The Daily Render

by

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

| FRONT PAGE | GEOSPATIAL ART | DC HISTORY / TIMELINE | NEWS | COLONIST | FOUND MAPS | FRACTALS |
| PHOTOGRAPHY | ANTIQUE | DESIGN | VIDEO | | CONTACT |

YouTube Doubler [Scratch Slavery Revisited]
|| 4/13/2008 || 3:32 pm || Comments Off on YouTube Doubler [Scratch Slavery Revisited] || ||

YouTube Doubler

Links to my first YouTube mashup “Scratch Slavery.”

This weekend I found Brian Kane’s YouTube Doubler and smiled. In August of last year I coded a proto-version of YouTube Doubler to create my first YouTube mashup “Scratch Slavery.” The mashup juxtaposed Rory Mayberry, a former subcontractor employee for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, giving testimony at the Oversight Committee’s hearing on “Allegations of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse at the New U.S. Embassy in Iraq,” with a simple beat track by DJ Loomy showing the Vestax Controller One turntable.

What I would like to see next is YouTube Wall. In November of last year, I was able to place four YouTube videos together to create a YouTube Quadrupler. I think it would be interesting to scale down the size of the YouTube videos and create video tiling where the different video screens make a design. It would also be interesting to use multiple scales to create border of videos with a large video in the center. A random YouTube selector (a la Lost Series) would be a lot of fun because of the vast of amount of videos that could be chosen.



Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth
|| 8/16/2005 || 6:02 pm || Comments Off on Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth || ||

I heard about this news last week…
Via NBC

Troops Worried About Popular Google Feature
Soldiers Worry About Insurgents Using Information

POSTED: 9:48 pm PDT August 11, 2005
UPDATED: 9:58 pm PDT August 11, 2005

SAN DIEGO — A popular new feature on Google’s Web site has troops in Iraq upset, NBC 7/39 reported on Thursday.

The “Google Earth Program” has satellite maps from around the globe, where people can zoom in on their houses — or a military base in Iraq.

The pictures are a year old, but troops say many things have not changed, such as aircraft that are in the same locations.

The program can show people the latitude and longitude of any spot. Troops said they fear insurgents can use all of the information to aim mortar rounds.

A local retired Marine said he does see some risk in the site.

“Clever and devious people can come up with any number of ways to use this and keep themselves out of harm’s way while doing significant damage to U.S. forces or any of the coalition,” said retired Lt. Col. Thomas Richards.

Google said the images are all publicly available; the program just puts them in one place.

Last night I decided to do some “research” and found that Google has actually changed their imagery in Baghdad, Iraq. I know this because when Google Earth came out I visited Baghdad and it had the same Digital Globe imagery that I downloaded to make some of my Baghdad renderings with. Look at the imagery below. Notice at big hole around downtown Baghdad? That contains the Greenzone as well as most of the important buildings in the Iraqi government.

It looks like Google has taken some heat and put in some older imagery… I don’t know for sure if it’s older or not, but I’ll have to check. If I remember correctly, I downloaded some pre-illegal-invasion imagery from Digital Globe, but I’ll have to check…

Related Censorship Entries:

Related Google Earth Entries:



dreams
|| 9/26/2004 || 12:00 pm || Comments Off on dreams || ||

Last night I had a very interesting dream. Early on in my slumber I witnessed an Air France plane crash. I was in the backseat of some non-descript car and I looked up and saw the plane flying overhead. It looked like it was about to land, but it stalled and began to spin and then crashed about 500 ft from me. We stopped the car and I got out to survey the damage. Then the context of the dream completely changed to something different. Last time I had a dream similar to this, some bad things happened. I hope it was just a vivid dream and nothing else.



Greenzone #5
|| 9/20/2004 || 3:25 pm || Comments Off on Greenzone #5 || ||

This map uses copyrighted imagery and is on-line for educational purposes.



welcome to the greenzone
|| || 2:04 am || Comments Off on welcome to the greenzone || ||

Today I “Greened the Festival” at the Green Festival. Which is simply a glorified way of saying I worked a recycling center. Being that I have my own recycling center concept, I loved my job! However it was amazing to see how little people knew about recycling; more specifically recycling plastics. Even the little pamphlet given out by the DC department of Public Works, which oversees the recycling initiatives, has no mention of the plastic resin codes! I completely understand why there is such a disconnect in this simple but important chore. It could easily read “Look under the bottom of the plastic container and find the recycling triangle. We only take plastics with #1& #2” Instead it reads:

Plastic Bottles and Jugs: Narrow-necked containers only.
Some examples include:
-Soda, juice, pop, and liquor bottles
-Shampoo, conditioner, and laundry detergent bottles
-Window, bathroom, and kitchen cleaner bottles

There needs to be some PSA’s about looking at the bottom of plastic containers. Or maybe not…. I mean, people would then realize that they throw away a lot of plastics. I am still working out my plan to recycle polypropylene aka plastic #5. Grrr. Regardless, I am very happy that I was able to spread some ecological wisdom to some fellow festival goers. I just hope they recycle more. I plan on it.

Ironically, this rendering is of the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad. I made it because I overheard some news about how both the U.S. & Iraqi military were having trouble keeping the area safe. It just turns out that I was at the Green Festival all weekend! I also opted to upload a higher resolution version of the rendering to give a better look at the area. The graphic was rendered at 16,000 X 12,000 and the original satellite image of Baghdad was a 1 meter image (aka 1 pixel represents 1 meter on the ground), but the high resolution version is only 5,000 X 3,750, which means that what you see on the ground is roughly a 16 meter image (aka 1 pixel equals 16 meters or so). Sorry if this is confusing jargon, but its important to me :-) Just imagine what the full size will look like printed. Yet in reality the Daily Render for today should be this old one!



the daily render
|| 8/26/2004 || 6:27 am || Comments Off on the daily render || ||

baghdad bissau lenz2

Its official. This blog has changed its name to a more fitting name. [drum roll]

Nikolas ® Schiller’s blog is now called “The Daily Render

I mentioned this name change before but I didn’t seriously think about changing it. However after reading through my website logs and finding that someone has blogrolled me (speak up whoever you are!), I went to www.bloglines.com to see if I could find out who. After searching, I found out that someone else had already taken the name “Mental Masturbation.” So why name your blog with a name someone else is already using? Especially with a tagline like “Blowing Your Mind in a Consequence Free Environment,” with all due respect, “Keystrokes for a Better World” just sounds dumb compared to “blowing your mind” (the consequence free environment part is lame, because there are consequences to everything one says). So from now on this blog’s name will be “The Daily Render” and the tagline will be “Your Daily Dose of Visual Stimulation.” I mean, I’ve mainly used this blog as a forum to display and critique my near-daily renderings, so why not follow through and name it properly. Plus, as I mentioned before, “Mental Masturbation is a bit over the top as far as names go.

Since the subject of Daily Renderings is now in the spotlight, I must comment on the rendering above. I really do love the satellite image being used for the torus, but I still don’t like the inner satellite image of Baghdad much. As I mentioned earlier, the original satellite image of the Green Zone in Baghdad was too large for computer to handle (it might have been due to the fact that half of my CPU speed was tied up rendering another graphic) so I had to scale down the image to roughly half its size. This meant that the 1 meter satellite image (meaning that each pixel represented one meter on the ground) was reduced to a 4 meter image (if you half the size of the image you don’t get 2 meters but 4 because the former pixel is square, not rectangular), and with the reduction in size, the new satellite image has half the amount of detail as before. Thus I’d rather have the inner satellite image have more detail. Plus it makes the spherical projection (aka the “lenz”) look more round- which, afterall, is the reason why I began this series in the first place. I am going to snag another image from one of the “Earth As Art” galleries and use the same Guinea-Bissau satellite image for torus. Expect another image in about 8-10 hours!

In other news, if you have a moment download the latest issue of the INDYPENDENT. It is chalk full of what will be going down in NYC next week during the RNC. I wish I could go, but money is tight and I feel I can be more of service here for some reason. I am helping load a puppet for Adam this morning, so at least I am helping out in some way.



money troubles
|| 8/25/2004 || 3:37 pm || Comments Off on money troubles || ||

baghdad bissaulenz lenz

This rendering is pretty good. There isn’t too much to say about it, except that I need make a digital installation with all of these renderings. I think I am going to make a page with all the thumbnails arranged in some mildly artistic way. It will look good, but in the meantime I need to fnd some stable income! Bills are due and the money isn’t adding up the way I want it to! Eeek! I added a “donate” button at the bottom of the right panel, but I sincerely doubt anyone will throw me any loot. I mean I’ve never donated to anyone before, but maybe I should start. In the meantime I am going to be submitting my resume to a bunch of different temp agencies and calling my family to ask for money (a first!). If I would have done this earlier this month and not spent so much money last weekend with my guest I don’t think this would have happened, but that is hindsight and its always 20/20. Yet if anyone has anything they need done for them and are willing to pay me, drop me a line!

The next rendering will use the same inner satellite image as the first Guinea-Biassau rendering, but with the torus being one that I’ll create. Expect something special in about 9 hours….



lucklaster lenz
|| 8/24/2004 || 2:54 pm || Comments Off on lucklaster lenz || ||

baghdad lake lenz

I think this rendering is just okay- it could be better. I chose to make the “lenz” aka the central sphere less round and it made the central image look very flat, which is not what I wanted it to look like. However, I do like the way the torus turned out as well as the green halo that surround the torus- call it a Green Halo for the Green Zone!

Last night while adding the new links section “Eye in the Sky” (which are links to satellite imagery outlets), I found what looks like a treasure trove of images from the U.S. Geological Survey. Aside from tons of images that have to be purchased, they have two galleries of composite satellite images which can be downloaded. It is called the “Earth As Art Collection” (Gallery 1, Gallery 2) and the images are all roughly 200 megabytes each, and due to their generous sizes, I’ll be able to make massive renderings using them. Best yet, they are completely free to use. Unlike the images I have used from Space Imaging & Digital Globe, which might be subject copyrights, the USGS images seem to be free to use. I also think its funny that they call the gallery “Earth As Art,” because I am using them for just that, with some slight, but significant variations.

Right now I am rendering a 4-panelled reflection of Guinea-Bissau with the torus texture being the same image but with the colors inverted. It should look very interesting!



the double use of satellite images…
|| 8/19/2004 || 5:02 pm || Comments Off on the double use of satellite images… || ||

baghdadmonroviaeyebaghdadmonrovia

I made two new renderings using a 4-panel reflection satellite image of downtown Baghdad as the center and a 4-panel reflection satellite image of Monrovia, Liberia. I think they are absolutely beautiful! Most definitely my favorite renderings yet. I really am pleased with how the double use of inner and outer satellite images looks. I think I’ll make a couple more with Baghdad as the centeral image and just change the size & texture of the torus. So far this summer I’ve made about 30 of these images, and if I were to professionally have these printed I could definitely have an interesting exhibit- I’ll continue dreaming in the meantime!

I am starting to redesign Citizen Policies Institute’s website and I am excited about making this website look amazing! I’ll begin working on this shortly. In the meantime, I have a very special guest in town who I haven’t seen in a year! So I’m not sure how much work I’ll be able to do on my blog or my next website redesign. However, do to the passive nature of rendering graphics, I’ll probably churn out a few more in the meantime.





The Daily Render By
A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future.

©2004-2023 Nikolas R. Schiller - Colonist of the District of Columbia - Privacy Policy - Fair Use - RSS - Contact




::LAST 51 POSTS::

Fair Use


61 queries. 2.836 seconds.
Powered by WordPress

Photo by Charlie McCormick
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:

If you would like to use content found here, please consult my Fair Use page.

::THE QUILT PROJECTION::

Square
Square

Diamond
diamond

Hexagon
hexagon

Octagon
octagon

Dodecagon
Dodecagon

Beyond
beyond

::OTHER PROJECTIONS::

The Lenz Project
Lenz

Mandala Project
Mandala

The Star Series


Abstract Series
abstract

Memory Series
Memory

Mother Earth Series
Mother Earth

Misc Renderings
Misc

::POPULAR MAPS::

- The Los Angeles Interchanges Series
- The Lost Series
- Terra Fermi
- Antique Map Mashups
- Google StreetView I.E.D.
- LOLmaps
- The Inaugural Map
- The Shanghai Map
- Ball of Destruction
- The Lenz Project - Maps at the Library of Congress
- Winner of the Everywhere Man Award

::MONTHLY ARCHIVES::



::LOCATIONS & CATEGORIES::

  • 2004 Elections (2)
  • 2008 Elections (35)
  • 2014 Elections (4)
  • 2016 Elections (2)
  • ACLU (3)
  • Activism (287)
  • Adbusters (13)
  • Advertisements (33)
  • aerial photography (19)
  • Analysis (31)
  • Animals (30)
  • animated gif (7)
  • Animation (25)
  • Antique (104)
  • Apple (1)
  • Arabic (17)
  • Architectural Archeology (9)
  • Artomatic (25)
  • Astronomy (15)
  • Astrophotography (9)
  • Audio (2)
  • Awards (3)
  • Backpacking (2)
  • banner graphics (5)
  • Beat Google to the Map (56)
  • bicycle (23)
  • Birds-Eye View (5)
  • Blaeu (10)
  • Book Covers (7)
  • Bridge (10)
  • Building (15)
  • calendar (28)
  • calligraphy (6)
  • Capital (61)
  • Cars (18)
  • Cartography (74)
  • Cartoon (9)
  • Celestial (31)
  • Censorship (32)
  • Chinese (7)
  • Chronicling America (34)
  • Classroom (5)
  • Clothing (12)
  • Commentary (76)
  • Commissioned (27)
  • Credit Cards (3)
  • Crime (12)
  • Cyrillic Alphabet (1)
  • DAILY LINKS (30)
  • Dance (2)
  • DC History (93)
  • Design (102)
  • Digital Scrap (5)
  • Election (11)
  • ESA (3)
  • Facebook (19)
  • Fantasy (3)
  • Fashion (23)
  • Fast Food (2)
  • FBI (7)
  • Flag (15)
  • flickr (4)
  • Found Map (56)
  • French (9)
  • Gallery (54)
  • Gardening (25)
  • General (256)
  • George Bush (12)
  • GIS (69)
  • GMO Labeling (4)
  • Google (31)
  • Google AdSense (4)
  • Google AdWords (3)
  • Google Earth (28)
  • Google Maps (47)
  • Google Reader (4)
  • Google Streetview (8)
  • GPS (7)
  • Graffiti (5)
  • Greek (4)
  • Green (72)
  • Green Party (18)
  • Healthcare (15)
  • Highway (35)
  • Hiking (2)
  • Hipster (2)
  • history (151)
  • Holidays (10)
  • House Party (2)
  • Hubble Telescope (2)
  • Humor (88)
  • In The News (88)
  • Insects (2)
  • Interactive (74)
  • Interiors (4)
  • IP Trace (28)
  • Latin (22)
  • Law (15)
  • Lecture (11)
  • Legislation (19)
  • Library (21)
  • Library of Congress (66)
  • Location (1,018)
  • LOLMaps (3)
  • Mass Transit (6)
  • Memorandum (2)
  • meta-data (32)
  • Mobile Phone Applications (1)
  • Movie (3)
  • MrSID (4)
  • MSN (5)
  • Museum (5)
  • Music (48)
  • MySpace (6)
  • NASA (10)
  • National Archives (3)
  • News (182)
  • Obituary (2)
  • Oil (4)
  • Ornithology (4)
  • orthophotography (4)
  • OSCE (16)
  • Photography (134)
  • Poetry (18)
  • Portuguese (1)
  • postmodern (8)
  • QR code (9)
  • QTVR (4)
  • Radio (3)
  • Renderings (675)
  • RSS (3)
  • Seasons (12)
  • Sold (40)
  • Spanish (7)
  • Speech (5)
  • Sports (1)
  • Stadium (40)
  • statehood (94)
  • Statistics (2)
  • Stellarium (4)
  • Stereogram (1)
  • Street (21)
  • Street Art (10)
  • Submissions (5)
  • Tattoo (2)
  • Testimony (2)
  • time-lapse (19)
  • Torture (3)
  • Transportation (6)
  • TV (23)
  • Twitter (5)
  • University (41)
  • Update (24)
  • Vegetarianism (2)
  • Video (49)
  • Vimeo (18)
  • visualization (36)
  • Washington Critic (2)
  • Weather (19)
  • Web Crawler (9)
  • Wikipedia (14)
  • Wordpress (4)
  • Wordpress Upgrade (2)
  • World Wind (3)
  • Yahoo (6)
  • YouTube (113)
  • Zodiac (23)




  • thank you,
    come again!