Immanentize the Empathy
Click the photo to see the larger versions. I recommend the full-sized one so you can see all the critters in all their glory.
I snapped this photo while Cynthia and I were walking through Roselle Park, near Ada. This at at the edge of a small pipe which channels water under the bicycle path. I guess it means the ecosystem is healthy. And delicious.
I just finished up the last hour of polishing on the new version of the Grand Rapids Crime Map. Here is a list of the changes:
-all incidents are up to date
-new filters are in place: date, weekday, and street name
-more organized, usable layout
-content managed to allow for easier and more frequent updates
I built the new version – interface and content management system – in PHP. The data for the crimes is loaded using a Python script. Eventually this whole site may well be ported over to Python. It’s a neat language.
Here are some interesting tidbits which came to light using the new filters:
-Monday and Wednesday are the crimiest days of the week
-Division Ave, Plainfield Ave, Leonard Street and 28th Street have the most incidents
-49507 is the busiest zip code
-the SouthEast quadrant is by far the most exciting area of town.
-March, May and August are the angriest months
I am sure there is still a little clean-up left to do in the data, so expect things to shift around a bit over the next week or so.
Enjoy!
FEED ME!
After the dinner and presents and a healthy dose of family, I went out for a walk around the property. These photos are the result.
Click here to launch the generator. Once it opens, click the flower to generate a new one.
The petals are arranged using the Fibonacci sequence to generate a Phyllotaxis pattern. The colors in each petal are created using Perlin Noise, and that pattern is re-drawn using a custom color map. Result: Billions of possible variations in about a hundred lines of code.
Well, howdy, y’all!
The past several weeks have been more chaotic than usual, which, considering the past year, is saying something. Ergo my reduced presence on the www.
After the car accident I made several immediate changes in my day-to-day life, cutting out a lot of frivolous expenses, opening up some free time, and taking stock of Where I Am In My Life. It seemed the appropriate time to do so, as so many things in the world have recently entered a state of transition: Western new year, Eastern new year, new president, new car, additional debt, changing global economy, my impending 40th birthday…the whole bit. I decided it was time to concentrate on more tangible things.
Oh: And I had problems with my home internet connection for about three weeks, and only just got back online a few days ago. I will probably post something about that here for any other Comcast subscribers who have problems setting up a wireless connection.
In my enforced down time I have buried myself under a pile of books, including, but not limited to, the following:
The Chronicles of the Black Company (ten books!) by Glen Cook.
Drood, by Dan Simmons
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan is one which I find particularly interesting, because it points out the futility of basing a complex system on predictable events, when it is the *un*predictable events which drive the system. We only need look at the current state of the economy to see where this would be useful information to have.
After the average temperature around here moved back above ZERO, my girlfriend and I ventured outside to explore some more of the open spaces in West Michigan. Two weeks ago we drove to Duck Lake State Park and wandered around on the Lake Michigan beach for a couple of hours.
Click here to see the rest of the photos in this set.
More focused updates on my life will appear anon.
Announcing the launch of my newest Flash game, TriGaVoid, posted over at Kongregate. You can play TriGaVoid here.
So there I was, driving Rick home from tai chi practice. We were heading east on Logan, at the Madison Ave intersection, when I noticed the stop sign. I hit the brakes, but on the fresh-fallen snow even ABS gave me no love. At about the middle of the intersection I saw “GMC” fast approaching my side window, so I let off the brakes and gunned the engine.
Apparently, I was half a second too slow.
The Escalade hit my car about even with the driver’s side rear wheel, which spun the back end of my car around, up onto a curb, and into a telephone pole. The pole made contact just behind the passenger side rear wheel, and spun us back the other way and into a snowbank.
We sat there for a second, making sure all of our parts were in the correct places, then jumped out and ran over to the SUV to make sure everyone was okay. Other than a smashed grill, there was not a mark on it. According to the tire tracks, the Escalade didn’t even slow down appreciably when it swatted my car out of the way.
Fortunately, no-one was hurt in either vehicle.
That was all last night about 9:30. I just got back from Wealthy Body Shop, getting some personal things out of the car. Seeing it in the daylight gave me a serious case of the shakes. The specific damage is not as bad as seeing that the car is no longer symmetrical, left to right. The whole thing is…warped.
This is the first accident I have been in where I was at fault. It sucks.