March 27, 2010
Given the government’s marketing push, I should hope that the majority of American citizens are aware that it’s high time for the 2010 Census.
Of course, the $14 billion campaign is a massive undertaking, and I’m not surprised to hear that some of New York City is missing. Moreover, New Yorkers who are on the census radar are lagging even as the rest of America is clamoring to be counted.
As a lover of data / maps / infographics (slash, complete nerd), I applaud the government’s efforts at compiling data for maps and infographics. Without the census, we wouldn’t have such gems as Very Small Array’s brilliant population map from 2008, above.
A more recent infographic inverts the relationship , hypothesizing that if the entire U.S. with the density of Brooklyn (35,000 people per square mile; cf. below), all 300m+ people would fit into an area the size of New Hampshire.
The US is one of the world’s biggest countries, with one of the world’s most numerous populations… let’s assume – as this map does – that the country is inhabited by about 300 million people. With a total area of 3,794,101 sqare miles, that gives the US a population density of approximately 79 Americans per square mile.
That’s far less than the world’s most crowded place, Macau (48,003 inh./mi2) but also way above the world’s emptiest one, Greenland (0.006 inh./mi2). The US ranks somewhere in the less densely populated third of the list of countries and territories… For comparison’s sake: Canada, America’s bigger, emptier neighbour to the north, has a density of just 8.8, while Mexico stands at 142 inh./mi2.
Related: NYC traffic study—I finally have scientific proof that biking is faster than the gas-guzzlers who crowd the broad avenues of Mannahatta.
March 16, 2010
» Aesop Rock – Daylight (4:25) – 4.1MB m4a @ 128kbps
The Persistence of Trite Imagery
Since this Sunday marked Daylight Saving Time, I decided to put my philosophy degree to good use by pondering the psychology and metaphysics of this semi-annual ritual.
First of all, there is technically only one daylight to be saved: contrary to folk wisdom that might suggest otherwise, daylight is an indivisible entity. In a sense, daylight is like money—which is also grammatically singular but conceptually plural (insofar as one would hope to have more than one money)—such that daylight is quantifiable, at least in terms of daylight hours. In other words, official terminology denotes that summer is ‘Time to Save Daylight’—i.e., Time for Daylight-Saving—while the colloquial (if not altogether prevalent) shorthand “Daylight Savings” is a gerund, as per the nominal usage of “Savings” for that type of bank account. (Even the Wikipedia URL for the Daylight Saving Time entry is Daylight_savings.)
The monetary metaphor is useful in illustrating how DST’s pithy essence “spring forward, fall back” belies the curious phenomenon that either occasion—the turning of the clocks in spring or in fall—can be described as gaining or losing an hour. Common parlance suggests that we have indeed acquired a full 60 minutes, yet this increment simultaneously seems to have slipped through a mysterious temporal rift in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It appears that we have both gained and lost an hour on Sunday, a discrepancy that reveals two divergent systems of belief concerning time and how it is measured: absolute vs. relative. The two views correspond to a scientific picture of an independent physical world and a pragmatic ‘lived’ experience of time, respectively.
The former system holds that time marches forward of its own accord and that to push a clock forward—from 2AM to 3AM, say—disturbs the clockwork of the universe to the effect that humans have erased an hour from their day. Here the bank analogy must be modified: on Sunday, we withdrew an hour on credit, which we will pay back in October; for the next six months, we owe one hour to the universe, or nature, or whatever. We have lost it in the interest of practicality—we need to borrow the hour for the better half of the year—though we plan on restoring balance in six months or so. For the absolutist, the hour is deferred.
Those who abide by the second perspective, on the other hand, see time as more malleable, where chronology is purely pragmatic: we gained an hour on Sunday because we now have an extra hour of sunlight—and, ostensibly, productivity—to the effect that the days themselves grow longer. By springing forward, we stake a claim to the greater daylight afforded by the rotation of the Earth, silently folding one hour into the shroud of slumber in order to extend each and every day in those six months. For the relativist, it’s possible to save daylight like money albeit not in the interest of yielding a long-term dividend: everyone cashes out the same predetermined amount at the end of each day.
Of course, both schools of thought understand that the actual demarcation of time to be incidental (i.e. pragmatic in a broad sense)—otherwise we wouldn’t have license to give and take (or take and give) hours as we please. Nevertheless, I wonder if there is any correlation between the saving(s) locution and the gain/loss dichotomy: are relativists more predisposed to regarding DST as a savings account, as opposed to absolutists who treat the extra time as a line of credit?
Does that even make sense? Rather, does it even matter?
Now for the real news:
- Advertising 2.0: This Time, It’s Personal. FaceBook is now crowdsourcing targeted advertising like social AdSense (=AdBook?). (NYT, Future Perfect) Also, Product Placement: Geolocation is so hot right now (NYT)
- Mattel Mentality x Mad Men = Barbie. WTF. (NYT)
- Google Maps now has (spotty) bike directions: Gothamist blurbs, Streetsblog mentions, Wired crowdsources; Bike Snob NYC is more thorough, with an incisive riposte to the Post
- Big ups to the Alma Mater in the Times. But seriously, the prospect of digitally tracking writers’ inspiration and composition process is quite fascinating.
- Stanley Fish on Pragmatism’s Gift.
- I’ve always been a stickler for free throws (i.e. I don’t understand why every player isn’t shooting 90+% from the line), so I was pleased to see that Wired has posted a guide on How to Nail a Free Throw.
- Old news, but here’s a couple of interesting articles on sports video games and their source material; specifically, how video games are have become increasingly true to life for athletes: League of Gamers (ESPN); Gamechangers: How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes (Wired)
- Speaking of video games, Virtusphere. Just watch the damn video.
- G4 (correctly, I think) identifies Chatroulette’s ‘Merton.’ NYMag’s Vulture (correctly, I think) identifies Ben Folds as a “Fin de siècle singer-songwriter.” Just watch the damn video.
- (Over)analysis of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video. (Vigilant Citizen)
Music news:
- What Would They Know: Matthew Perpetua interviews Liars for Pitchfork.
- Time to Get Away: LCD Soundsystem finishing up their last record. (Daily Swarm)
- Wanna Be Startin’ Something: MJ posthumously lands a massive record deal. (WSJ, NYT)
Art news:
Bonus Trailer:
March 13, 2010
» Modest Mouse – Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (3:42) – 4.3MB mp3 @ 160kbps
Director & VFX artist Sam O’Hare has just completed a short film using time-lapse tilt-shift technology to create the illusion of a miniature New York City. The Sandpit is really quite amazing—I recommend viewing it in fullscreen HD.
I’m not quite clear on how the film was created, even after reading this brief interview on how the film was created, but, as with so many other Internet rabbitholes, Kottke simultaneously introduced me to Koyaanisqatsi, a landmark 1982 art film by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke with an original score by Philip Glass (viewable in full on Hulu), as an obvious reference point for O’Hare.
Meanwhile, an unidentified student at Kyoto University of Art & Design has transformed several home appliances into tiny cities.
Spoon & Tamago via Swiss Miss
8-Bit NYC is perhaps the polar opposite of the beautiful works of video and sculpture above, but it’s pleasantly diverting nonetheless.
What the hell, I love this song: YACHT – Psychic City (5:09) – 9.8MB mp3 @ 262kbps
March 11, 2010
Ashley Gilbertson for the New York Times
Today is the first day in about two weeks that I haven’t had a cup of coffee. I go through coffee phases, though I’ve been hitting the French press harder and harder, in a manner of speaking, lately. I also drank a fair amount of coffee in Beijing (related excerpt below) and I think I’ve been on the upswing since the beginning of the year…
Meanwhile, the New York Times has an excellent feature on the city’s best coffee, plus an interactive map of coffee hotspots. I’m tempted to try and get a cup of joe at each and every one, moving outward daily in concentric circles from Fort Greene starting with Ortine. NYT also says coffee is good for you and Christoph Niemann’s thoughts on coffee. (Unrelated, but he has cleverly appropriated the iconic visual language of Google maps [which now features bike directions] for the latest installment of Abstract City, which was posted yesterday. Much better than the last two, in my opinion.)
Free associating a bit, City of Sound has an excellent (if rather lengthy) essay on the iPad as a device for the third place (i.e. the coffeeshop).
Here is my analysis of the Wudaokou coffee scene, from a long-lost China post that I drafted on the food & drink situation:
Nevertheless, much of the money I’ve been saving on food, alcohol and cigarettes ends up going towards coffee, a necessary luxury which happens to go for American rates or more—$1.50 for shitty drip, $3 for anything decent—the same price as A.) lunch and an afternoon snack, B.) anywhere between one and five beers depending on the point of sale, and C.) two to four packs of cigarettes. I usually stick with the Americano, which is roughly the same price as the daily brew at 18RMB [$2.66] including one free refill; fancier drinks have fancier prices.
A staple for the wealthy elite, coffee is rarely ordered to go, as per the American on-the-go lifestyle; instead, it is usually consumed in a coffeeshop with a Continental deference (and cigarettes, of course).
Indeed, cafes are typically rather upscale affairs, a fabled “third place” that Westerners might call their own, since the Chinese seem largely unaware that there might be more than two places. Free wi-fi, long (often endless) business hours, decent service and full menus (invariably in English and Chinese) reinforce the classy atmosphere.
Still, I have come to discern clear discrepancies between the clientele of the three coffeeshops that I frequent: The Bridge, Cava Coffee and Beantree (all located conveniently on my block). The Bridge is the largest and busiest, with room for about a hundred patrons on each of two floors, catering to a majority of foreigners representing North America, most of the EU and Australia, not to mention Chinese-American students and a few native Chinese. Cava attracts more native Chinese and other assorted Asians, as well as the occasional 老外, while Beantree’s clientele consists mostly of Korean and Japanese students.
However, today marked the first time I’ve enjoyed Kombucha in about five months. Maybe that’s what got me all wired this afternoon… though I will most certainly be back on the bean tomorrow.
January 19, 2010
–Andy Woodruff of Cartogrammar has mapped his “whole darn year“—a map of routes he travelled in the Greater Boston Area last year. He acknowledges that UrbanTick has done the same thing in the past, but the flash movie (linked above) is worth watching nonetheless.
–Stereogum has just posed a new track by David Byrne & Fatboy Slim, “Please Don’t,” featuring Santigold on vocals. The song is from Byrne’s forthcoming concept album Here Lies Love, a collaboration with Norman Cook, plus guest appearances from the likes of Tori Amos, Róisín Murphy, etc. (I never would have guessed that I would someday have a picture of Imelda Marcos on my blog, but it must be cool if David Byrne thinks its cool.) (Stereogum; previously on BV)
–Stereogum also recently brought my attention to Wieden+Kennedy’s web series “D.I.Y. America.” Say what you want about insidious corporate marketing industry appropriation of authentic art and music movements, the videos definitely benefit from high production value. Three of the four episodes focus on skateboard culture, plus an interview with NYC artist Swoon.
–Anomaly London handled Diesel’s latest cheeky ad campaign, “Be Stupid.” It’s fine for what it is, though I don’t think anything will ever top the viral ‘SFW pornography’ video by The Viral Factory for Diesel’s XXX extravaganza (video after the jump). (DB)
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January 15, 2010
This detailed account of my Thursday is intended as a window into the life of someone who is currently “between jobs” (i.e. jobless—which is why I have all the time in the world to spend on my blog).
It’s pretty stupid and boring.
Honestly though, I don’t really know why I’m doing this—especially without photos, which might somehow justify the tedious and grossly underdeveloped prose. (It reads like something I would’ve written for a 9th-grade English class.) The closest approximation of a rationalization I can come up with is that I’d like to have some really terrible, shameful writing on the record to spite the rest of the content on my blog.
It’s also littered with hip NYC namedroppings and a cast of ancillary characters who barely qualify as devices. There is no symbolism or allegorical value to speak of. I’ve done my best to minimize foreshadowing… but that’s asking a lot and I’m not that good of a writer.
At best, it’s an exercise, an uncharacteristically intimate portrait of contemporary bohemia, largely unembellished albeit esoteric to the point of being skewed. At worst, it may be remembered as the first symptom of an otherwise untold descent into madness.
We’ll see how long it says online before I decide to delete it. (I’m tracking stats now so I’ll know exactly how many people clickthrough and read it.)
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January 12, 2010
This is yet another version of Assorted Links, culled from newspapers and blogs.
–The New York Times has an interactive feature that maps the popularity of new DVDs by city based on Netflix cues. It’s somewhat predictable (See: Northwest Brooklyn, South Bronx), insofar as there is a correlation between demographic data and taste in movies, but still worth checking out. For better or for worse, the majority of commenters are merely captivated by the pretty colors or curious about the methodology instead of concerned about the greater implications for web privacy. As one commenter succinctly puts it, “Fascinating and disturbing at the same time.”
–An interview with Billy Reid.
–Geico commercials (/short-lived ABC sitcom) paleo in comparison to the new urban caveman ur-food movement. The article is (tellingly?) in the Fashion & Style section.
–”But don’t some foods become trendy because they get taken up by hipsters?” Salon examines Middle American ethnic food trends.
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December 22, 2009
–Helvetica (the font, not the documentary) makes a strong showing in The Auteurs’ top movie posters of the decade. [I know 40 Year-Old Virgin lacks Helvetica, but, to quote Paul Rudd's character in the film: "This probably shouldn't be in here... This is just a good show."] Anyway, it’s good stuff. I may add a few of my own if they come to mind. (The Auteurs via Design Boom).
–The ABCs of Branding by Jason Dean. (Reminds me of the client list I did for the Joneses…) (DB)
–New York-based Chinese artist Alex Caifeng Guo does pixelated photomontages. (Obama vs. Abraham Lincoln above.) However, I’m not particularly impressed, since tiling the same image (varying the lightness to create gradients) seems a bit rudimentary—I’ll take Chuck Close any day. (PSFK / Alex Caifeng Guo)
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November 18, 2009
The New York Times recently ran an article on an emerging DIY cartography movement, a timely follow-up to my last Beijing-related post.
Also of note: preserving Spiral Jetty and Dia Foundation’s Chelsea plans.
Beijing art scene coverage to come in future posts.
November 15, 2009
or, I Assure You, BJBus.com is SFW
This is the second installment of my (admittedly verbose and highly parenthetical) chronicle of my time in Beijing:
First, a quick geography lesson: Beijing lies landlocked in the North China Plain, 150 km inland of the Bohai Sea. The city center is surrounded by a series of ring roads, loosely centered on the Forbidden City, such that the second ring road separates the dense city center from the outer districts, which stretch to the sixth circumscription.
My map of 北京. Wudaokou is in the upper left corner.
My home for these two months is in the heart of the 五道口 [Wudaokou] neighborhood in the 海淀区 [Haidian District], which constitutes the Northwest outer borough of the capital (top-leftmost marker on the Gmap). Wudaokou is regarded as Beijing’s prestigious university-town area, since two of China’s top universities are here, which means that 1.) I fall into the demographic of the local populace (though it’s less appropriate for my aging grandparents), and 2.) the requisite amenities and nightlife offerings are nearby… not to mention the profusion of foreigners enjoying the novelty and low cost of living here for a semester.
[I am still ambivalent about the 外国人, since I probably relate to them (even the Europeans and Australians) more than the native Chinese, but I have yet to warm up to my countrymen... whoever they may be. Either way, I play it cool.
That said, I have shamelessly been taking advantage of certain establishments that clearly find a non-Chinese audience: the (overpriced) coffeeshops and gym facilities. I'm not sure whether or not my patronage of these foreigner hotspots is a dead giveaway as to my nationality—that and the fact that I drink Americanos and smoke Camel Lights while perusing English websites and drafting blog entries on my MacBook. More on this in a forthcoming chapter.]
My only grievance about Wudaokou—a plaint about Beijing in general—is that it is relatively out-of-the-way (just outside the fourth ring road): it takes over an hour to get to work on the subway and at least half an hour to get downtown. With nearly 12 million residents in 4,000+ sq. km of metro area, Beijing is easily one of the largest cities in the Eastern Hemisphere (it is second to Shanghai for that title in China). Fellow New Yorkers, imagine Grand Street as one of the biggest cities in the world and you get the idea.
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