Great news to cyclist across the US! Google has just released a new feature on Google Maps that allows you to view bike lanes and bike friendly roads across 150 US cities. The new feature makes it really easy to navigate busy cities by highlighting low traffic roads, bike lanes and dedicated bike trails. It also tends to target flat roads and avoiding hills. You can even customize your trip by creating your own path along bike lanes. I bought my bike last fall and haven’t been able to use it as much as I want to, now with the spring and summer coming this will be a great addition to my NYC bike adventures.
The massive 8.8 quake that hit Chile last week was amongst one of the most powerful quakes recorded. Not only did it impact the lives of thousands living in Chile but is has permanently changed the very shape of our planet.
A megathrust earthquake is caused when one one tectonic plate is shoved violently underneath another in a process called subduction. These earthquakes are very rare; they tend to be 7.5 magnitude or higher, and there are only about 14 in recorded history (including the 2004 Indonesian quake that caused huge tsunamis).
As the Nazca and South American plates collided, the Nazca plate slid under and all that mass was pulled closer to the center of Earth, affecting it’s spin. The planet is now spinning slightly faster, making our days 1.26 millionth of a second shorter.
How does this work? Think of it just like a spinning skater brings her arms in closer to her body to rotate faster.
Where might the next megathrust quake hit? Scientists believe it could be in a subduction zone off the Pacific coast of the Northern US and Canada, where the Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American plate. Geophysicists have used computer modeling to show what such a quake would look like, based in part on data they’ve reconstructed about a 9 magnitude quake there in 1700. The researchers estimate that megathrust quakes hit the region about every 400-500 years, so we’re about due for another.
Take a look at the newly introduced Windows Phone 7, I am drooling over the beautiful and clean interface, the emphasis in typography and grids. I think Microsoft has actually out-Appled Apple.
Watch this great Frontline film that raises many of today’s questions about technology and the internet. How competent are we really as multitasking our daily activities becomes the norm? How do we solve and embrace the growing short attention spans of students? Can virtual worlds and gaming allow us to connect with others or only alienate us further?
(Make sure to start on Chapter One by clicking on the yellow dots on the right)
I found this film very personal and intriguing as it connects to many aspects of my life. As millions of others, I cannot live without being connected at all times. It made me realize how just this morning I wake up and my iPhone is not next to me, I start going crazy looking for it as I have this insatiable need to check my emails and messages. A morning ritual that’s so second nature to me that never existed in my life a few years ago. I hope this documentary is an eye opener for everyone as it was for me. Technology is rapidly evolving and we are too, we just have to embrace it with an open mind and not let it take over.
So I sit in front of my computer playing around with ideas for my new business card and I’m really debating adding one of those scannable “Quick Response” codes, similar to the ones on prescription drugs and postage. The advantage of doing this, is clients and friends with compatible phones will be able to quickly scan my card and get all my information. No more worrying about loosing business cards or tediously inputing all the information into your address book once every so often. Plus, it looks damn cool. Business cards are boring, lets face it, making them stand out should be your priority, especially being in a creative field. Unfortunately the only phones that currently support this technology are Android based phones, so it would be a very small market. Phone manufacturers and software developers need to step up their game and embrace this technology for the sake of my business card. I think my “Quick Response” coded business card will have to wait until 2011.
I few days ago I joined Okcupid out of mere curiosity. I’ve heard about it from people and decided to use it as ‘research’ tool. One of it’s best features, their blog. They have in-depth studies about their user’s trends when it comes to dating and attracting each other. Take a look for yourself:
Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things:
Facial Attitude. Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing?
Photo Context. Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom?
Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?
In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. For interested readers, I explain our measurement process, and how we collected our data, at the end of the post. All my bar charts are zeroed on the average picture. Now to the data.
