions
Google Chrome OS	laptops, tablets, pc’s; open source
Symbian mobile	mobile phones; open source
HP webOS	mobile phones

Present Day

Ten years ago, the most common platforms were the operating system of a personal computer. Now, application platforms can be found in the following forms: web browsers, mobile devices, personal computers, video game systems, blu-ray players, and televisions.

Customer Considerations

Many of these new application platforms now have stores like the “Google Chrome appstore,” the "Android Marketplace," or the “Apple iPhone appstore” where applications can be downloaded for free or for purchase.

An application purchased for one platform will not work out-of-the-box on another platform. For the customer, there are many considerations now with regards to which platform to buy, given the lack of software portability. I think customers will quickly identify and evaluate the software applications offered on a platform. This may or may not turn out to be true in the mass market case.

Other concerns like having friends and family who utilize the same platform are important in specific cases. For example, if you have lots of friends who used Blackberry Chat, you can only chat with them from Blackberry phones. Thus what your friends are using can have strong implications in what buying choices to make.

For common activities like watching a movie or playing a Soduko puzzle, most all the platforms offer solutions.

Netflix Everywhere

A walk through the electronics sections of Wal-Mart or a hour at Best Buy can be a shocker to see how much choice a consumer now face. Netflix, the movie rental company, is the best example of a single application available many different platforms seen throughout Best Buy. In order words, here, it doesn’t matter what platform the consumer buys since all of them have Netflix!

Netflix’s presence has grown beyond “dvd-rentals through the mail” and can now be accessed through dozens of devices. To understand the choices consumers have now, it’s educational to assess where you can watch Netflix movies.

Netflix Ready Devices

Game Consoles:

Nintendo Wii

Playstation 3

Xbox 360

Streaming Players:

Apple TV

Logitech Revue with Google TV

Roku Streaming Player

Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD Media Player

Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer

Sony Network Media Player

WD TV Network Media Players

Blu-Ray Players:

Insignia Connected Blu-Ray Player

LG Network Blu-Ray Players

Panasonic Networking Blu-Ray

Philips Netflix ready Blu-Ray player

Pioneer Internet Connected Blu-Ray Disc Player

Samsung Network Blu-Ray player

Sony Network Blue-Ray Disc Player

Toshiba Blu-ray players

Yamaha Networking Blu-ray Disc Player

VIZIO Blu-ray Player with Wireless Internet Apps

Televisions:

LG HDTVs with NetCast Broadband

Samsung LED HDTV

Sanyo LED HDTV

Sony® BRAVIA® LCD HDTVs featuring BRAVIA Internet Video

VIZIO® XVT Series HDTVs with VIZIO Internet Apps™ (VIA)

Panasonic Viera TVs

So while popular games like “Angry Birds” or “Tap Tap Revenge” are still offered on specific platforms, large companies like Netflix with marketing and technology muscle are aiming to be available on as many platforms as possible.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

The companies that are building these platforms are taking different strategies. Some platforms are only available on devices that the company sells. For example Apple’s iOS is only available on the iPad and iPhone. This is referred to as a “closed model.” To the consumer, the offering is a customer experience defined and coordinated by one company. To the company Apple, it can move very quickly in bringing innovations that require both software and hardware advancements rapidly and in a tightly coordinated manner. This is a highly vertically integrated business approach.

Microsoft Windows 7 Phone is a closed platform offered on many devices. To the consumer, there are many options on what hardware to purchase. To Microsoft, there is separation of software and hardware development, which expands their potential partnerships and reach into other markets.

Finally there is Google Android or Symbian – these operating systems are open source. Electronics companies can utilize the software at no cost in devices they sell to consumers. To the consumer, there is the most choice in terms of companies that offer devices with Android. However, it’s more challenging for Google to bring advances that require hardware improvements to the marketplace because they can’t do it alone. Google depends on mobile phone companies and must deal with the political and business aspects of producing innovation through open source software and consortiums.

Who wins

I believe Apple has hit on something important with its vertically integrated approach, with respect to bringing innovations to the market. Google, with Android, has developed a model that is leading to rapid adoption – everyday something like 300,000 new Android devices are activated.

Ultimately, consumers will win with the variety of choices they have, and companies will compete on how quickly they can bring innovative products and features to the market. The platforms will compete on size of user base, which brings along network effects, as well as the software that is available on the device. Want to play Call of Duty 3 – it’s an exclusive game not available on an Android device. Want to play Angry Birds? Get an iPad.

I think the competitiveness stemming from different models will bring great things to the marketplace for consumers. I am looking forward to seeing how these companies continue to innovate.

A Harley-Davidson Light Cycle

2010-12-19T05:02:00.000-05:00

This evening I watched the movie Tron: Legacy. Inspired by it, and having already received a Christmas gift, a software upgrade to Adobe Elements Photoshop 9, I tried to put the movie experience and the gift together. What came forth was a tron like Harley. I started with a real photo of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and Tron'd it, the best an amateur could, with Photoshop. What do you think - does it come close to a light cycle, conceptually?

The movie, Tron: Legacy, takes place in a digital world created by a software programmer. The new movies is a sequel to a great sci-fi movie from the eighties, Tron. The sequel takes the original Tron world toward a slightly different direction. There are new characters, some elements from the original are gone, and the story is a bit adapted for today's available technology. "Wi-Fi" is mentioned in the sequel. The soundtrack is great, created by the artist group "Daft Punk," and goes well with the pretty amazing looking fictional world in the sequel, which is fun to watch in 3-D in the theatre itself. The photo above is only available in 2-D, though.

The bike came out in good guy and bad guy tron colors, blue and orangeish, by accident. In the movie, bikes are always one color or the other. The mixed palette is just what the "glowing edge" filter did. Maybe it is symbolic - either Tron or Clu could ride it? I just can't claim to have done it originally on purpose.

When people are on "The Grid," the digital world, everything has a different aesthetic. Here's a screen shot from the website photo gallery of the sequel:

So the Harley isn't quite the same as the photo above, though you get the concept I'm going for. Glowing edges. ❏

Beard Photography

2010-12-14T23:57:00.000-05:00

Here is an experiment that is one part sociology research, one part photography. Four photographs of my new beard were selected from a quick burst of snaps photographed earlier today. The goal is to identify the best way to photograph a beard, with your help.

Here are the following choices, each with a different aspect ratio:

1:1 (square)
16:9 (letterbox)
2:3 (common for print)
4:3 (common for digital photos)

Which aspect ratio do you think is best for a photograph of a person sporting a beard?

1:1

16:9

2:3

4:3
Each photo also has a different pose, to make the experiment more entertaining and less scientific. Beard photographers, please step forth and share your wisdom. ❏

A Harley-Davidson In The Making

2010-12-09T01:37:00.001-05:00

Harley-Davidson has a manufacturing plant in York,Pennsylvania that assembles motorcycles for customers all around the world. The company offers tours of their manufacturing lines to the public, giving outsiders insight into what it takes to create a motorcycle. After coming away with a positive impression and learning quite a few facts about the company, I thought to post a thought or two of the experience.

The Tour

The tour takes about fifty minutes and guides you through a facility that assembles several different types of motorcycles. Some of the parts, like the drive train, are assembled in plants in Wisconsin, the company’s home state, and shipped to York for final bike assembly. Other parts, like the fenders, are created on site from high-powered machine presses that shape steel into hubcaps. All in all, about 1,390 parts come together to create a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The plant is huge, with over one million square feet. Filled with machines and operators, there is a tremendous amount of automation in the plant. For example, robotic polishing machines can move a piece of steel along a belt-based machine. Other robots help shape metal pieces in short amounts of time, like twenty-nine seconds, or custom paint hubcaps with more paint layers than you would see even on a car. All in all, the automation requires the plant to utilize one million dollars worth of electricity each month!

Handy Work

Harley-Davidson does have a lot of people working there whom ultimately doing the bike assembly. In fact, union workers do the majority of the final assembly by hand, not robots. These workers are highly trained in motorcycle manufacturing, metal shaping, and machine operations. The company has a policy that if a robot is added to the line, no worker may be replaced by it. Either the worker gets trained to operate and maintain the robot or is trained for a new position in the plant. So the workers are very valuable to the manufacturing process of Harley-Davidson bikes, given the amount of handwork that goes into the bike.

The workers are very proud to assembly Harley's. Most own Harley-Davidson motorcycles themselves and voluntarily sport clothing with the company’s famous logo. This, I think, is important, given how much quality is determined by the workers. The assembly lines do not build the exact same motorcycle every time. Only after a motorcycle is ordered is it assembled, with specific customizations made to that motorcycle. The bike could have cruise control, a stereo, or even sirens if it is a police bike. Also, different countries have different regulations, such as the shape or behavior of the tail pipe, or whether the dashboard should read in miles or kilometers. So these specific customizations are made by the workers for each bike, with a large 8 ½’’ x 11’’ tag highlighting the requirements for that specific bike.

Secret to a Harley

There are items that are common to all bikes, like chrome. Interestingly, the shiny metallic look often seen on bikes is mostly nickel, not chrome. Since chrome rusts easily, nickel is laid down first, and then chrome is coated on top. So the metal look really should be attributed to nickel, notchrome, though everybody just normally calls it chrome. Another commonality is the sound of the bike that the engine makes. Turns out that Harley-Davidson’s bikes have a unique engine sound the competitors have unsuccessfully tried to duplicate. I liken it to the secret formula for Coke-a-Cola. The soft drink company’s formula is kept private and only three or four employees know it. To everyone else in the world, how to produce an engine that makes the Harley-Davidson sound is as big a mystery is how to create Coke.

The Re-imagined Harley

Over the past few years, the firm has experienced a tremendous amount of pressure from foreign motorcycle manufacturers who were selling comparable performing bikes at lower prices. The unique elements of a Harley-Davidson and the pride of owning one were not enough to help the company compete. With new bike designs, a focus on being a premium bike, and more pronounced international marketing, the company has rebounded in the past few years. Even their manufacturing processes are being redone with new plants being built to replace to aging ones, in the same city of York. Those plants are more automated and were also designed to reduce electrical needs with better climate control. So the company is adapting and modernizing.

Exports now account for 33% of sales of motorcycles. It will be interesting to see how the company’s association with America fares as it gains a more international appeal. It’s most devoted riders will likely still love the bike so long as it contains the unique elements it has had in the past. So I am optimistic that the company will prosper in the face of global competition and continue to produce bikes that people want to buy.

York, Pennsylvania Bikes

For the curious, here is a complete list of the twenty-eight 2010 motorcycle modelsHarley-Davidson made in the York plant:

Trike (1)

Tri Glide Ultra Classic

CVO (3)

CVO Ultra Classic Electra Glide
CVO Street Glide
CVO Softail Convertible

Touring (15)

Road King
Road King Classic
Road King Shrine Special Edition
Road King Police
Road King Fire/Rescue
Street Glide
Street Glide Trike
Road Glide Custom
Electra Glide Classic
Ultra Classic Electra Glide
Ultra Classic Electra Glide Peace Officer Special Edition
Ultra Classic Electra Glide Firefighter Special Edition
Electra Glide Ultra Limited
Electra Glide Fire/Rescue
Electra Glide Police

Softail (9)

Softail Custom
Fat Boy
Fat Boy Firefighter Special Edition
Softail Deluxe
Heritage Softail Classic
Heritage Softail Classic Peace Officer Special Edition
Rocker C
Cross Bones
Fat Boy Lo

Walking a President's Path

The visit was a lot of fun, especially since I had studied the bike company in school. There were many photos of presidents who have come to York and mentions of celebrities like Jay Leno who have visited several times. Walking a path that other famous visitors to this small town have also made gave a sense of history. Many associate the Harley-Davidson brand with America itself, and rightfully so. The history of the company, now over one hundred years old, has truly been shaped by American culture and story. A large American flag greets visitors when the enter the plant of these iconic bikes for good reason. ❏

The Beautiful Baltimore Aquarium

2010-12-01T14:51:00.001-05:00

Baltimore, located very close to our nation's capital Washington, D.C., has the notable National Aquarium with an attractive variety of water living creatures. Anyone interested in Mother Nature's creatures should keep it in mind when you're in the Maryland/Virginia/Washington area. Posted below are few photos of a shark, a turtle, a parrot, a lionfish, and a frog from my recent visit.

Having recently watched a great national geographic series "The Great Migrations" which highlights major animal migrations that happen seasonally or annually, I got a little excited to see whatever water based animals highlighted in the film in person at the aquarium. It's easy to get disconnected from animals in an urban or sub-urban lifestyle; heading to an aquarium for the day can be very refreshing and humanizing.

Parrot

The aquarium has a few unique elements beyond water tank after water tank. First, there is a huge pool with stingrays and other larger creatures with a cat walk hanging over. It's a great sensation to walk over a clear water body teaming with animal life.

Frog

Another great feature of the aquarium is a five-story high spiral tank that you can walk along side. It contains some fast moving fish, sharks, and even a few people when divers are feeding or taking care of the animals.

Lionfish

If you like animals playing tricks like me, you'll enjoy the dolphin show that goes on at a special water tank within an amphitheater. Dolphins will splash water at the audience on cue, along with bumping balls, jumping high, and swimming onto poolside. It's nice break too from walking, standing, and observing fish in tanks, which can make you much more tired than you would think!

Shark

Finally, the aquarium is currently also hosting a small Australian animal exhibit with snakes, tarantulas, turtles, and birds that are more commonly found in that region. It offered an interesting contrast - seeing an Australian turtle on the same day as a South American turtle allows you to see more subtle differences in the fin shape, the shell designs, and their behaviors, too.

Turtle

While there is no petting zoo portion of the aquarium, visitors are free to take as many photos as they like, which can add to the enjoyment of visiting animals that you just don't see on a daily basis. If you're ever looking for some nature fun in Maryland, check out this aquarium! ❏

Bring The 'Net Down

2010-11-22T02:42:00.003-05:00

I came across a mystery in a recent Internet usage report for July 2010, published by comScore. It stated that humor is the top growing category, making me wonder if the Internet is less of a bore.

I thought to myself, everyone loves funny, so why is funny so hot in July? I believe I have pieced together the reason why.

★ Let it be noted that humor in written form is often inaccessible or easily overlooked.

★ Let it be noted that humor doesn't translate well into text, citing the common personal experience of attempts to humor over instant messaging or SMS getting you cooked.

★ Let it be noted that humor comes across very well in video form, whether it be a SNL skit, stand up comedy, or blooper, to viewers.

★ Let it be noted that, in 2010, more sites than ever before carry video content, due to greater demand for video by United Internet users.

★ Let it be noted that the cost to create and serve video is dropping, and the cost of an Internet connection and device that is suitable to watch video is becoming affordable on a modest wage.

★ Let it be noted that new, expensive televisions now are Internet capable, supporting the ability to directly watch Internet content on a Television, increasing accessibility to Internet video, the current market rage.

★ Let it be noted that research proves men generally are more funny that women. {kidding} Let it be known that men generally try to impress women with humor more often than women do with men. {serious}

★ Let it be noted that men spend twice as much time watching videos per month than women, though so what if males act like they are ten.

All the notes together make the music. Mystery solved - the lead growing Internet category, humor, is trending upwards due to the increase in online video viewing, made possible by the now reasonable cost of equipment and connectivity to provide for a pleasant, suitable for the even the impatient, experience.

Ever heard the phrase "Bring the House Down?" Well, I try. ❏

Recommended Podcasts for Keeping Informed

2010-11-15T17:30:00.000-05:00

I often hear people asking for podcast recommendations. Here are a few free podcasts:

EconTalk - A weekly hour long show hosted out of George Mason University with authors, economists as guests to discuss issues like currency manipulation or incentives. Check out the episode with Daniel Pink, a famous and well published psychologist, on incentives in the workplace.
HBR Video IdeaCast - Interviews of professors and businesspeople that elaborate and summarize notable new research in management. Try "How companies can make decisions faster" for a video interview with Bain who studied 1000 companies and their management's decision making abilities.
President Obama's Weekly Address - President Obama offers a three to five minute video summarizing thoughts on issues he has talked that week. If you appreciate the art of presidential rhetoric, this video podcast is for you.
Stuff You Should Know - A more fun, laid back podcast that talks about a wider range of topics from "How Does Rehab Work?" to how mirrors work. This series is hard to keep up with since they publish new podcasts every few days.

Mixing in podcasts with magazines, televisions, books, and RSS readers can provide that change of pace for individuals who love learning though sometimes grow tired of a specific medium. I recommend trying a few - they are free to listen to and only require the free software iTunes.

There are other sources of podcasts on the Internet, too, iTunes is just one recommended source. Check it out and leave a comment if you have any recommended podcasts yourself. ❏

p.s. There is a Facebook page now - "Amar's Blog." Check it out!

The Internet Experience, Deaf

2010-11-10T01:32:00.001-05:00

Recently attending the FCC Developer Day Conference, I came across how the Internet is becoming accessible to individuals who are deaf. An unexpected statistic: 37% of Americans are hard of hearing or hearing impaired. The exposure gained at the conference motivated me to learn about closed captions, the primary tool for deaf people to access video.

Some individuals are born deaf, though a surprising number become deaf due to other reasons. Old age, listening to music too loudly for a sustained number of years, massive shock to the ear, or physical damage are ways people become deaf after birth. So being deaf isn't just a genetic problem, it's a disability that can be acquired in life.

To make one of my YouTube videos more accessible, I added closed captions as an exercise, resulting in a video that is easier to experience for hearing impaired americans. The short comedy video, originally created with the website Xtranormal, is titled “Amar’s First Month D.C.”

The video is embedded below:

Individualized Customer Experience

Viewing a video without sound is a very different experience than with sound. Scary movies don’t feel so scary when the volume is off, with no music to build suspense or screams to jolt the viewer.

After seeing conference attendees with iPads watching movies with them, it struck me that the customer experience is becoming very individualized now by devices. Deaf people watch movies with closed captions, which may be written by the movie maker, though the iPad can modify the presentation of the captions or even the content, too. So content creators can’t expect their content to look one specific way, as much of the specialized software will modify websites or videos to make them more accessible.

Thus, it’s a shift. With television content, creative people have a lot of control over the viewing experience, since televisions afford little to no customization capabilities. Devices like mobile phones or iPads, which can reformat video content, auto-translate captions into different languages, even the quality, too, to a point where a content creator has to shift to giving up control over the final viewing experience.

Shoshana Zubuff, in a recent article titled "Creating Value In The Age of Distributed Capitalism" published in McKinsey Quarterly, highlights individualization as part of a broader set of changes in capitalism that Americans are experiencing. The viewing of video, modified by an iPad application, to make the content more accessible to deaf people, is a great example in my mind of the capitalistic shift we are now experiencing.

Here To Forward

Internet content has generally been text and images up until the popularity of video sharing. YouTube, which now has millions of videos, is a great site, chock full of entertainment and educational video, isn’t the most hearing impaired friendly website on Internet vs. say Flickr. The conference brought up lots of ways that deaf individuals can still experience video on the Internet that is a step above viewing the visual portion of the video alone.

For deaf people, closed captioning is a must have for video with speech or dialogue. By law, any television show, whether it is live or pre-recorded, has closed captions that can be turned on, showing text descriptions of what is being said. Internet video has no similar law, though if the video is shown on television with closed captions, it must also now be shown with captions on the Internet on sites like Hulu or iTunes, with the passage of 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act. This small piece of public policy was well received by the deaf community. With such a large portion of the United States being hearing impaired, politicians are under pressure to consider their needs and require Internet content providers to address them, much like Television content providers are required to do so today.

With so much co-creation happening on the Internet, little attention is paid to hearing impaired viewers in the dissemination of video footage. It’s no surprise, either, after a little experimentation with closed captioning tools; the best results come from manually typing in what is said in the video in the closed captions.

YouTube offers machine-generated captions created with voice recognition software, though experts in the field agree that the closed captions are not acceptable yet and are experimental. Professional closed captions are written by experienced professional who know the specific guidelines on writing closed captions.

A major benefit to closed captions is that the video becomes accessible in text form and can be searched like a text document. Search engines, then, can include the video in web search results in a more accurate manner that looking at the title or placement of the video itself. This will only make information more accessible and retrievable, a boon to any knowledge seeker.

Writing Closed Captions for YouTube

Interested in adding closed captions to one of your videos on YouTube? To add captions to my short comedy film, I typed a text file on my computer with the captions. I used the Annotation Tool on YouTube to eyeball the timestamps for the captions. Here is what my YouTube closed caption file looks like:

0:00:00.000,0:00:01.400
>> Amar: Hi!

0:00:01.600,0:00:03.600
>> DC Woman: How are you?

0:00:03.800,0:00:05.800
I am fine.

0:00:06.000,0:00:07.400
That is good.

0:00:07.500,0:00:10.100
Are there any jobs here in Washington?

0:00:11.5000,0:00:13.300
Yes.

0:00:13.500,0:00:15.500
May I have one of them?

0:00:15.550,0:00:16.500
No

0:00:16.700,0:00:19.400
[Crickets Chirping]

The text file is in “SubView” format, though there are many standards for closed captions to choose from.

The numbers are timestamps, indicated at what point the video should show text directly below it in closed captions. Timestamps start at 0:00:00.000 and are in hour, minute, second, fraction of second format. The caption text conforms to guidelines I came across in research that in great detail describe how captions should be written. The guidelines I used came from the The Described and Media Education Program captioning key.

Writing captions is not precisely the same as writing down letter for letter what is said. A caption writer can elect to drop words for brevity. Censorship and removing profanity is discouraged. Rewriting the spoken word with interpretation is discouraged. And so forth. The captioning key I used contains all these rules and more.

Most television or movies are written first in a script and then produced and filmed with actors. These shows already have the dialog written out, which is a great place to start. The final captions do need to differ from the written script, though, if the caption writer conforms to standards. For example, an actors may say “Eight or Nine Hundred” though the caption would be written as “800 or 900” which is a slight variation on the spoken word.

Live Events

Live events on television are captioned by people who type furiously as the event goes on, doing their best to keep up. Very often, the captions will be a few seconds behind the video in live events, and contain a smaller portion of the words spoken. The conference streamed the video on the internet, and in good faith, caption writers on site wrote what was said. Caption writers must mind their rate and aim for 120-130 words per minute. With that, I should mind my blog entry size, and end here. ❏

The Marble Economy

2010-11-04T21:17:00.001-04:00

One very practical way of helping young children develop good behavior is to use what I call "The Marble Economy." The concept behind The Marble Economy, a parenting technique to encourage positive behavior and healthy habits in young children, is age old and seeing its brilliance in action made it worth detailing.

The Marble Economy is a reward system where marbles are earned for good behavior and lost for bad behavior. When the marble jar fills up, generally after many weeks, a special reward is given. Thus, the incentive to the child is to earn marbles, fill up the jar, and obtain the special reward given only when the jar is full.

The System

Two child goal jars and the marble bank jar

Here are the basic rules of the marble economy. You get to be the chief marble economist and can pick and choose your rules from this proposed set:

An empty jar is assigned to each child. Label the jar with the child's name.
A line is drawn near the top of the jar. This line is the goal line.
Keep another jar aside for unearned marbles right next to the jar for the child that acts as the marble bank.
When the marbles in the jar pass the goal line, a special reward is given, such as a trip to the toy store and a twenty-dollar budget.
The marble jars are kept somewhere visible and highly trafficked, like the kitchen.
Each time good behavior is demonstrated, place one or more marble into the jar in the presence of the child.
When bad behavior arrises, take one more marbles from the jar in the presence of the child.
Marbles should be easy to earn and earned daily.
Avoid using marbles as bribes for specific, special tasks.
Consider offering marbles in exchange for more frequently desired behavior, like going to sleep at bedtime or taking a bath in an acceptable amount of time.
Award cooperation in routine behaviors such as finishing meals in a timely manner with a small sum of one to two marbles.
Less frequently asked for good behavior, though greatly appreciated, should be given a greater number of marbles. Good behavior on a unique long car drive that made it stress free for the parents can earn five to six marbles.
Parents decide when to give marbles and when to take marbles, not the child.
Discourage the child for requesting marbles in exchange for behavior, though permit asking for marbles for previously shown good behavior.
Marbles cannot be traded or bartered between the children. This keeps the marble economy closed.
If too many marbles get taken away in one day, an additional consequence occurs such as being grounded or losing television privileges for a day.
While you can talk about earning or losing marbles anywhere, always try to take or give marbles in front of the child so that they are connected to the experience of earning or losing marbles.
Ask for any specific desired good behavior first and when demonstrated, recognize it verbally with praise and reward it with marbles afterwards.
Create anticipation for marbles, for example, if the child is getting ready in the morning and will be able to leave the home on time, encourage them during the getting ready moments verbally with comments like "You're on your way to some marbles!" or "You're cleaning up your toys so fast, it's marble time for sure!"
Marbles can be given or take throughout the day, not just at an end-of-the-day or worse end-of-the-week review session.
The jar size, marble size, and allocation rate should be designed to allow the child to pass the goal line every six to eight weeks.
Offer younger children smaller jars and as they age over years increase the size of the jar.
Aim to start the marble economy when the child is young, like age three or four.
If you have more than one child, rig the system so that all children tend to pass the goal line around the same time or at least the same number of times per year. It minimizes jealousy between the children.
Variation: All children share one marble jar, to reinforce cooperative behavior in a team like manner.

Why it works

If the child buys into The Marble Economy system, they will become elated when they receive marbles and very upset when marbles are lost. It is ok if they show emotions and in fact a positive sign of buy in. If the child becomes very engaged, it's a good sign that they care about losing marbles. Indifference is a sign that the marble system is not clicking. It may take hitting the goal line once for the child to care, though the brilliance of the system as if you can make the act of placing the marble in the jar really fun, they may just cooperative for that daily ceremony, too.

Other punishment tactics, like sending kids to their rooms or taking away television time can still be used along with marbles, and in fact combining the two will only make the marble economy more real to the child. So it's ok to use marbles along with whatever positive or negative reinforcement means you use today, in addition to considering it an option to use alone. Avoid just giving verbal praise or verbal punishment, though. At a minimum use the marble system and not words alone.

In my opinion, doing the same thing with money would be less effective with young children. First, money is a very abstract concept, while marbles are physical and can offer a more tactile, aural, and visual experience. Young children can see marbles in a jar, while a piggy bank or bank account value can come across as just a number. When marbles are dropped into the jar, they make small sounds - clinks and clanks - that are pleasing to hear and a positive part of the experience of earning a marble. Losing a marble, a physical possession, can be a very visceral experience to a child too, more than just stern words, and not physically painful like spanking, paddling, or belting are.

Rationale

It's for the kids

Many parents want to reward their child for outstanding deeds only. With this approach, to the child, the message is do something very special and get oft-received recognition. For example, walk an old lady across the street without texting on your cell phone, and you'll get a pat on the back for helping the lady. Why not a marble!

Kids become very smart, even at a young age, and start to explore what say they have in what they must do. For example, it could be small things like how much television to watch, to more serious unethical behavior such as stealing or lying. Lose a marble?

Psychologists praise positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement in helping a young person develop discipline and cooperative behavior. The difference between the two types of reinforcement is subtle - positive reinforcement is praising and rewarding good behavior when it is demonstrated. Get up on time and get to school with any hassle - the child gets some recognition. Negative reinforcement is more likened to traditional punishment parenting - hit your younger sibling and your parents will send you to your room.

The marble system can offer both positive and negative reinforcement. What is unique about the system is the more frequent rewarding of good behavior and positive reinforcement with physical objects, going beyond solely using negative reinforcement and traditional verbal praise alone.

Creating linkage between behavior and marbles is easier than with money. If a child develops "loss aversion" to losing marbles, the threat of losing marbles can be a powerful motivator of cooperation, and you've got something to work with from The Marble Economy. I truly believe for young children the marble system is more powerful than offering an allowance alone or using negative reinforcement alone. If you try it and it works, all the better for your child. ❏

Comedic Rally, Offering a Point of View

2010-10-31T02:19:00.002-04:00

With many major civil rights issues lawfully corrected, such as women's right to vote or ending racial segregation, what would it take to get people to rally at the National Mall? Comedian news hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert attracted an estimated audience of over 200,000 people to Washington, D.C. to hear their point of view, told in an entertaining format of songs, poetry, skits, and speeches.

Called "The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear," the political demonstration was sponsored by the cable television channel Comedy Central on October 30, 2010. The network airs the television shows of the two hosts "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Stephen Colbert Report."

Prelude

Several months before the event, Jon Stewart on his television show announced "The Rally to Restore Sanity" event to his television and in person audience. Easy to mistake as a joke, due to the heavy satire comedic style on his news show, the onus was on Stewart to prove his intention that it would be a real event with purpose.

He carefully spoke to it as a forum to express a point of view and not a political rally with a civil rights or political issue focus. Stewart's audience was cautioned against seeing it as a march in the same spirit as pro-choice or anti-discrimination demonstration, and more of an event that will be entertaining and spent on expressing a point of view on the state of American politics. The event also came across as a response to other recent rallies led by Al Sharpton and Glenn Beck.

In a mock counter to Stewart, Stephen Colbert promised his television show's audience a "March to Restore Fear" to be held on the same day, as a challenge to "Rally to Restore Sanity." Also billed as a demonstration, Colbert's satire meant to humor his audience by mocking the fear mongering he sees in current American politics. Colbert's wit is focused on appearing as a very patriotic conservative and his comedy news show character mocks conservative politics. His position in the event, then, was to play the part of the conservative, as counterpoint to Stewart.

Closer to the event date, Colbert and Stewart announced that their events would be combined, which was the satirical intention all along and a part of the prelude. The event then had its name changed to "The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear."

Event Day

Restore Sanity and/or Fear Stage Sign

Warm Up

The entertainment started early while the crowd gathered before noon at that East end of the National Mall, with the Capitol in the backdrop behind the stage. Good weather made being outdoors for several hours palatable to most any interested attendee. While waiting, giant televisions played clips from the two news shows, offering bits of info behind the demonstration, in comedy form.

At noon, the musical band the Roots took stage, joined by Jon Legend a few songs in, who together played songs that kept the attention of the forming crowd. To more actively warm up the crowd, television show hosts from Mythbusters took the stage and asked attendees to participate in antics like laughing at the same time, jumping in sync, or doing the wave.

Rally

Stephen Colbert on stage at the March to Restore Fear

Jon Stewart came on stage around 1pm, quickly joined by Stephen Colbert, who made an entrance through a mock Chilean mine rescue capsule. Throughout the event, Stewart and Colbert bantered on stage, touching issues like how the media reports on individuals through a "fun mirror" or the lack of bi-partisan efforts in American politics.

The rally avoided very common messages such as "Get out and vote," which is surprising given the mid-term election just three days away. Instead, time was spent pointing out the diversity of the crowd and of the Nation, and heading attendees to come together.

With less focus on political messaging, there was room for entertainment. Musicians came on stage like Sheryl Crow and Tony Bennett. Others guests read poems or satirical speeches. Finally, a few came on stage to claim awards such as the "Sanity" award, given to regular folks who have been in the news lately and demonstrated civility.

Civility came up quite a bit in the crowd, who came out in force with signs. The signs varied from serious and on topic to witty and random. Many came with signs discussing civility and the need for a return to a politics where respect is given even with a difference of opinion present.

I think the perceived current incivility comes from what people experience in their daily lives with interactions and others, only to be reinforced with high energy, heavily politicized television and radio personalities like Al Sharpton, Rush Limbaugh, or John O'Reilly. The torts and arguments put forth for by these celebrities often include very personal attacks and other perceived signs on incivility. None of the controversial pundits preach war or crime against opponents, the civility is contained, though it is seen as problematic and described as a barrier to progress by the rally hosts.

On stage, Jon Stewart offered insights around the lack of tolerance he sees in American politics today. He tried to be the voice of reason and bring the audience together with his humor and point of view. Remember, Stewart labelled the event an opportunity to hear what he had to say, not a political rally with a specific issue at stake, and he followed through, in my opinion. His verbal duels with Colbert, which where scripted though delivered with charisma, were very clever and made to entertain.

After Rally Thoughts

I think this is what truly distinguished the nature and atmosphere of the event. Instead of emotionally rallying people to a cause, it was more of an entertainment event. The music played had a more sober tempo, so I wouldn't describe it as a rave. People laughed a lot at the jokes and foolish ways of the two comedians on stage. I am unsure if those alive today who attended more serious rallies in the past would remember laughing much at previous demonstrations on the mall. In the end, the audience expected a little comedy, given the rapport and reputation of the two hosts, and were given such packaging of political commentary.

Before dismissing the event as anti-intellectual, I would read through the transcript of what was said. With much of the humor only accessible to informed citizens, and humor as a vehicle for getting a message across a familiar tactic used by greats like Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I believe, made a little history and created a memorable, positive experience for those who listened, watched, and laughed.

Highlights

For those who came very early and were able to better experience the event, I think each would have their own list of highlights. Here a few highlights for me:

Local "Signs Down" Protest - with the rally starting and view of close by televisions obstructed by large peace signs or signs with slogans like "Tax the Rich," and very angry small crowd started chanting for the signs to be put down. Eventually the sign owners complied.
"Train" skit - Ozzy Osbourne and Cat Stevens dueled onstage with music in a skit that ended with a rendition of the "Love Train." The music was great and it was fun to watch.
Political Signs - event goers were permitted to bring signs. Many of my friends on Facebook focused on photographing the signs and the sign holders, many who dressed up with Halloween just a day away.
Colber's Antics - Having never met Stephen Colbert in person, and only knowing the zany character he plays on television, which he brought to the rally, he kept the audience laughing a lot with his physical comedy and witty retorts

Most all of the event came across as organized, professional, and purposeful. There was little downtime after the event got started and no technical difficulties that ruined the event.

Sadly, the larger than expected crowd made it difficult or impossible for all attendees to enter the area with audio and video equipment, leaving people too far back chanting "louder!" - there was little the event hosts could do. Those attendees got screwed. There is a tremendous amount of video archive online on the web; maybe that will make up for the poor audiovisual in person experience!

I think, though for the ten of thousands who laughed, the event had its positive moments and most all would consider it a worthwhile effort to have attended. I did. ❏

Apple's Loop

2010-10-21T02:29:00.001-04:00

Apple revealed a bit more than a few new products today at their "Back to the Mac" event today. Watching the live online broadcast, one very specific detail jumped out that I felt underscored Apple's product design strategy and success. This detail, the learning loop between Apple's products, explained a model behind Apple's innovative thinking. CEO Steve Jobs described the loop in a diagram, which I have not-very-faithfully reproduced above. The diagram highlights the learning loop between Apple's products. This loop, then, reflects how Apple moves knowledge and improvements between its products, not just once but continuously, as a means of driving innovation that improves the user experience.

The Loop

The original design of the iPhone's software benefited from the design of the Mac OS. Mac customers wield a computer that makes rich use of images and icons, a Safari web browser experience, and Apple UI interfaces concepts like the Mac OS "Control Panel." iPhone customers benefited from this experience with the iPhone software design. The resulting iPhone experience, which borrows and improves upon the Mac OS, has a distinguished feel from the Mac, one that is a leap away from a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard.

Apple's Facetime is looping to the Mac, with Lion

With Apple's iPhone, the company developed a computing style free from menus and one that relied on gestures and keyboard and offered simplified process of acquiring software. This knowledge went into the iPad, which augmented the iPhone experience, adding a few new tricks here and there. From the iPad, Apple gained hardware engineering knowledge too specific to miniaturization of electronics and multi-touch gesture hardware.

Both the software and hardware improvements were repackaged and retargeted for the Mac, resulting in a new laptop redesign of the Macbook Air and a new operating system, Mac OS X Lion. For example, the Macbook Air's compact, lightweight design is possible due to engineer learnings from the iPhone and iPad. The multi-touch hardware intellectual property and customer feedback made its way into the Macbook Air trackpads. On the software side, the upcoming Mac OS X Lion will have an App Store, like the iPhone and iPad, and will feature applications that can run in full screen mode, which has the look and feel of a no-menu, very image, animation, and icon based graphical look.

Fullscreen Ahead

Fullscreen mode example of a Mac application

The one feature that stood out as changing the user experience the most is the upcoming fullscreen mode for Mac applications. iPhone and iPad users have from the start experienced applications that take up the whole screen. Few Mac users have, with spotty examples like video games or watching a DVD coming to mind. With respect to applications, maximizing the window was the best a user got. Apple is encouraging and supporting fullscreen mode for applications by building in support for it into the OS, ensuring its own applications take advantage of it. To ensure that the user doesn't get lost in fullscreen, Apple created "Mission Control," and added gestures to easily move away from an application in fullscreen mode to the regular desktop.

Mission control, an iteration on Expose

The key feature added that will make fullscreen work, in my opinion, is the ability to use gestures to move away from an application in fullscreen.

Here's a story: I recall once using a friends Microsoft Windows PC and web browsing with Internet Explorer. It was a small screen, so I put the web browser into fullscreen mode. I unfortunately forgot to put the browser back to regular mode before closing the laptop and handing it back! Even worse, I left my friend's home not thinking much about the state of the browser. The next day, I got met with anger from my friend who could not easily figure out how to get the browser out of fullscreen mode! With trial and error, my friend got back to regular mode. The result, I got banned from using the computer.

Thanks fullscreen mode! The experience makes you think twice about how tricky fullscreen mode can be, when you want to get back to the other applications on the computer. So, the learning here is that fullscreen mode isn't easy to pull off as just adding it to applications. There's a failsafe here with the gestures, which should help avoid a repeat of my own story!

Closing the Loop

Much innovation literature focuses on the importance of continuous learning, constant experimentation and adaptation. Apple's loop stands out as a great example of that process of looped learning, where knowledge moves around continuously, further generating new knowledge that is timely, modern and improved over previous know how. The engineering team's don't just loop on the product itself version after version, there is a greater loop at work, too. It's exciting to see the results and the anticipated customer experience is truly something I look forward to. ❏

Best Buy and QR Price Tags

2010-10-16T14:00:00.002-04:00

Best Buy now places QR codes on its price tags in stores. I snapped a few photos of the price tags and in store displays from a recent visit. QR codes within an electronics store are new to me. In the bottom left of the above photo, you can see a QR for a Samsung 23'' Widescreen LED television on its store price tag. With a camera enabled phone, the QR code can be photographed and then deciphered like a bar code, directing your phone to a web page with more information about the product.

For Best Buy, it makes sense that the electronics store would be an early adopter of QR codes, which are becoming increasingly more used by companies to simplify life for mobile internet connected device users who want to do online research. The benefit to the customer is that, instead of having to type in the product name and search, they can just snap a photo instead. It's purely a convenience to customers and an element of the shopping experience.

Best Buy television in store TV display

Recent advertisements for 3D televisions or Internet connected HDTV's motivated a trip to a local Best Buy store in Cincinnati, Ohio to learn what's new and see if an upgrade is in order for myself. While I did not pull the trigger on a purchase, I did get to see new TVs and all their neat features, which have changed since 2008 when I purchased an 27'' LG Plasma. The shopping experience is a little different with the information on the price tags now. The price tag also had information like user ratings from one to five stars printed on the tag, which came from Best Buy's website. So, the reverse is happening, information from the website is getting printed on the price tag!

Speakers on display at Best Buy, with QR codes

Most all of the products had price tages with QR codes. The codes, when photographed by a phone that can read QR codes, direct the user to a web page with more information on the product. It's an interesting change to the shopping experience, and while it is just a convenience to customers, I think small, smart moves like those help electronics retailers differentiate themselves and stand out from the crowd.

Any company can create QR codes themselves for their own content, they are free to create and print, Best Buy, however, is one of the first and I think it will help its customers look up information more quickly than having to search for it on the internet through typing into a search engine. Given that the average typing speed is 20 words per minute on a mobile phone, it may just help a mobile phone user save time, and make the shopping experience more pleasing. ❏

Sell your blog on Amazon's Kindle

2010-10-13T17:34:00.001-04:00

Amazon offers bloggers a way to make money that advertisers and sponsors do not - the option to sell your blog as a monthly subscription to Kindle owners. Through its website "Kindle Publishing for Blogs," a blog owner can register their blog with Amazon, who will then package the content and sell it to Kindle owners on the blog owners behalf in the Kindle Store.

I opted, just for fun, to sign up for this blog to be sold on the Kindle Store. The motivation was for learn more about the self-publishing process, not income generation. I will not generate any revenue from subscriptions. Most readers find my blog through a search engine seeking specific information and are not returning readers. Thus, the subscription model doesn't work for my blog and the approach I take to the content I write. Note, I don't even show advertisements on the blog website today.

I will describe the business model from the blog owners perspective. Then I provide a brief walk through, with screenshots, of the sign up process. Finally, I provide a glimpse of what a blog, such as this one, appears to your Kindle readers, so that you can compare it to viewing the blog through a web browser. You may be surprised at the different look and feel of your blog on the Kindle vs. on the web.

Blog Owner's Business Model

The Kindle, in current form, is a specialized reading device with free wireless internet connectivity. It is not a tablet computer or smart phone, however, and it does not allow unrestricted web internet access through a web browser. For Kindle owners to get content for their Kindle, they must purchase it or copy documents, such as pdfs, to the Kindle themselves. This makes Kindle customers different readers than those who access your blog on the web.

The 'reader device' specialization helps keep the Kindle's value proposition focused. The model, then, binds a Kindle customer to purchase content that would otherwise be free to access on unrestricted internet connections. Note, the open web accessibility generally offered to wireless internet users or mobile phone users most always comes with devices where the owner pays for their internet access.

The opportunity for content providers, like bloggers, to generate revenue from their blog content comes from selling subscriptions instead of advertisements. The monthly subscription charged to customers is the only way to generate revenue from Kindle owners, since advertisements more commonly shown on blog websites are not shown when the blog is viewed on the Kindle itself. Amazon packages the blog content and does not permit advertisements from popular services like Google Adsense or Yahoo Ads. When you publish an entry, Kindle owners automatically receive the latest content on their Kindle over the Kindle's wireless internet connection.

Amazon does not charge the blog owner for the service. The overall business proposition, then, is a blog reader pay for access to your blog over her free wireless internet connectivity viewed without ads, the blog owner receives a monthly payment per subscriber, and Amazon takes a fee for offering the service and free access.

Sign Up Process

The "Kindle Publishing for Blogs" website allows you to enter information about you and your blog. The online retailer, then, can list your blog in its online Kindle Store and send you monthly payments for the income your blog generates from Amazon's Kindle customers. Here is a description of the sign up process detailing the information you must provide in order to use the service.

★ Step 1 - Blog Description

Kindle Publishing Blog Description Form

★ Step 2 - Blog Categorization

After providing an address to the blog or blog rss feed, the blog owner describes it by offering a description, a tagline, author, and if desired, a screenshot of the blog itself, to the Kindle Publishing website. This information is used when the site is listed on the Kindle Store.

Kindle Publishing Blog Categorization Form

Additionally, the blog owner categorizes the blog by choosing a set of categories and offering keywords. Most importantly, the blog post frequency is specified, which tremendously helps customers understand what they are subscribing.

★ Step 3 - Your Bank Information

Kindle Publishing Bank Info Form

Bloggers get paid per subscriber, per month, and Amazon automatically transfer money to you monthly. Electronic vs. paper bank transfers are an option. To get paid regardless of method, you must provide a tax id of your company, if you are an individual, your social security number.

★ Step 4 - Approval

Kindle Publishing Blog Dashboard

After you explicitly agree to the Kindle Publishing legal agreement presented to you on the website in the sign up process, your blog shows up on your dashboard of blogs with the status "Pending Approval." This is the dashboard you can visit anytime to also see the number of trial subscribers and paying subscribers. Amazon Kindle customers can trail your blog for a limited time and then cancel if they wish, or continue on and become a paying customer.

Kindle Blog Example Formatting

The Kindle display is different from typically computer monitors in size and capability, so your blog's content gets repacked by Amazon for the Kindle. Longer blog entries are paginated when viewed on a Kindle, and images in your blog are reformatted for a better reading experience for your Kindle blog subscribers.

Here is an example screenshot that the Kindle Publishing website offered through its preview feature. The article in the example is the blog entry regarding my visit to the Hershey Chocolate World. It is just an example and not a perfect picture - text on a Kindle will display more readably than it shows up in the photo below.

Once my blog gets approved and subscribers can trial it, I can get a more true understanding of what the reading experience is like. While I do not expect many subscribers since readers generally find my blog through a search engine, it is fun to participate in the self-publishing movement that the internet enables, and it will be exciting to just have my blog listed for purchase. ❏

My First Photo Book, Aperture Helped

2010-10-07T00:44:00.001-04:00

Apple's Aperture 3.0 software allows photographers to design photo books, with titles, captions, and other layout assortments. Wanting to compile a wedding photo album as a gift, I took to the challenge of creating my first photo book, using Aperture as the book designer. Here's a rundown on the features and process, with screenshots of Aperture's photo book user interface.

Creating a photo book

To start off, I asked Aperture to create a new photo book project with the 'Special Occasion' theme. This theme comes along with a blue/white color scheme and a suggested twenty page layout. I also picked a hardcover over softcover and a page size of 8'' 1/2 x 11.''

Aperture photo book page layout options

I customize the book cover by adding a photo of the bride and groom, displayed in black and white at the recommendation of a professional photographer for a wedding photo. The hardcover option allowed me to design the inner cover flaps, too, on the front and back hardcovers.

I then set up the individual photo page layouts. The page layout options range from a title page, to pages of one, two, four, or sixteen photos. After choosing layouts I manually started adding photos to layouts, creating a story of the event through a flow of photos. The software does have an "autoflow" option where it places the photos throughout the book for you, though I chose to manually place the photos as a part of the learning process.

Aperture photo book page layout guides

Any page layout you choose can be hand modified precisely by hand, allowing you to rearrange any of the elements or even add text or change the number of photos and placement. The software makes it easy to align the page elements if you choose to move them by showing yellow guidelines, as in the screenshot above, when you are moving an element and have an edge properly aligned with other elements.

Aperture photo book photo box aspect ratio menu

I placed in the wedding photo book several 16:9 photos, which required special attention because of their unique aspect ratio. Aperture will try its best to crop the photo to the photo box aspect ratio on the page. I chose to tell Aperture to use the photo's aspect ratio itself so the photo is displayed as is.

Aperture photo book filmstrip

Before adding photos to the book itself, I went through all my photo albums and added the photos to the photo book project. The photos then show up in the filmstrip below the page layout though they are not yet in the photo book. Any photo you add to the book layout itself gets tracked with little numbers, as in the screenshot which, shows the map on the left added twice and the other maps added once.

Aperture photo book font menu

I added captions to many photos and title pages in between sets of photos to distinguish new events like "Wedding" or "Reception." The 'Special Occasion' theme comes with a set of recommended text styles, shown in the menu above. When you add text, you can select a variety of recommended styles for your message.

Aperture photo book print order form

When you're all done with the book, you can use the print feature to send the book to print. The cost per book is determined by the size of the book and the number of pages. Since I had too many photos that I wanted to display at very large sizes, I added several pages to the original twenty provided in the layout.

Apple lets you choose the number of copies here and an address to send the copies too, and emails you when the printing is complete. Apple comes across as the printing company itself and does not give much more detail about the printing process itself.

Tips

A few Apple Aperture photo book tips:

Add captions, they make the book more enjoyable for readers
Aperture's Autoflow is a great way to get photos initially in the layout
Adding a map as a photo is a great way to help the reader locate the event visually
Experiment with photo layouts, the ones Aperture provides can be thought of as starting points
Preview the book before hand, you'll catch typos and other oddities
Aperture allows you to "print" the book to a pdf, just like any Mac OS X application
Photo books make great gifts
With easy, photos can be placed in black and white or sepia, to add variety
Have at least one full page photo
If you want your pages to have a background, you can create a background image or photo and place it in the layout
Apple provides a brief photo book video tutorial on its website

Hershey's Create Your Own Candy Bar

2010-09-29T21:23:00.002-04:00

Hershey's chocolate bar is an awfully fine treat for a kid or adult. Being currently located in proximity to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a stop was in order to visit the what the company has to offer those curious about the chocolate candy making process.

"Hershey Chocolate World" is a tourist friendly venue that offers lots of information on chocolate processing by the Hershey's company. What we enjoyed most there - a little exhibit called "Create Your Own Candy Bar." Here, you design a candy bar and its packaging and observe a real production line produce your customized bar.

Hershey's Create Your Own Candy Bar Production Line

Any company with an assembly line or production line has a fair amount of automation and technology that is hidden away from the customer. Most customer's won't care to know or companies try to keep it secret for competitive reasons. I appreciated the Hershey's exhibit since is educated me on the production line process and technology for custom candy bar making. A large scale, high volume production line would be very different, of course, though I believe most anyone would find a customer friendly glimpse into chocolate bar creation interesting. Here is a breakdown of Hershey's "Create Your Own Candy Bar" process with a few photos.

❏ Design Stage

At a kiosk, you present your purchased ticket, which has a special bar code on it, and use the software on the kiosk to design your candy bar. Once you are complete, you click send to production and walk over to the production line. For sanitary reasons, Hershey's requires all visitors to the line to wear hairnets and aprons. Once you walk over to the line, you hand over your ticket and again your bar code is scanned. At that point, the production line begins to create your candy bar.

❏ Step 1 - Inclusions

Chocolate bar inclusions

A candy bar designer chooses from rice krispies, vanilla chips, jimmy's, chocolate cookie, nuts, and other edible bits to place within the candy bar itself. My bar contained vanilla chips and rice krispies. A small laser that detects candy on the conveyer belt is the source of the red dot on the side.

❏ Step 2 - Chocolate Covering

Chocolate bar covering

Now that the inclusions are in, the production line covers the bar in chocolate, sealing in the inclusions.

❏ Step 3 - Sprinkles

If you chose to add sprinkles, the production line will add sprinkles on top of the gooey liquid chocolate.

❏ Step 4 - Cooling

Production schedule

For about six minutes, the candy bar is cooled so that the chocolate solidifies. Once your chocolate reaches the cooling part of the line, your bar shows up on the production line schedule, which updates in real time, with your name on it and time left before arriving at the cartoner.

❏ Step 5 - Cardboard Package

A machine, "the cartoner," places the bar in a cardboard package with a small window showing the bar and the label "Create Your Own Candy Bar."

❏ Step 6 - Laser Engraving

Candy bar package laser etching

This is cool - a laser will etch your candy bar info and name on the side of the cardboard package, right before your eyes. Here, in the photo above, a laser is in the process of etching my candy bar's packaging.

❏ Step 7 - Design Outer Packaging

Candy bar package design

To help you customize the outer packaging, Hershey's provides you a touchscreen kiosk hosting a package design software program. You first approach the kiosk with your ticket and scan your barcode. The software then presents packaging options such as background color, icons, layout, and sizing of text. Once you are finished, you push the "Send to Printer" button and the package design goes to print. A Hershey's employee matches your design with your candy bar, and gives you the final product!

❏ Step 8 - Enjoy

Myself with the final product

Army Heritage Center Visit

2010-09-24T18:40:00.003-04:00

Carlisle, Pennsylvania is home to the Army Heritage Center, a small campus dedicated to preserving the heritage of the several hundred year old institution of the United States Army. Having driven by the center on the highway many times on the way to Kung Fu practice, and catching a moving glimpse of the outdoor situated tanks and helicopters, the desire to visit came about.

In the exhibit for General Omar Bradley, a small case houses his Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor bestowed by the President to Americans of significant contribution in area of arts, business, sports, government, computing, education, and so forth. The United States Senate has a list of all recipients.

Army medic softball uniform

For visitors, the center offers small exhibits with physical objects like medals, photos, old uniforms, swords, pistols, and other army items. The above uniform is a relic from an Army softball team comprised of Army medics, valued and presented to exemplify the type of culture that Army members created for themselves. If there was one aspect of the Army that stood out, it is its dedication to traditions and form.

For families of Army members past and current, there is a library with computers available that allow research on ancestors. Not having any ancestors in the Army, I did not have specific reason to utilize the heritage databases. I thought it was a respectful use of technology and thus very worth mentioning.

Outside, larger items were on exhibit. The exhibited equipment spanned replicas of civil war bunkers, to WWII tanks and Vietnam helicopters. Here are a few photos from the outdoor portion of the Army Heritage Center.

Army Tank, infra red photo filter

Army helicopter from Vietnam, night vision photo affect

For those in the Army or affiliated, the center is very much more a place for events and other activities. For visitors like myself, a one hour stop in is worth the time to learn about the heritage and culture of the United States military. And a great place for photographs, too! All these photos were taken by a younger child who accompanied me, who thoroughly enjoyed the experience of freely running around snapping shots with my point and click camera. ❏

Determining Stock Price Coincidence

2010-09-22T14:42:00.002-04:00

Ever wanted to correlate a stock price to a series of events? A visual graph can help. The above screenshot shows the stock price of Ford Motor Company along with dates of posts to the NYTimes Wheels Blog (feed). Here we can see that there is no correlation of posts to the blog with the Ford stock price.

If you wish to create a stock price correlation graph yourself, here is a tip for those who have ever wanted to quickly plot a stock with little flags for choice dates. Google Finance has a "plot feed" feature that permits you examine a stock price graph of a security of your choosing and then have flags placed for dates from an RSS feed, allowing you to quickly visually understand if specific events had an impact.

Click the "plot feeds" link near the bottom of the graph. A small textbox and two buttons will show up: enter a web address for the plot and click the "Plot feed" button to generate flags on the stock price graph.

Don't have an RSS feed for your set of events or dates? RSS feeds are easy to create by hand. Create an RSS document, host it on the web, and enter the web address into the Google Finance plot feed form.

Another example. Here is a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from June 2010 - September 2010 with flags for posts from this blog. It is evident that this blog has no impact on the stock market. This is a positive attribute, in my opinion, for then it can't be regulated or censored in any way by law! ❏

A News Museum...Newseum

2010-09-14T22:46:00.012-04:00

What is a Newseum? Is it a new museum? Close - it's a news museum. Washington, D.C. has many museums, and one of them is the Newseum, an institute dedicated to offering the history of news and journalism to the public.

A recent two hour visit provided enough time to see the highlights of the six story building, check out the view from the deck overseeing the Capitol, and watch a ten minute a "4-D" movie. With so much multimedia, you don't have to wait at night for the exhibits to come alive.

Here are the highlights that personally appealed and resonated with me: a few special exhibits, a timeline of major headlines over the past few hundred years in the United States, and a fun and games area.

Highlights

World Trade Center antenna

The September 11th, 2001 event impacted people in New York and created a story that world wanted to read about. Newspaper's around the globe put the story on the front page, and a gallery of front pages is on display at the museum, placed behind a piece of the World Trade center tower - a wrangled metal portion of the broadcast tower. Another highlight in the museum, not photographed here, was a timeline of historic events over the past few hundred years and front page headlines, all preserved and on display in chronological order. Think headlines like the South Carolina seceding from the Union, the Berlin Wall falling, or Kennedy's assassination.

Media Timeline

Another highlight - a timeline of news mediums that starts with radio, discusses television, and continues on to the internet. Lots of photographs and snippets of video here and there. As a computer scientist, it the internet era was easier to relate to and get excited about. The television and radio eras where before my time.

The difference, most pronounced, in the mediums is the speed of news travel, the quantity of information that comes from media companies vs. people, and the multimedia nature of content, mixing video, audio, and text.

Fun and games at the Newseum

The final highlight, where I ended my visit, landed me in a room full of touch screen computers. Also, the room had a few video cameras in a film stage, shown here. On the touch screen computers, I played a game, pretending to be a rookie reporter on the scene of a circus, investigating for a newspaper report the mysterious unlocking of the animal cages.

After I finished the reporter game, I moved on to film a pretend video as a sports news reporter. The camera's had teleprompters, providing a sports news script. I purchased my video, which is a bit hammy, for kicks, and shared it with friends more privately on my Facebook profile.

Screens running an Elvis is dead story

There were many sections I did not get to in a few hours, like a Pulitzer Prize winning photo gallery or a movie on sports news, due to time constraints. If you've ever been interested in journalism and don't know much about it, a two hour quick tour is worthwhile. Enjoy the fun and games, too, it makes the visit more than just a "look but don't touch" experience.

Hiking Flat Rock Trail

2010-09-11T18:03:00.002-04:00

Cumberland County here in Pennsylvania has a quite state park tucked away in a valley near the town of Newville called Colonel Denning Park. A sunny Labor Day Monday provided the motivation to explore the feature hike at the park, a 2.5 mile trail that rises to a viewpoint over Cumberland farmland called Flat Rock. The walkable trail, elevating 1,767 feet, takes you through a forest with portions of uphill, downhill, and a few stretches of flat ground, too.

View from Flat Rock

The view from Flat Rock gives you a survey of farm land and forest in Pennsylvania.

View from Flat Rock in Colonel Denning Park

Panorama of view from Flat Rock in Colonel Denning Park

Rattlesnakes

The state park warned of Rattlesnakes on trail and gave advice on how to avoid any confrontations with them. Rattlesnakes are protected by law in the state and can't be killed or captured with government permission. During the hike, I did not encounter rattlesnakes, though I wish I did so I could have photographed one. The awareness of wild snakes gave the hike a color - fun - and cautious! The experience prompted a little research and greater understand of the wild creature.

Rattlesnakes will seek out and bask in open sunlight, bringing them to hiking trails where the forest thicket has been take away a bit for hikers. The snake is a "sit-and-wait" predator that patiently looks for prey to come within striking distance. The park recommends giving a Rattlesnake three feet of distance of you come across one and avoid provoking it with sticks or other interaction. Rattlesnakes will rattle their tails, with a din that can sound like a harbinger of doom. The noise can catch a hiker off guard and raise a sense of an oncoming threat. Most all confrontations with rattlesnakes though peacefully resolve themselves with a little patience on the hikers part, where the snake will just move on its merry way. The hiker should not feel threatened.

During the descent and return to base, one hiker I saw on his way up warned of a rattlesnake sighting on the trail a hundred yards away. I walked down the trail and found a few other hikers waiting in front of warned area. The snake could not be heard or seen; eventually, after a level of comfort with the silence and no sight of the snake, we all walked through unharmed. As I continued the descent, other hikers had heard about the snake and were asking about it. Nobody seemed afraid or made talk of turning back. In fact, one hiker reported nearly stepping on one snake by accident he sighted at the last moment, a confrontation that did not result in any harm to him or the animal.

Here is a photo of the Rattlesnake encounter advice panel at the foot of the Flat Rock trail. It has bits of info on the anatomy of a Rattlesnake and details a few myths about the Rattlenake.

Flat Rock Trail information on Rattlesnakes

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources provides more information on a few species of Rattlesnakes on their website.

Visitor Map with Google Analytics

2010-09-03T21:14:00.005-04:00

Cartography has a certain allure to it - seeing a list of cities in a spreadsheet just doesn't convey the same meaning as a map with markers. As a computer scientist, I've came across Edward Tufte's work, a legend in the field of visualizing information to make it more accessible and powerful. I even got to hear him speak in person while I worked as a engineer. His academic work and lectures got me interested in information design and visualization, including maps. Check out his book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" for a primer on displaying information.

Finally, I had a little time to write a custom software program to map the cities that anonymous visitors to my site have come from, just for the past two years. This map is now on my blog at http://blog.zumkhawala.com/p/visitor-map.html. A screenshot of the map is above. I wrote the software components with the Java programing language.

How To Make A Visitor Map

Here are the programmatic steps I took to make a visitor map:

Using Google Analytic's Web Service's API, download the complete list of cities that anonymous visitors have come from, with a program written in Java
Using Yahoo PlaceFinder's Web Service API, find the longitude and latitude of each city, with a program written in Java
Generate a KML file containing the complete list of cities, each geocoded. KML is an open standard for XML files with location information, with a program written in Java
Using Google Maps Javascript API, visualizing the cities geographically on an interactive map hosted on my blog's website, with JavaScript

All of the above services are free! Though, each of them limits the amount of free usage that can be obtained. My blog only has a few thousand different cities, so I am well under the quote limits for free usage. For hobbyists like myself, it took about ten hours of learning new APIs and coding to get it all working perfectly.

Find internet tracking creepy?

To help me understand my blog better, I use Google Analytics to track visitors to the blog. The software is free for website owners to use and records the IP address and web browser type of any visitor to this site. From the IP address, aggregated, anonymous information can be analyzed, for example, helping you understand what part of the world your readers are coming from, what articles they read, and even how items like what search engine helped your visitor find your site.

For blog visitors who are uncomfortable with their anonymous IP address being recorded, Google Analytics allows you to opt out so that your IP information is not recorded when you visit sites like mine that use Google Analytics.

Want this map for yourself?

I've developed a blog photo map widgets before, to display on a map the location of a set of photos, if there is interest in me making a free visitor map widget for others to use with Google Analytics, leave a comment below. ❏

Men Seeking Laughs, Women avoiding Jealousy

2010-09-02T17:39:00.002-04:00

The New York Times posts video interviews on its website called "Screen Tests" which are shot in black and white and contain five minutes of talk by actors. I watched six of them, three women and three men, and found them to be very entertaining, funny, and sincere. Here are a choice quotes on the videos I watched, which I felt demonstrated a commonality.

James Franco
Seth Rogen
Will Ferrell
Megan Fox
Natalie Portman
Jullianne Moore

The men projected funny, the women projected humbleness, ambition, and smarts. And it is not that the women aren't funny or the men aren't smart, in fact there is a lot of intelligence from all six actors and very subtle humor too. The value in watching the videos is to see the overt themes and the comments the actors make. Some of the videos are embedded below. Sadly the NYT is behind the times and doesn't allow video embedding for all videos, so for the videos you can't watch here, I provide links and a screen shot:

Men

James Franco

James Franco in his Screen Test

Choice quote - On being Jewish and not fully experiencing be raised as Jewish: "One of my plans is to have actually have a bar mitzvah, I know people who do it in their 30's, so that's one of my plans, probably with either a Spider-Man or Green Goblin theme."

Seth Rogen

Seth Rogen in his Screen Test

Choice quote - On becoming a comedian: "I mean I'm sure the root of wanting to be funny comes from the root of all guys desires which is to have sex"

Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell in his Screen Test

Choice quote - On his career choice as a comedian: "I wrote an essay in the fourth grade that I was going to be a professional soccer player and in the off season, I would be a comedian"

Women

Megan Fox

Choice quote - On becoming an actress, which she knew she wanted to do as early as age five: "I think grown women in particular for some reason can be very hateful towards me but teenage girls they accept me much more"

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman in her Screen Test

Choice quote - She doesn't care much for comedies, preferring dramas: "I think something has to be so specific and so true to be funny"

Jullianne Moore

Choice quote - Her use of an extensive vocabulary gives her interview a very different sophistication: "I think people think of me as a bore - a tragic bore" ❏

Gesturing, To Play

2010-08-30T22:53:00.001-04:00

Technology in video games is very often cutting edge, and technology advancements tends to trickle into consumer products such as phones, televisions, computers, ATMs, and other electronic devices we interact with. A glimpse into the upcoming innovations may get your imagination going on what future devices may permit us to do. Here I will briefly mention three devices and the implications of the following:

AIST i³Space
Sony Playstation 3 Move
Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

Instead of the more common video game controller with buttons and joysticks, video game companies are developing consoles where games can be played through gestures, similar to how the Nintendo Wii allows player movements to control video games. The upcoming technology developments, however, go beyond what the Wii can do, and promise a very different and sophisticated experience. The videos and photos below will give you a demo of the upcoming technologies.

AIST i³Space

AIST i³Space photo

In a technology demonstration, Japan's Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) showed off what a combination of cameras and sensors on hands can offer - interaction with three dimensional images. So now, using i³Space, a user touches 3D images and the cameras interpret the player's interactions with the 3D objects. i³Space can also provide the user a sensation of touch, so that the user senses they are feeling the 3D images. The amount of force and precise movement of fingers is carefully tracked so that the images respond accordingly. i³Space technology is truly something out of movies and science fiction!

Sony Playstation 3 Move

PlayStation 3 Move video
Sony is developing a novel pair of "wand" controllers that are similar to the Wii, in that the player controls them with their hands. Move controllers look different and the video demo shows the use of the wands to be very different than what I've seen in Wii games. Further, a video camera is attached to the Playstation console, allowing some very cool augmented reality type experiences. Augmented reality is a concept where electronic devices, such as phones, tablets, or consoles overlay information on a screen on top of a real video view. iPad users can get a taste of this with applications like "Star Walk" when the iPad owner holds the iPad up against the sky at night.

The wand controllers were cool to me since they came in a pair, and were designed to be moved around while the user hits buttons. Wii controllers, I have found, promote little button use when gesturing is the main form of interaction. The demo video example above where squares are drawn and then interacted with is a great example of the use of both movement and buttons.

Move will be sold by Sony starting in the fall.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect

Microsoft is also developing a novel technology to enable interaction with a video game system through gestures called Kinect. With Kinect, there are no controllers, just video cameras and microphones attached to the Xbox 360 that watch the player and interpret their movements through video and audio capturing. So it is different than the Wii or Playstation Move, in that there are no controllers to use when playing games with Kinect. You can move and talk to an Xbox 360 and it will respond to your actions and words.

Kinect video
Kinect allows you to talk to it, offering Xbox 360 users the ability to control video games through voice. It's a subtle point, as most of the demo's focus on Kinect capturing the players movement, as in the demo video above.

Kinect also comes out later this year.

Technology Transfer

Just look to movies like Minority Report to get a glimpse of novel uses of these type of interfaces with electronic devices. Gesturing is a very exciting change that gets us away from keyboards and mice, which personally cause me a lot of trouble with my wrists. Human beings are not biomechanically designed to sit for more than three hours a day and the position of a keyboard and the repetitive motion of typing is considered to be a very unnatural activity by scientists who study the human body and its capabilities.

Hopefully, these more technology and innovation enabling these natural means of interacting with electronics, now be developed for video games, will transfer over to computers, televisions, and other devices used daily, allowing us to more gesture and control our interactions, both in gaming, entertainment, or even work, with minimal negative impact on our health. ❏

Advice from D.C. Journalists

2010-08-29T18:33:00.011-04:00

Some of the best wisdom I have been told is to always get outside of your own industry, as often as you can, especially socially. Learning from others in different fields does the cheesy things we know are good: broaden perspective, help us understand what's in common between fields, learn about others, etc. Recently, the South Asian Journalists Association, or SAJA, held a small event at George Mason University's Law School in Arlington, Virginia, for journalists in the D.C. area who wanted to learn more about making it in D.C. journalism. The event consisted of two panels of speakers, each moderated by a different panel member.

As a non-journalist, I still had a great time learning about the challenges journalists face in creating a career in political reporting. There were some analogies to those who are interested in public policy or entrepreneurship, too. Some of the highlights:

Washington Reporting 101 Panel

Indira Somani, Sam Feist, and Sudeep Reddy at "SAJA comes to DC"

Members:

Indira Somani, Assistant Professor, Washington and Lee University (moderator)
Sam Feist, VP CNN Political Programming
Sudeep Reddy, reporter at the Wall Street Journal

Personal Takeaways:

Always do prior art research before writing a story or conducting an interview, and avoid asking questions already asked by others. In others words, this is how you make your story unique.
A great way to find jobs in D.C. is start with internships
Know the basics of writing a write story, like the inverted pyramid
For television, be able to boil a story down to 100 words or less
Knowing how to shoot video and produce your own video report on a topic is a valuable skill and helps you understand television reporting better
Getting good at journalism is experiential, not taught in school
Working in politics before heading into journalism gets you some advantages, such as an insider understanding, relationships, and potential sources
Be mindful of your political affiliations once in journalism. Readers and viewers, when reading articles, value an independent news reporting view with minimal bias, which is very different than the reader allure of opinionated blogging or tweeting.
CNN requires employees be independent from parties. It is a fireable offense if you donate to a party or politician, have a bumper sticker on your car that is political, wear a button that supports a party, etc. One of the best points made - to work at CNN, you have to give up some first amendment rights, such as the right to donate to a politician, to be able to practice a trade protected by the first amendment. CNN requires this of all employees, not just reporters.
Read a variety of news sources every day, not just one, even when in the process of covering a specific story, so that you don't get tunnel vision and tune out to the greater context
Many people just get their news from word of mouth or even Facebook posts by others. That's not enough - go further!

Many of the points raised remind me of entrepreneurship or innovation, such as you learn in the field, test your work for uniqueness, know the basics of the business, don't be afraid to start small, and be willing to make sacrifices such as who you can personally politically support, etc.

Leveraging Stories Into Book Deals Panel

Kiran Khalid, Alicia Mundy, and Rob Schroeder at "SAJA comes to DC"

Members:

Kiran Khalid, CNN Reporter (moderator)
Alicia Mundy, Wall Street Journal reporter, author of "Dispensing the Truth"
Rob Schroeder, Marketwatch reporter, co-author of "Rock & Roll Jihad"

Personal Takeaways:

This panel was a bit harder to personally apply, not being a book writer, as it was for journalists who want to write books, though there were still some great learnings.

Many writers start out writing a non-fiction story, want to change the story or think about an alternate ending, and morph the story into a fictional account, changing the intended outcome to a fiction novel
Turning a story into a book entails knowing the characters, how they make decisions, what the characters care about, motivations, not just the facts. Get inside the head of the players involved.
Even non-fiction stories need a dramatic ending, and hunting for the back story, talking to sources, and physically being present in places others don't think to go are ways to get the details that show the drama of a story

Job hunting in any field has no recipe, though there are some best practices that are easier to pick out after listening to those in a different field and seeing commonalities. Listening to journalists talk about their field got me outside my own, and I am appreciate organizations like SAJA that are forums to learn, network, and listen to accomplished speakers as we did on Saturday.

Seeing a different campus is also a treat. The Mercatus Center of George Mason University offered space for the event. Universities tend to have modern looks and feels to them, and an atmosphere of learned people studying and collaborating. ❏

Get Your Paint On

2010-08-26T21:37:00.002-04:00

Get your paint on...your phone! Instead of buying a case, which has the benefits of both making your phone more visually unique and physically protected, try taking a different approach. Just embellish your phone yourself with a custom paint job and live with the sturdiness and durability of the phone as the manufacturer made it.

Any local hobby store will have some model car paint that will do a pretty good job of staying on. I painted my LG Env3 phone with water based acrylic paint, and my design has done well staying on thus far after a month.

The tricky aspect of painting a phone is that you only get one shot at the paint job. With a car, you can always paint over any mistakes. So how do you minimize the chances of mistakes? One approach is to get a feel for painting a phone by starting with the removable battery pack, if you phone's battery is removable. That way, if the result of your art is truly embarrassing, you can get a new battery and start over.

Many phones have groves and designs in the plastic or rubber on the exterior of the phone. One approach to getting started is to just paint along the lines. Or, paint the whole phone a single color! Any way you go, just be willing to live with it, and enjoy the experience of customizing your one phone. Don't be a perfectionist, be more of an entrepreneur and just have fun - go for the experience. Here is a close up of the painted battery on my phone. Five colors were used on the battery: red, gold, green, orange, and blue.

Painted design on battery of my LG Env3

The engineer in me thought to first sketch out on paper the design and then paint it on. Because my phone is near the ends of its life, I simply started painting spontaneously and let whatever design come forth from my hand stick. If I painted phones for a living, I would start with sketches, for sure.

If you're contemplating a case for your phone just to make it look different, and can go without the added protection with peace of mind that a hard plastic or rubber casing can offer, trying getting a paint kit and jazzing up your phone. It's no different than custom detailing your car.

If you have kids, consider it as a fun arts and crafts project. Hand over your Blackberry or iPhone and let them loose! What's the worst that can happen? ❏

Concert Photography Challenge - Rihanna

2010-08-21T18:53:00.002-04:00

Photography in low light is a challenge, especially when the object is moving very quickly. Rihanna, the music artist, doesn't stand still for very long on stage. At a recent concert held at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, I got to see her live in concert.

Rihanna is constantly dancing, moving, and if she is in one place, singing with charisma, movement, and facial expressions. As a photographer with a point and click camera, I had a chance at her concert to enjoy her music, and to take a photo or two since I was near the front of the pavilion.

Almost all my photos had bad luck in that her eyes are closed or her body was moving, making the photo's less than perfect. Here is one of the more clear photos of Rihanna. When I turned my flash on, my photos starting coming out more clearly, even though the flash definitely wasn't having an effect over the concert stage lights. I suspect turning the flash on somehow made the camera aware that there is heavy lighting going on and the pictures came out more clearly. This photo the only photo that my camera set itself to ISO 320 - all my other photos came out with higher ISOs.

This is a another photo that came out very cool. In her last song, a confetti machine put up little red strands. I caught a photo of Rihanna through these strands. She had her eyes closed, and she is a little blurred, though the overall effect is pretty cool. This photo has not been edited in any way - just a point and click camera with the flash turned on and set to automatic.

This last photo came out great - there were a lot of lights shining on the stage, many of different colors. The pieces of confetti are in the air, and the LED video screens are showing blue with purple splotches on them. A great overall scene photo. You can't see much detail of the artist, Rihanna, herself, as she is a little blurred, though the scene as a whole came out well.

Overall concert photography tips:

Try using the flash, it doesn't light up the stage, yet the camera takes better concert stage pictures when it's in "flash" mode
Zoomed in photos turn out better than scene shots or half zoomed photos - the stage lights interfere, confused the camera's sensors, and zooming in closer cuts stage lights out
Don't take a nice camera, the bouncers don't mind phone camera and point and clicks. If you take an SLR or nicer camera, you might not leave the concert with it and it might get seized.

Photographing St. Vincent de Paul's Church

2010-08-17T22:48:00.001-04:00

In a recent attendance of a wedding at St. Vincent de Paul's church in Chicago, Illinois, the opportunity to photograph a very beautiful building presented itself. Here are a few photos from my visit snapped before the ceremony.

The inside of the church is pleasant with the sanctity of quite, and enjoyment of natural light shone through stained glass was an unexpected pleasure during the ceremony.

Stained Glass Windows

Stained glass window at St. Vincent de Paul

St. Vincent de Paul organ and stained glass window.

Taking photos of stained glass windows is very hard, as the area around the window can end up very dark with a point and click camera like mine. In the photo above, the window itself came out very well and detailed, though the organ and other areas came out dark. It just didn't look like it did in person with the original photo. With Adobe Lightroom, I lightened the shadows, which helped the organ pipes become more viewable, the picture closer to what it looks like in person.

Some photo packages such as Adobe Elements 8 allow you to take two pictures and then compose one really great photo. For example, you could take one photo of the window, and then another with the fstop and exposure set to capture the area around the window. It takes a steady hand or a tripod. Then the area around the organ would be less grainy, taken with proper light balancing.

Big Picture View

View of St. Vincent de Paul's pew and pulpit, from the second floor

Church visitors or those holding events at the building should visit the second floor where the organ is. The view is very different then the eye level view from the pews. If I held a wedding at the Church, I would ensure that there is one photographer up on the second level because the views are so great and unique.

The Storied Silk Road

2010-08-09T01:58:00.009-04:00

In ancient times, traders moved goods along established land and sea trade routes between cities and civilizations. One famous, historic route is the Silk Road, which in its entirety connected China, The Middle East, and Europe and a whole lot of cities and civilizations in between.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has since November 2009 had a special exhibit on the Silk Road which curators named "Traveling the Silk Road." The discussion focused on four cities along the route: Xi'an, Turfan, Samarkand, Baghdad. Baghdad, of course, exists in modern day Iraq, while Xi'an, the beginning of the Silk Road exhibit, lies in China.

The exhibit went into great detail about silk, its importance, and all the economic, thought, and cultural exchange that occurred as result of traders taking silk manufactured in China and trading it with Muslim merchants in the Middle East. Live silk worms were on display, in addition to ancient wooden looms that larger silk fabrics were constructed with, and plenty of silk fabric. View the exhibit map below for a more detailed idea of the exhibit's presentation

The exhibit allowed you to stamp your brochure as you meandered through it.

Map of the "Traveling the Silk Road" exhibit

The Chinese kept their silk production methods very secretive, in hopes of holding a monopoly on the product. The Muslims exchanged their own manufactured products they had expertise in creating such as ornate glass for the valued silk. These respective products were so valued by each side that traders were motivated to navigate the 5,000 mile route, mostly over dessert mostly, for commerce. Mind you, this is before automobiles, so most traders walked the whole route. Some used camels for transport, though many walked along side their camel and used the animal to haul the merchandise. There were ship routes, too, which became a part of the Silk Road and affected what happened in the land routes, though the exhibit focused on the land portion of the Silk Road.

Land portion of Silk Road between Xi'an and Baghdad

The beauty of the exhibit and route came about when the exchange of culture and ideas over the Silk Road was presented. Trade kept the two civilizations, the Muslim world and the Middle East, in touch, and much more was given and taken beyond silk and glass. The Muslims were world famous for their studies of math, astronomy, and science. Many of their ideas, especially religious ones, went along with the Muslim traders who went to China. The Chinese were more than receptive, happily purchasing books with knowledge along with food goods, stones, or weaponry.

Example of multicolored glass which the Muslim world sold to the Chinese for Silk

The exhibit brought forth a tremendous amount of modern day analogies and thought.

China has a specialty, silk, while the Muslims had glass. In our modern world, Middle East nations have oil and the Chinese are experts in low cost manufacturing.
Language and cultural differences along the route were a challenge for traders, though trade occured despite these barriers. Similar barriers exist today, including political barriers.
The commercial trade facilitated cultural exchange. Modern China has a reputation for being very mindful of culture, especially culture which can upset its governments ability to keep peace and order. The exhibit highlighted that Chinese civilization at the time of the silk road aggressively imported religion, fables, and ethics from other nations.
Technology exchange occurred too, even while concerns about losing a monopoly were severe on both sides. The Chinese made silk production secret, punishable by death for dissemination. Protecting technology secrets is very difficult in a modern world. Patents over legal protection, though the best protection seems to be secrecy. The Chinese believed that all the trade would come to an end if the traders on the other side started developing capabilities that they had, and rightly so. It made sense for both sides to let the other have their specialty, to keep the trade continuity. There is danger in one side innovated so rapidly that the other became behind and would not keep up with the commercial exchange.
The Muslim world and Chinese were happily trading, and their concerns over protecting their trade were founding in real concerns of losing economic power to the other side.
The cultural exchange of fables, such as the Golden Goose, is very touching, and it amazed me think how much art, history, language, and tradition went back and forth. Less pronounced cultural trade occurs today between the two worlds. For example, Chinese movies aren't popular in Iraq, nor is Iraqi music popular in China.
The leaders of both civilizations permitted the trading, implying that the civilizations were better off trading than not.
Modern China does much of the same as old China with respect to commerce, yet it the exhibit places China in a better light than that what most American's think of it today. Within the exhibit, China is a deeply cultured civilization keen on interacting and trading with the world.
Scientific instruments were used to guide traders efficiently along the route. In a pre-GPS world, amazing people didn't get lost!
Modern inventions such as shipping and gunpowder led to the disintegration of the Silk Road. The Silk Road existing because of the political power balance that nomads and larger regional powers had. Gunpowder and shipping changed the political power, leading to the creation of nations and political boundaries that make trade more dangerous or politically unrealistic. I wonder if modern innovations such as the Internet change the political landscape and lead to more trade or less.

Beginner Photo Software Suggestions

2010-08-06T17:01:00.003-04:00

As an amateur photographer in the beginnings of learning photo editing with a computer, I've come across several different tools, recently moving beyond free software such as iPhoto and Gimp. My photos still aren't that original or ready to be in a museum; however, I'm having fun and photo editing is a notch above just taking photos alone. Having spent time moving upwards towards very affordable commercial software, it seemed wise to share the why move to the following four photo software products:

Adobe Lightroom 3

Adobe Elements 6

Apple Aperture 3

Picnik

Gimp and iPhoto

Gimp

Apple iPhoto

Gimp, the GNU Image Manipulation Tool, is an open source image editor widely available on most computer types. The name is quirky though don't be afraid of the software, it's quite powerful, actually. Gimp largely used by computer programmers and college students. It supports layers, plug-ins, and most of the basic tools needed for advanced image editing. It's a poor man's photoshop, in many ways.

An expert in photography could very well use this tool and accomplish most anything. An amateur, however, would appreciate the one button photo correction and improvements, a few of which are detailed in this post, that commercial tools offer.

iPhoto is a photo organizer provided with all Apple computers. It has very basic organizational features that allow you to organize photos into albums. Other organizational features are more advanced and take time to use and learn, but can be really fun, such as tagging people in photos and adding the location to photos. These reward of using these features is that they allow you to find and browse photos by people in them or by location.

Gimp and iPhoto are free, very useful, though here are the specific features that drew me to more advanced pieces of software.

Apple Aperture 3

Aperture 3 is a step up from iPhoto

Aperture is a photo organizer and editor that is Apple's step up from iPhoto, and costs $199. There are three features of Aperture 3 which motivated me to purchase Aperture instead of iPhoto.

Auto color correction

While professional editors will find all sorts of tools in Aperture to change and fix colors, an amateur like myself can just use the little "Auto" button in the "Levels" adjustment which does a great job of making my photos look better. My camera, an Olympus Tough 6000 is great, and my photos still do look better after Aperture has corrected the colors. With well lit photos in sunlight, very little difference shows up. In lower light situations, Aperture does a great job of improving the colors automatically. Here is an example, click photos to enlarge:

Original photo, color example

Original levels

Improved, Aperture corrected photo

Auto corrected levels

White Balancing Menu

Aperture white balance presets menu

Cameras will do their best to figure out the type of light you are photographing in and make sure the picture turns out great. For example. you could be in natural sunlight, tungsten, or fluorescent light. Aperture makes it simple do adjust a photo if your camera doesn't do a great job. I use this feature a lot and it really makes my pictures better. iPhoto has a white balancing approach where you pick a white or grey spot in the photo, though I find the option in Aperture to white balance with a menu way easier to achieve satisfactory white balance results. Example below:

Aperture white balance - original

Aperture color spectrum for original

Aperture white balance - fluorescent preset

Aperture spectrum with fluorescent preset

Face and Geo Tagging

Many photo organizers these days offer this feature and I find them super useful, much better than keyword tagging, to understand who is in photos and where they were taken. Some cameras even will do this automatically now, though mine does not, so I use Aperture to add them after I import the photos onto my computer. The benefit is easy access to photos by a person's name or by a location, which I found useful when I am putting together slideshows or creating photo books. Just remembering where my photos where and of whom became harder as my photo collection grew and time would go on. Aperture supports my GPS devices too, with the ability to import GPS info and display a path right on the map. I wrote about one GPS device a few months back, if you are looking for more info on GPS and Aperture.

Aperture 3 can organize photos by location

Aperture also allows face tagging, a great organization tool

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

Adobe Lightroom 3 has a few handy features

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 costs $89 for the student edition and competes with Aperture for customers. Lightroom has a few photo editing tools that Aperture does not have or do well so I use Light Room to edit, at times. Namely, Light Room has easy lens distortion fixing and superior noise reduction tools. It does not have Face or Geo tagging, features I personally value, so I continue to use Aperture for photo organization. Here are the features of Lightroom I use heavily.

Lens Distortion Correction

Since I have a point and click camera, there are times when my distance to the object is odd and the photo just doesn't come out right. For example, when I am too close to a building, it often looks like the building is leaning back. As a matter of preference, sometimes this may be cool as it gives the photo a perspective feel. There are other times when it is unintentional or unavoidable and lens distortion correction is desired. Here, I am too close to a building and I use Lightroom to correct the undesirable distortion. It really is a preference thing to whether the before or after looks better, I have found, after showing both photos to a few friends. The tool, however, is really useful and not present in Aperture or Gimp.

Adobe Lightroom 3.0 lens distortion correction example

Noise Reduction

Lightroom has the best and easiest to use noise reduction tools. It's fast, much faster than Aperture, so I can more quickly use the sliders to find the right amount of correction. Most all image editors have noise distortion, which shows up most often in low light situations, and Lightroom's noise reduction is superior to Aperture or Gimp. Noise reduction will make the photo slightly fuzzier, and I found fuzzy to be better than noisy, so I will happily use noise reduction on my photos.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom noise reduction example

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6

Elements is inexpensive and fun

Adobe Photoshop Elements is a light version of Photoshop that's takes less time to learn how to use. There are a few great features of Elements that I utilize, often in combination, such as layers, selection tools, and photo effects. Elements itself comes with a handful of photo effects. Since I acquired Elements with a graphics tablet I purchased, it also came with a larger selection of photo effects that were not found in Aperture or Gimp. I wrote about my graphics tablet, a Wacom Bamboo fun, and the software earlier in the year.

Layers

Adobe Photoshop Elements supports layers

Layers is a very common feature, in most all image editors, though since it is lacking in Aperture and Lightroom, I turn to Gimp or Photoshop Elements 6 for more advanced photo editing.

Smart Selection Tools

Say I want to add a blur to the background of a photo subject - Elements makes it easy to select the subject with a "smart" selection tool of say a truck and supports "layers" of photos to make it easy to blur the background while keeping the truck the same. Here is what a truck selected out of the background looks like. The selection was done very quickly with the smart tools in Elements, and is not so easily done with the traditional lasso tool.

Truck selected out of the background with Adobe Elements

Picnik

Picnik is an online photo editor usable through a web browser. Why the need for yet another photo editing? Often now, when publishing photos on my blog, I will round the corners and add a drop shadow to the photo for styling. Generally I only do this to photos I place in my blog and not photos I print out. Gimp and Elements can also accomplish drop shadows and rounded corners with greater effort; picnik makes it dirt simple and easy to customize. In Picnik, If you go under the "Create" tab and choose the "Frame" menu, you will see the options I am referring to:

Picnik offers several types of frames for your photos

So there you have it, the set of tools that I use to edit and manage photos. There is a tremendous amount of redundancy between all of them, yet each tool has a few killer features that make them useful or interesting. Hopefully the highlights here will aid other fellow amateur photographs interested in learning more about digital darkroom tools. ❏

Settlers of Catan Social Dynamics

2010-08-01T17:38:00.002-04:00

Settlers of Catan is a board game created by a German company that, in recent years, has grown in popularity in the United States and other countries outside of Europe. In the game, individuals compete to build settlements, cities, and accomplish other goals. It first came to my attention in 2003 with a few friends who enjoyed playing the game.

After a long time, I recently played the game again, and it startled me to think how complex the game was, even when playing the most basic version with no expansion packs. Here are some observations about the game play:

Interpersonal Dynamics Matters - Because the game involves a lot of social decisions, such as who to stick the robber to, or who to trade with, entirely rational decisions aren't always made, nor should it be expected to happen this way! This, I think, is the most captivating part of the game play, and comes out a great deal when the game is played in person as opposed to more anonymously online. A great strategy alone with smart settlement placements and other intelligent tactics will not lead to success. Taking into account the personal attributes of those playing, along with the levels of favoritism, which sometimes happens unknowingly, is critical to game play. A lot of board games are played with a notion of purity, where all players equally try to win, and while a group may sit down and play Settlers of Catan with this approach, invariably the human dynamics come out.
Counting Cards - Gain A very strategic edge by counting cards, to help you understand what your opponents are holding in their hands. The beginning of the game starts with every player gaining three cards which are well known, based on settlement placement. After that, the dice rolls, and again cards picked up are done publicly. Even building or obtaining development cards is done publicly! Trades can make counting complex, but it's not impossible. The only difficult part is keeping it all straight in your head, though doing so takes guess work out. For example, if you roll a seven and get to take a card from an opponent and you seek a specific resource, you can improve the odds of obtaining that resource if you know your opponents hands.
Weigh the Development Cards - Very often, players will try to estimate who is ahead in the game, loosely forming an informal agreement to be more watchful of the game leader until others catch up. There are many elements that can score victory points, and tallying up the victory points is the easiest way to tell who is in the best position to win. There are other factors to consider in determining who is the leader, and it's important to be mindful of them. For example, development cards may be kept in a person's hands and not disclosed, meaning there are victory points in the person's tally that are not disclosed. So be sure to take into account the unseen development cards.
Consider Swing Victory Points - Carefully weigh victory points that can swing to another player, for example Longest Road and Strongest Army, when assessing who is in the lead. A player in the lead with eight victory points, with two of them longest road, can quickly fall behind to six victory points when the accomplishment changes hands, and may not be the largest threat to winning the game. Points that can't be taken away like cities or settlements are simply different than swing points when in consideration of who is in the lead.
Mind Your Robber Attacks - At the beginning of the game, if players can leave their hatches from emotional games played in the past buried, every one is equal and all players have a chance at winning. Because trading is crucial to winning, avoid placing the robber early in the game on opponents. You can always place it on a desert or unsettled resource to keep everyone a friend. The robber is the quickest way to antagonize a player into avoiding trades.
Help Players Lagging - Gracious trades and sage advice towards players that are behind the leader is a great tactic. It engenders future trading and can make it difficult for a player in the lead to clinch the game. For example, if the game leader has future road, help a player lagging take longest road with strategic trades and even go as far as not cutting off their road development opportunities on the board.

So there you have it - my observations on Settlers of Catan. Because the online version is so vastly different in terms of dynamics, it may be harder to experience a lot of what is described here online. In person game play, though, is tremendously fun and each game is different to a large degree because of the human element and the social dynamics of the players.

Developing a sense of this can only help you win a game in the long run. The best players I have played with are very socially neutral, doing a little as possible to antagonize others, and very rational about who to help and who to create difficulty for on the board. It's the best way to approach the social dynamics of Settlers of Catan. ❏

Top 4 Safari Web Browser Extensions

2010-07-28T22:53:00.009-04:00

Apple, with its latest release of the Safari web browser, opened up a whole new world to users by allowing third parties to provide extensions that enhance the web browser. With Safari 5.0.1, users can install extensions much like they can with others browsers such as Firefox or Chrome have been able to do for eons.

There are many small touches with the Safari Extensions experience that make it really great, and a few of the extensions available now at Apple's website http://extensions.apple.com really blew me away. Here's a list of new extensions that impressed me, and a brief review of each of them:

Coda Notes
Exposer
Better Facebook
Add To Amazon Wish List

First, a brief mention of the unique elements of the new Safari Extensions feature.

Impressive Elements

The following unique small touches make the Safari Extensions experience great:

Instant Installation - Safari does not need to be restarted after you install any extension.
Extensions Use The Cloud - Extensions can send emails with their own email systems and store screenshots on their own servers, essentially using the cloud to enhance the Safari browser.
Toolbar Control - You can arrange the buttons in the toolbar just like you can any other Safari toolbar button.

My Safari Toolbar with extensions added, with customized organization

A Big Off Switch - Turn all extensions on or off at the same time, if needed.

Apple Safari 5.0.1 extensions preferences pane

Not just toolbars and buttons - In way I haven't seen before with other browser extensions, website content itself can be modified, enhanced, and arranged. Grease Monkey script users will understand, though the typical web browser user will be floored. See the "Better Facebook" extension review for an example.
Extension Gallery - There are only a few dozen extensions available today, the gallery has all the extensions listed on one page, making it easy to see what's available and new.

Apple Safari Extensions gallery screenshot

Other features, such as visual list of all installed extensions, easy uninstall, are available in other web browsers and not specific to the Safari experience.

Top 4 Safari Extensions

Coda Notes

I routinely want to send screenshots of web pages to friends, and this extension makes it super easy. It goes a step further, by even allowing the screen shot to be annotated and the webpage content to be edited. For example, you can add sticky notes, highlight text, use a pen to paint on the page, and even edit the content like deleting or typing in text. After you have finished annotating the web page, the extension even allows you to email a screenshot to a friend, with zero configuration on your part. It uses its own email system so you don't have to setup anything.

Code Notes extension annotated page example

Original screenshot before my annotation

Code Notes will email an image of the screenshot, using its own servers

Exposer

Exposer shows little screenshots of all the tabs open in the window. Useful and simple. You invoke the exposure by clicking a little button the extension places on the toolbar. A more classic browser extension that enhances the browser usability itself.

Exposer will bring up screenshots like these in Safari

Better Facebook

Better Facebook enhances the Facebook website by giving the user unprecedented control. For example, this extension allows you to hide viewed posts, put recent activity from friends on the home page instead of buried elsewhere, notify you on your Facebook homepage when you've been defriended, and dozens of other customizations. This extension really blew me away and highlighted how interesting Safari Extensions can be, going beyond a toolbar or modifying the browser itself. Better Facebook modified the Facebook website itself, like a Grease Monkey script would.

Here, Better Facebook previews a notification just by pointing at it with the mouse

Add To Amazon Wish List

For Amazon Wish List users, this extension will place a button in your toolbar that allows you to add items to your wish list. The item can be on any website, not just amazon.com. Impressive for its simplicity and it saves me time.

The Add to Amazon Wish List window

❏

Revisiting The National Mall

2010-07-27T22:32:00.001-04:00

Through school trips in childhood, visits to extended family in the area, and even job interviews, Washington, D.C. has been a destination for me. Sometimes, the opportunity presents itself to revisit the mall and see the grand monuments and memorials erected to honor Presidents, veterans, and even scientists like Albert Einstein. On a recent hot summer day, I spent a few hours in the National Mall, taking my time from point to point because of the ridiculous heat, and revisiting a few of the many points of interest at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Here and there I picked up bits of history and trivia, like Roosevelt being the last President to ever possibly serve twelve years in office after a Constitutional Amendment passed limiting the Presidential seat to two terms.

As for a walking route through the mall, I opted to start near the center of the mall and head South towards the Jefferson Monument, since in January I had an opportunity to visit The United States Capitol on the East side of the National Mall. Then, moving up Ohio Drive past the FDR memorial towards the Lincoln Monument, finally heading back East towards The White House, near a Metro station which got me back home. Below is a map of my route and a few photos I snapped along the way during my revisit The National Mall.

Map

View Revisiting the National Mall in a larger map

Photos

Here are a few photos from that recent visit on a sizzling July Friday afternoon:

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, view from the South.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Waterfall

The Lincoln Memorial, viewed from the South.

The Washington Monument, viewed from the East.

The Northern face of The White House, where The President lives.

Photo of Geese near the Jefferson Memorial, enhanced.

This last photo is a little enhanced with clip art and a photo effect. The very smart Geese were cooling off from the heat, intelligently standing in the range of a nearby sprinkler. I caught this in a photo, adding fish to the water from the Tidal Basin in the background, water drops since the sprinkler water is hard to see, and a few other items for amusement. Can you catch the other three alterations? Leave a comment below if you can. ❏

Macro Photos with The Olympus Stylus Tough 6000

2010-07-21T23:59:00.003-04:00

Toy car photographed with The Olympus Stylus Tough 6000

Taking photos up close can be tricky with a regular camera. The photo won't be in focus and the picture comes out fuzzy. Surprisingly great photos can be taken with regular camera's, though when the camera with the right camera settings. For close up photos, the Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 has two modes: Macro and Super Macro.

For fairly close up, use Macro. For really close up, like one inch away, use Super Macro. With a 10 mega pixel camera like the Tough 6000, some great details can be captured with a regular camera, and the photo will be in focus too! These three photos are examples of pictures taken in Super Macro Mode with the Olympus Stylus Tough 6000.

Olympus offers more technical guidelines on their website for the Stylus 6000. Specifically, it states that for Macro and Super Macro mode, use the following distance from lens advice: 3.9" – infinity for Macro and 0.8" – 19.7" for Super Macro mode.

As I learn more about photography through experimenting, I have found taking pictures in Super Macro mode to be great fun. Lighting, like always, matters, though I found I had to pay more attention to where I was standing to make sure I wasn't blocking light on the object. I almost always had to deal with shadows, like with the toy cars, because of where the sun was and where the toy cars where painted and positioned to dry.

If taking pictures of landscapes or goofy photos of your friends ever gets tired, try seeing a smaller world, full of lots of details, though instead of under a microscope, your regular old camera in Macro mode!

Another Super Macro example - tremendous detail of this 3 inch car visible.

A third example of Super Macro Mode with the Stylus Tough 6000

Pine Grove Furnace State Park

2010-07-18T00:43:00.001-04:00

Remnants of Historic Furnace

For a recent picnic hosted by the martial arts academy Carlisle Kung Fu (pronounced "Carl-izle Kung Foo-Shizzle") a group of students and their families got together at Pine Grove Furnace State Park here in Gardners, Pennsylvania.

Historic Pine Grove Furnace

The park is marked by a remnants of a very old furnace used in the olden days to manufacture iron rods. All that is left is the brick furnace, though the original design had a tremendous amount of wood structure around it. The park explains in detail the process of creating iron rods, giving the entrance to the park a historic feel. The nearby lakes provided very cool water, especially below subsurface, useful for cooling molten iron.

Fuller Lake

Most of the park is for recreation, swimming, wild life watching, and picnics. This venue is overwhelmingly enjoyed by families, with a surprising number of large group picnics going on near Fuller Lake. The diversity of the park goers is striking - you will here a variety of languages as you walk around. When you arrive at the lake, the family atmosphere of this park evidences itself. Kids in abundance were swimming in a carefully sectioned off area of the Fuller, with safety overseen by lifeguards. Parents were in the mix, some watching from the small sand beach, others in the water due to regulations requiring supervision by adults for children under ten years of age.

Pine Grove Furnace - Fuller Lake

Appalachian Trail

Another bonus of this park is that it lies along the remarkable Appalachian trail, which connects Georgia to Maine. Completed in 1937 for hikers as a footpath, the 2,178 mile trail winds through fourteen states. Through the Pine Grove Furnace State Park itself, the trail is now paved, though much of the trail is not. It was fun to walk a step or two of the path.

Appalachian Trail at the Pine Grove Furnace State Park

Wildlife Watching

For the nature enthusiast, the park claims year round potential enjoyment. I did not see too much - we were always near people, which often will scare away animals and nature. For photographers, there was much to see even with no animals around, with many apple trees, small rivers, and flowers in the park.

Still water near the road entrance of the Pine Grove Furnace State Park