Category Archives: cool stuff

Google Mapmaker Discoveries

Posted by on July 29, 2011 4 comments

Beechwood State Park – in mapmaker

I’ve been using Google Mapmaker since they opened it up for editing in the U.S. in April. I mapped all the campus buildings where I work, I added a couple of hiking trails, I changed info on some roads that weren’t reasonable to bike on, and removed roads that weren’t there. It’s fun being able to fix, improve, and add information to google maps.

This whole time there really weren’t a lot of people editing in my area. I barely ever saw changes come in in the areas I’m monitoring. The last couple of weeks though, someone (“Salim”), has been adding a ton of information to Beechwood State Park in Sodus, NY. I have been loving seeing the trails start appearing on the map, and parking areas, because I can never remember where you’re supposed to park at Beechwood.

Today a campground appeared in the middle of the map & I was all… “no way. you must be mistaken. I must correct this error.” But then I looked it up and you actually can camp at Beechwood. I had no idea. I love that I’m learning new things about the area I live in because other people can add information to the map.

Somehow the appearance of this campground is pushing my enthusiasm for mapmaker to a new level. It’s like some kind of epiphany that makes me want to use phrases like “Democratization of the Map” and charge around recruiting other people to show me all the cool things about my area that I didn’t already know about.

I did actually go to Google last week for a Geo Users Summit and I left with a lot of enthusiasm but this really brought it all together for me. Thanks Salim, whoever you are.

Strange Galls on Leaves

Posted by on June 5, 2011 No comments

I’m trying to figure out what causes this, I’m guessing an insect lays it’s eggs in the leaf and somehow as they hatch an grow it causes the leaf to deform in this way. I think they’re called galls. I’m really not sure though.

Fun with MyTracks and Google Fusion Tables

Posted by on April 9, 2011 No comments

I use an app on my droid called MyTracks to track my mileage biking, hiking, or whatever. MyTracks lets you email your data to yourself as a file (gpx, kml,csv,tcx) or  upload your data to Google Maps, to a spreadsheet in Google Docs, or to Google Fusion Tables. I had never heard of google fusion tables until it popped up as an option after I upgraded to a newer version of mytracks. It seemed cool but I didn’t really know what to do with it. Tonight I figured out how to get multiple rides into one google fusion table so I can see them all on one map.

This seemed like a fun visual way to keep track of my rides for 30 Days of Biking.

So far I’ve ridden 66 miles though I’ve covered some of the same ground a bunch of times.

But I’ve covered the ground in the driveway a lot!

I think tracking my miles this way will encourage me to try to cover new ground, to paint every road red. Brian says I should try to spell my name.

How to Get Multiple MyTracks Files in one Google Fusion Table

1. Go to ‘Tracks’ in the MyTracks app and hold down on the track you want to upload

2. Choose “Send to google”,  check the box for Google Fusion Tables, and send

3. Do this again with another file that you want to merge with this one.

4. Go to http://www.google.com/fusiontables/
You might have to set up an account if you haven’t used fusion tables before. I can’t remember. I did this a while ago.

5. Open one of the tables and go to File > Export and it should dump a .csv file on to your computer somewhere. You know where. Mine goes in my downloads folder.

6. Open the other table from the data you just uploaded, this will be your big file, go to File > Import More Rows. Find the csv you just exported, select it, and follow the basic instructions.

7. Repeat until you have squashed all your rides into one table.

There may be better ways of doing this but I’m new to Google Fusion Tables. I’m in that phase where I’m super excited about something new, but really have no idea what I’m doing. I am happy to spread my minimal and possibly inaccurate knowledge far and wide. Let me know if you have better methods or know of other awesome things I could be doing with this.

Dining Room Ivy

Posted by on January 16, 2011 No comments

There’s a grape ivy plant in our dining room. It grows up through a hole  left in the floor from back when this part of the house was just a greenhouse. We don’t have to water it, it just gets the water it needs from under the house. That’s why it’s still alive. It’s our home’s version of a truth window. Not exactly like in a strawbale home, but the vine coming up through the floor ties it all the way back to the earliest days of the house.

Since this room became a dining room, sometime in the last ten years the ivy has wrapped its way around the whole room. We never did agree on a light fixture & just ended up hanging the geodesic sphere I made from the wires coming out of the fixture. I think it was a sort of stop gap decoration until we decided on something, but we never did. The ivy reached out into the middle of the room and started growing all over the sphere. It finally got to heavy last week and a few of the dowels detached themselves from the hubs and the ivy ball came crashing down on to the table.

We put the sphere back in place after we pulled off the vines so it can start all over again.

Sodium Acetate

Posted by on January 9, 2011 No comments

Brian made sodium acetate last night and has been having fun playing with it every since. They use this stuff to make handwarmers and salt and vinegar chips. You can make it with just vinegar and baking soda.  He may write something super scientific about it on his blog… but I’m just going to post the videos and pictures and say science is cool.

Under the microscope

G-Roc Does not allow High Prices in Inclema’s Store.

Posted by on July 11, 2010 No comments

I LOVE this commercial for Inclema’s Meat Market. I wish I had a better quality version. I have looked for it on and off since I saw the add on tv a year or so ago. I just found it on their website yesterday. It must not have been there before. It seems like that would have been the first place I’d look.

We will probably actually check this place out in person soon. Now that Brian has his new smoker he’s always looking for some specific cut of meat that we can’t seem to find at our local Wegmans. Sometimes we can’t even find it at the mega-wegmans in Pittsford.

Do you like what you see?

Snombie

Posted by on February 27, 2010 No comments
From February 2010

The same Facebook conversation that resulted in a badly photo shopped meteorologist, Kevin Williams, making a sacrifice to Snowthar, produced this. Unfortunately, I had no part in it. My cousin, Cindy (not a Snombie) is it’s maker. What you can’t see well in the photo is the brains in it’s mouth.

Monkeylectric Light Show

Posted by on May 14, 2009 1 comment

These are the super cool monkeylectric lights I got for xmas. Thanks!

For Your Ears

Posted by on February 16, 2009 No comments

I discovered a couple new podcasts that I really like recently.

The first, a brand new discovery for me, is RadioLab. Radiolab is a radio show from WNYC. It’s about science but it’s put together in a really unique way. The actual interview might be sort of layered together in places with commentary and other sounds. It’s a very arty science show. The first one I listened to was Diagnosis. It’s a good place to start if you want to get hooked.

I also discovered that Selected Shorts is now available as a podcast. Selected shorts is good short fiction read aloud by different people. The first one that came up on my ipod was Two Funny Guys, and included Stephen Colbert reading “The Lie,” by T.C. Boyle. I spend my whole car ride with a tortured grimace spread across my face. If I was watching on tv I would have had to cover my eyes. It was horrifyingly hilarious. Even if you don’t subscripe to the podcast you have to listen to that.

I’ve started listening to Planet Money recently. The whole economic crisis was/is confusing to me. I don’t know enough about economics and banks and markets. I feel like I should know and understand more about something that could potentially change my world and the world around me. They do a good job of explaining stuff that seems like voodoo and it’s usually pretty interesting. It’s not Star Wars or anything, it’s still banks, and finances, and stimulus packages but it’s worth a listen if you want to understand why everyone is having a freak-out about the economy. I first got into this by way of This American Life’s show “Another Frightening Show about the Economy”.

I still listen to a bunch of other good radio shows via podcast.

And some just plain old podcasts:

Tattooed Turkey

Posted by on January 10, 2009 No comments

My aunt passed along these photos of some recent artwork done my my cousin, Jason. This turkey was apparently on display for Thanksgiving at his friend’s restaurant. I hope he won’t mind me posting the photos.

More of Jason’s work: