2008 April // The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller

1 / 312 3 EAST

The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

|| 4/1/2008 || 2:28 pm || Comments Off || ||
Astrophotography by Anthony Ayiomamitis – Analemma with the Parthenon

Following up on my antique sundials posting, I just came across this stunning photography by Anthony Ayiomamitis that shows the sun’s yearly orbit seen from a stationary points around various ancient ruins in Greece. The figure 8 design that the sun creates is called an Analemma. It’s a curve representing the angular offset of the sun from its mean position on the celestial sphere as viewed from Earth. The sun’s position in the figure 8 varies by geography and time of year, but when a series of photographs are taken from one location you can see the sun’s relative path through the seasons.

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|| 4/2/2008 || 12:25 pm || Comments Off || ||
The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults, and a correction request

I was recently directed to the the National Archives’ Digital Vaults webpage. After the flash animation was loaded up, I was greeted by a nice visual interface (above) that shows various items that are digitally scattered within the vault.

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|| 4/3/2008 || 1:28 pm || Comments Off || ||
Remedia Amoris / The Cure For Love by Ovid

Remedia Amoris (Love’s Remedy or The Cure for Love) is a 814 line poem in Latin by the Roman poet Ovid written around 5 BC. The aim of the poem is to teach young men how they can avoid idealizing the women they love and to give assistance if love brings despair and misfortune.

I discovered this poem when I was researching antique stained glass sundials and I came to the initial conclusion that Ovid’s prose is visually interpreted on Blaeu’s world map from the mid-1600s (detail above). Late last night I found both the latin and translated version of the poem, so I decided to do something I wish there was more of on the internet: a side by side layout which shows the original Latin on the left and the translated English on the right.

To add a unique visual element to the poem, I made the line number (which came from the Latin text) the color of the English translation. This involved quite a bit of manual coding, but I think it makes the latin / english comparison easier and slightly more visually engaging. By using red & white type face and numerical indention, the layout looks like a creve coeur or broken heart when scrolling. I bolded one section for emphasis related it’s discovery [hint: around line #185].

There are a few translation discrepancies that I’ve found thus far and there are many others which come across slightly convoluted and require more inquiry, but overall the poem is quite interesting. It includes topics like tree grafting (Genetic Engineering Version 1.0), having multiple lovers, travelling, and what to do and not to do when getting over a relationship. It’s interesting how much things have changed in the last 2,000 years, and as cliche as it may sound, how much our emotions have stayed the same. We all face the same relationship troubles and like Ovid, there will always be people telling you how to deal with them.

If you’ve got about 45 minutes to spare, here is Ovid’s Remedia Amoris / The Cure For Love:
(You might need to widen your browser window to view the on-line polyglot correctly — it was originally design for a previous layout on this website. Drag the lower right hand corner to make the screen wider. Some browsers you can adjust the font size to achieve a similar result.)

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|| || 4:26 pm || Comments Off || ||
Saint Louis Quilt #4

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Saint Louis Quilt #4

Unlike the previous three maps of Saint Louis which use imagery from 2002, this map uses poor quality imagery from 2005. I really like how the old Busch Stadium shows up and the new Busch Stadium is still being constructed. Up next will be another map of downtown Saint Louis, but will feature better quality aerial photography from 2006 and the new Busch Stadium. The 2006 aerial photography was used in my Geospatial Natal Chart that I made in December, as well as the two most recent maps of my childhood neighborhood in Ballwin, Missouri.

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

View the rest of the details:

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|| 4/4/2008 || 12:58 pm || Comments Off || ||
The maps on Google Analytics suffer from Washington, DC’s exclusion

The other day I mentioned how Google Charts API includes small maps but leaves Washington, DC off the map. Last night when I was looking at my newly installed Google Analytics interface (above) and I discovered another reason why Washington, DC should be included: without including Washington, DC, the map on the Google Analytics page is lacking a means to show visitors from the nation’s capital. This means all webmasters around the world who use Google’s Analytics are not being able to effectively analyze their data on the map of the United States because not every country/territory/region on the continental mainland is being shown.

From the screen grab above:
A. There is 61.4 square miles of Country/Territory missing here
B. If Regions are being listed, why is one being excluded from the map above?
C. District of Columbia is not a Region nor are any of the States listed below it

As I wrote before, Google can add Washington, DC to the lower portion of their maps in the area where Alaska and Hawaii are not shown to scale. While Washington, DC may be denied statehood, it has more inhabitants than the state of Wyoming and should be given the same opportunity to be shown on the map of the United States. Otherwise, like the Google Analytics screen grab above, the maps will continue to be incomplete and inaccurate.

|| 4/5/2008 || 5:52 pm || Comments Off || ||
Memphis Cross

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Memphis Cross

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King and I decided to make a map the area around the site of the memorial. I made a similar cross a month ago using imagery from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in Washington, DC and another cross-like map in the summer of 2005. Upon comparing the three, I feel that Mount Pleasant Cross looks more like a traditional cross because the reflection on 16th street forms the familiar shape. When preparing the imagery I adjusted the line of symmetry in the source tessellation to create a near perfect stadium reflection. In the current Google Maps imagery, which is newer than this map’s imagery, the dome of the stadium has Fedex Field printed across the top. Fortunately, the illusion of the symmetrical stadium was not ruined by corporate branding.

View the Google Map of Memphis, Tennessee.

Lorraine Motel / National Civil Rights Museum Detail

View the rest of the details:

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|| 4/6/2008 || 11:48 am || Comments Off || ||
Saint Louis Quilt #5

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Saint Louis Quilt #5

This map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri is the first to use imagery from 2006. I have now made maps of downtown Saint Louis that show the downtown area at three specific periods in time in the last 6 years. In the near future, I might made a montage of how the geography has changed using familiar portions of these maps. It think it would look very interesting. As I mentioned before, I like the way that I’ve been able to capture the Busch Stadium’s progression over time.

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

View the rest of the details:

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|| 4/7/2008 || 12:53 pm || Comments Off || ||
D.C. to get it’s first hemp store: Capitol Hemp

Photograph by Gerald Martineau of The Washington Post. Mosaic by Jill Blankespoor

I’ve known about the store for some time now so it’s nice that it’s is getting some great exposure in today’s Washington Post article. The store is located near the intersection of 18th & Columbia NW below the Starbucks and should open soon. I’ve written about my antics & activism with. Adam over the years- from working on his last campaign for U.S. Shadow Representative to staging the first ever DC democracy lobbying effort on the Potomac and I’m looking forward to shopping at Capitol Hemp.

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|| || 10:29 pm || Comments Off || ||
World Vision : You can’t ignore child labor

While I am not a big fan of pervasive advertisements, I found this guerrilla marketing campaign designed by Ogilvy to be highly effective. It comes directly from the same vein as Amnesty International’s award-winning campaign “It’s Not Happening Here But It’s Happening Now.” However, instead of being merely a billboard campaign, this iteration is interactive. As one pushes the revolving door, they are trapped between two photographs of child laborers also pushing the door. Above each the child is the text “You can’t ignore child labor – www.kinderarbeid.nl” [kinderarbeid= child labor]

Watch the video to get the idea:

Related Activism Entries:

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|| 4/8/2008 || 2:01 pm || Comments Off || ||
Globe Graffiti – Continued

Las month I posted photographs of the aftermath of DEBT tagging my friend’s antique globe that I had once used in an art installation. Today, via DECOY’s blog, I find censored pictures of DEBT in action.

Also, for the visually astute, the painting in the background by DECOY (I believe it’s called “Two Headed Monster”) was used as the cover of the popular book The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu.

|| || 3:46 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
Saint Louis Lenz Animation

Screen grab links to a 32-second 11.5mb Quicktime Movie

Using the same tessellation that was used in Saint Louis Quilt #5, I created this animation featuring a fish-eye-like glass sphere hovering over the imagery (see Lenz Projection). The sphere’s optics create a +200% magnification of the imagery, so as the sphere moves around in the animation the abstract geography is revealed below in close-up detail. There is a new on-line mapping service in Japan that features this visual element, but I am proud to say that I’ve been making similar maps for nearly 5 years now. My animation’s style features more angular refraction within the sphere to give a sense of roundness to a flat surface. My animation also slightly suffers from over-projection within the sphere but I personally like the pixilated effect that is created.

Click here to watch / download the animation.

|| || 4:52 pm || Comments Off || ||
ABSOLUT STATEHOOD

Screen grab links to .kmz file for Google Earth

A geovisual response to an LA Times blog entry showing mostly isolationist responses to an alternative history map of North America by Absolut Vodka.

This interactive map for Google Earth shows the familiar Absolut Vodka bottle labeled “Absolut Statehood” and placed inside of the original boundaries of the District of Columbia. These boundaries existed until 1847 after the residents of Virginia voted to cede back the portion of the District of Columbia that was west of the Potomac River.

Absolut Statehood represents the cartographic notion that the nation’s capital can become America’s 51st state*. Today there are over 550,000 American citizens living in the nation’s capital that are being denied the fundamental right of representation in Congress. This ongoing human rights violation currently practiced by the government of the United States has been denounced by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The United States is the only country in the industrialized world that forbids the residents of it’s capital city the right to elect representatives to their national legislature.

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|| 4/9/2008 || 12:30 pm || Comments Off || ||
The first Artomatic prints have arrived

Federal Triangle Quilt #3 with Chinese signature

Using some of the funds from my DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities 2008 Young Artist Grant, I purchased the first set of prints that will be shown at next month’s Artomatic exhibition.

One of Kodak’s newest products is their fleece blanket, which is 100% polyester, machine washable, and frankly, are a very good deal at about $45 each. I’ve been waiting a long time to print my maps on large media cost-effectively and fortunately the size of these blankets match the aspect ratio of my maps (3:2) so I can upload my 9,000 x 6,000-sized maps (one half the original rendering size) without any extra image manipulation. Or so I thought.

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|| 4/10/2008 || 11:46 pm || Comments Off || ||
Germany’s Green Party opens chapter in Washington, DC

As a current member of the DC Statehood Green Party, former elected member of the DC Statehood Green Party steering committee, and former elected national delegate to the Green Party of the United States, this is exciting news to me. Dies ist gut:

Germany’s Green Party opens chapter in Washington, DC

Julie Gregson | Deutsche Welle | 04.09.2008

Germany’s Green Party is setting up a branch in the United States. The bottom-up initiative aims to bring a more international perspective to the party’s work and combat anti-Americanism among some members back home.

The chapter is due to be officially founded next weekend in Washington DC. It hopes to tap into the experiences of the growing number of Germans working in the US capital in international organizations, foundations and think tanks, as well as in the media, the culture industry and higher education.

“We’ve discovered that there are a lot of Germans in town who are young, tolerant and cosmopolitan and who share Green values or are active in the Green party,” said chapter co-founder Arne Jungjohann. “We want to offer them a platform.” But the group is also looking to engage with Greens across the United States and has set up a Facebook presence to allow those living further afield to contribute to the debate. “Our purpose is to have a group that is following German domestic politics and influencing the Green agenda in Germany on international topics,” said Jungjohann, who is also Environmental Program Director at the Boell Foundation.

Countering anti-americanism

Anti-Americanism is another area where the group believes it could have important input. Reinhard Buetikofer, co-leader of the Greens, welcomed the establishment of the party’s Washington DC branch, saying it was a positive sign for bilateral dialog.

“This is not supposed to be a one-way street — it’s an exchange, it’s about cooperation,” Buetikofer said. “It will attest to the fact that the Green party is open towards exchange with the United States. You do not have to be German to join the group, but an affiliation with Germany is required and German will be its working language.

It is the Greens’ second branch abroad. The party also has a group based in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Commission.

[via Sam Smith's D.C. City Desk]

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|| 4/11/2008 || 6:42 pm || Comments Off || ||
The Yu Ji Tu map [1137] and a map of the distribution of Moslems in China [1922] via Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr.’s trip to northwest China [1936]

Page 6 of Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr. photo album featuring the photograph of the Yu Ji Tu
Image from the Harvard University Library

Last night I came across Harvard Library’s digitized photo album of Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr.’s trip to northwest China. Of all things to have on the inside of the album cover, there was a small map showing “Moslems in China”. After flipping through a few pages I spotted a photograph of one of China’s most famous maps: the Yu Ji Tu.

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The Daily Render By

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future.