snowpocalyps part 2

Crippling snow and massive delays the following days on the subways do not make for a great week.
L train turns 10min, 3 mile ride into two hour sardine adventure like only the little mermaid or the Japanese could endure.

Alex Chen: Conductor in progress video

This blew my mind today.

This is a new piece I started this weekend. Tentatively titled Conductor, it recreates the New York subway system as a musical instrument. It’s currently built in HTML5 + Javascript. SVG was very useful, as I could create the design in Illustrator, then import the coordinates into Javascript.

These videos are still in-progress tests. I plan to import an actual subway schedule from the MTA’s subway API and have subway trains triggering the performance. After that, I hope to start on an iPad version that would function more as a user-driven instrument.

Came across this epic in the anuals of rap battles.

Something that also made my day unrelated to human heads

Was jamming this song all day. It kind of takes me back to a lost decade or even before so, San Francisco I miss you and romanticize you from New York even though I know it is incongruent. I suppose in the end you would much rather hear about nostalgia than biomedical infomatics, CPOE function or EHR implementation anyways.

Tales from the hood

For those who have never lived in the hood, it isnt that much different from your own neighborhood. We have our nosey neighbors, the loud guy across the street or even the lady with 100 cats.

What is different in the hood form the rest of the world is how people go about doing thing, everyday common sense things.

There are far to many of an example to rattle off in one sitting so I have decided to devote a article theme to chronicling them as I run across them.

So, whit out further adue. The first installment of Tales from the Hood.

My local chinese restaurant is quite the interesting place. It is not everyday that you come across a chinese joint with bullet proof glass, much less one who also has a "spanish" menu to bout. My curiosity must have gotten the better of me on the way home form the local ghetto mart, a popular supermarket chain that can be found in almost any hood in the north east. Anyway, after looking at the menu I decided to opt for the "Chickin Sanduwit", as I tried to order it became pretty apparent that the old chinese grandmother was unable to speak english. While her lack of english fortitude was not surprising, that fact that she then reached out in spanish to try to take my oder took me back just a little.

With my order in, I stood there and watched the lady do her kitchen magic. While my filet lay there frying, I watched the lady go though her secret recipe of fried rice. The fired rice was made not of white rice, but rather of yellow "spanish" rice mixed with about a half ounce of chinese chao sui pork; oddly delicious looking. Next she turned attention to my sandwich. After applying the layers of chicken, tomato and lettuce, the old lady then proceeded to grab a piece of american cheese. Wondering how she was to melt it, she looked at the salamander then turned away, this would not do it fast enough. Then out of no where she pivots her body and turns back to the fryer. With one hand extended she dunks the cheese in the hot fryer oil and then moves the multon dripping substance towards the sandwich, upon which she say, "queras salsa de soi?". Maybe it was the look on my face but she said no more and packet it in a bag and handed it to me. I dont think she really knew it was the fact that she had just dipped her hand in a fryer to save 10 seconds of time in the cheese melting endeavor rather than wondering what I would need soy sause for a chicken sandwich that had cough me off guard....

Photo of the day

Photo of the day Monday January 3, 2011

Public Cremation - (Aryagath in Pashupatinath Temple) Kathmandu, Nepal 10/2010 Canon 450D - F4.5, 200

Recently discovered silver effects, a program that lets you mimic gelatin silver prints in photoshop or light room.

Sara Palin's Alaska

Having never seeing the show I though I would indulge myself on a sunday night of mindless television, nothing however would have prepared me for what was to come. Sarah Palin's father's pile of dead animal parts. Although dubbed as a science teacher on the show, I highly doubt any credible "scientist" would construe a person whose life mission was to kill, tortue or maim living creatures with the same veracity of Joseph Mengele either a scientist or teacher of science. I have no great admiration for Kate Grosselin but I think we shared a moment when we both responded with horror. Dont get me wrong I love a stake as much as the next man, and also believe that people should kill their food at least once in their life to gain respect and understanding of where their food actually comes from and answer the black box question as to how the cow goes in and the burger comes out of the black box but for the love of god, who needs a garage of different animal parts, ones that arnt even considered edible in the mores of our colture.

I can see the marketing appeal of the show as to make the future canidate more likable or accessible to the to Americans at large but have to agree with Newt on this one, this will not give her the creditable nor aptitude to be the next leader of the free world. Rather, high light her inept ability to preform the most innate of tasks that much more apparent.

Seriously, did I just agree with Newt?