The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

YouTube video of DC Colonists demonstrating at the first Nationals game at RFK Stadium
|| 2/18/2009 || 11:38 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

On April 3rd, 2005, a group of DC residents staged a demonstration at the Nationals first exhibition game at RFK stadium. The group bought up a block of seats in the outfield and held up signs spelling out two messages: “Strike 4 DC Statehood” when players would strike out and “Bush Play Ball With DC” when the players would walk.

This video is not new per se, in fact I wrote about it when I first added to the video to my website, however at the time I was avoiding YouTube. Yesterday I decided to fire up the old external hard drive, found this clip in it’s original DV format, and I decided to compress & upload the video to my YouTube account….. and yes, I was the one dressed in “colonial attire” :-)

YouTube music video of Natalia Clavier’s “Azul”
|| 2/17/2009 || 6:27 pm || Comments Off on YouTube music video of Natalia Clavier’s “Azul” || ||

I’ve been a fan of Natalia’s for a couple of years now and always enjoy her songs. Check her MySpace or Facebook for more information. If you haven’t yet, pick up her most recent CD “Nectar”. I’m told she’s currently in Washington, DC recording songs for her next album.

“Let Us Now End American Colonialism” – A speech by Ernest Gruening delivered to the Delegates of the Alaska Constitutional Convention on November 9, 1955
|| 2/16/2009 || 11:10 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

As someone who has advocated for statehood for the District of Columbia since I first learned about this civil rights issue, I cannot help but look to past examples of how others struggled for the same equality. The other day I began reading about how Alaska became the 49th state in America and realized how many of their struggles are similar to the ones faced today by the people of the District of Columbia.

Below is a speech by Ernest Gruening, the former Territorial Governor of Alaska (who eventually became the first Alaskan senator 1958-1968), which was delivered to the Delegates of the Alaska Constitutional Convention on November 9, 1955. I find the speech quite interesting because there are so many parallels to the plight of the District residents. It should be noted, somewhat sadly, that the 1960 census showed there were less than 300,000 people in both Alaska and Nevada, compared to 762,000 residents living in the District of Columbia at the time.

Photo from the University of Alaska

We meet to validate the most basic of American principles, the principle of “government by consent of the governed.”

We take this historic step because the people of Alaska who elected you, have come to see that their long standing and unceasing protests against the restrictions, discriminations and exclusions to which we are subject have been unheeded by the colonialism that has ruled Alaska for 88 years. The people of Alaska have never ceased to object to these impositions even though they may not have realized that such were part and parcel of their colonial status. Indeed the full realization that Alaska is a colony may not yet have come to many Alaskans, nor may it be even faintly appreciated by those in power who perpetuate our colonial servitude.

Half a century ago, a governor of Alaska, John Green-Brady, contemplating the vain efforts of Alaskans for nearly forty years to secure even a modicum of workable self-government, declared:

“We are graduates of the school of patience.”
Continue reading:

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[DAILY LINKS] February 15th
|| 2/15/2009 || 7:00 am || + Render A Comment || ||

These are my shared links for February 14th

Snow Logo – Stamp your logo in the snow! Works better in colder climates.
JR Finishes His Most Ambitious Project Yet In The Slums In Kibera, Kenya – I wonder if this rooftop artowrk will be captured by satellites? It would make for a great map.
New York Dane – Cycle Chic NYC – "The secret of riding a bicycle as an adult is to pedal just hard enough to keep the machine upright, then to increase speed very gradually, but without becoming too breathless to hold a conversation or hum a tune." From The Discovery of France by Graeme Robb.

The 23rd Amendment – Time Magazine – March 31, 1961
|| 2/14/2009 || 6:05 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

I found this article when I was looking up more information about the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Thanks to a succession of oversights by the Founding Fathers and early Congresses, the residents of the District of Columbia have never enjoyed one particular constitutional right cherished by all other Americans: the privilege of voting. There was no reasoning attending the oversights; it was just plain neglect.† Last week Rhode Island cast the 36th affirmative vote for the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, giving 746,000 Washingtonians the right to vote in presidential elections — and three electoral votes. Ohio and Kansas are expected to ratify the amendment this week, making the necessary two-thirds majority for official adoption (only one legislature—Arkansas—rejected the amendment outright, on the ground that 54% of the District’s citizens are Negroes).

But after 161 years, Washingtonians will be limited to voting for the President and Vice President. They will continue to have no representative in Congress, no voice in their municipal government.

†One segment of the capital gained the right to vote in 1846, when one-third of the District’s land area, now Arlington County, was ceded back to Virginia.

What this article shows to me is how racist America used to be….
In some ways, even with an African American president, it still is.
sigh

Related 23rd Amendment Entries:

[DAILY LINKS] February 14th
|| || 7:00 am || + Render A Comment || ||

These are my links for February 13th through February 14th:

Let’s Amend the Constitution! – H.J. Res. 2 would provide for the voting rights of citizens in U.S. territories or commonwealths. Why is my Delegate not a cosponsor?
Truckloads of hard disks – Which is the fastest way to send 500 gigabytes of data? The performance of internet connections compared with a parcel service, a hiker, a car and a carrier pigeon.
Proper Form Applies In 140 Characters or Less As Well – I still have issues related to the semantics of "following" someone
Harnessing Personal Movement for Power in Rural Africa – the invention looks kinda clunky but the concept is important
Real Life Multitouch – a nice use of video perspective to imitate the iPhone

YouTube Music Video of Thievery Corporation’s “The Numbers Game” featuring Chuck Brown
|| 2/13/2009 || 6:24 pm || Comments Off on YouTube Music Video of Thievery Corporation’s “The Numbers Game” featuring Chuck Brown || ||

The lyrics to this song stand in stark contrast to Chuck Brown’s appearances in DC Lottery commercials and for that reason alone I really like the song. The video shows a lot of footage from Ward 8 in Washington, DC that I hardly visit. In fact, its been about 2 years since I’ve been to the area where much of this video was filmed…

[DAILY LINKS] February 12th
|| || 7:00 am || + Render A Comment || ||

These are my links for February 12th:

Polar Bears in the U.K. – I bet this could easily be done in the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC.
HOW INSTANT RUNOFF'S WORKING IN VERMONT – Because candidates know they may need the second choices from voters who support other candidates as their top pick, the campaigns are remaining civil, and attempting to reach out to a broader constituency, than would be typical in a plurality election.
Devolve Me – Upload a picture and see yourself turned into an much earlier version of human!
Market Share Update – MapQuest continues to hold a small lead over Google Maps

A Gigapan of the New York Public Library Quilt
|| 2/12/2009 || 12:40 pm || Comments Off on A Gigapan of the New York Public Library Quilt || ||

A couple weeks ago, after seeing the fabulous Gigapan of the 2009 Inauguration by David Bergman, I decided to try out Gigapan for myself.

In the past I’ve used Zoomify to do roughly the same type of zooms, but over the years I’ve found that it has some important limitations. Most notably, I’ve found that Zoomify freezes up after I’ve been using it for a couple of minutes, which would always force me to reload the page. I believe this has to do with the Flash buffer or cache filling up with data and slowing down the viewing experience. Maybe the software engineers have changed this flaw, but I haven’t been too keen on adding all my maps as Zoomifiable entries because it takes too much time and I’m aware of a means to reverse engineer the tiles into the original map.

What is unique about this Gigapan, unlike all of my previous Zoomify maps, is that I went through the extra steps of saving the original map at its full size in .jpg format. In the past when I’d use Zoomify, I’d use a map that was saved at 9,000 x 6,000 pixels, which is half the original size of 18,000 x 12,000 pixels. The reason I shrunk the map was because I was unable to save the full-sized map in .jpg format using my photo manipulation software. Since the free Zoomify converter only took .jpgs, instead of the native tiff file format, I would have to resave the file at its largest size in .jpg format, which was around 9,000 x 6,000 pixels.

In order to bypass this current limitation, I chose to use Graphic Converter to open the original 18,000 x 12,000 tiff file and save it as a .jpg. The inherent problem here is that even with a somewhat new computer, it takes about 15 minutes to open the 216 megapixel file and another 10 minutes to save the file. In the end, the final .jpg saved to about 65 megabytes, which is considerably smaller than the original file size of about 500 megabytes. With this newly compressed map being so much smaller in size, I was able to upload it and share it here.

As regular readers know, a printed 60″ x 40″ copy of this map was donated to the Map Division at the New York Public Library back in October when I gave my presentation to the New York Map Society. If you are in New York City and curious about what it looks like printed out, head over to the library and ask to see it.

If you are subscribed to my RSS feed and are reading this on through your RSS reader, please click here to view it on my website or click here to view it on the Gigapan website.

Related Interactive Entries:

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[DAILY LINKS] February 11th
|| || 7:00 am || + Render A Comment || ||

These are my links for February 11th from 15:25 to 18:10:

Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand – when you brag about having more work up than any other street artist in the city you are bound to get busted…
TVCC Update – I can't help but compare this building to World Trade Center #7….
Milky Way Transit Authority – tonight I am going to take Orion (Red Line)
Lock Bumping – these videos show how easily conventional door locks can be compromised. I am looking into getting new locks for my house.
Destruction in Gaza – links to the BBC map
Show off your offline commitment! – t-shirts for people going through offline detox

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: