NYGeog

Geography, GIS, Geospatial, NYC, etc.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Indie on Billboard charts & ice fishing this weekend

text and chart from 13 WHAM.com - Perfect Weather for Ice Fishing

(Rochester, N.Y.) – There's always a chorus of people complaining about frigid weather. But it’s more fun to listen to the ones singing –“Hallelujah -- it's cold outside!”


Your friends in Florida don't know what they're missing.

On Conesus Lake, this was the perfect day for doing what Joe Yantachka has been doing since he was a boy. “We've always been coming down in the wintertime; it's a good time,” he said. “Ice skating? I don't do too much of that no more. But I do a lot of ice fishing."

He explained, "You gotta enjoy fishing first of all. And you gotta enjoy the cold. You can't be a real wimp about it."

The shelter helps, and the food from home. “I’ve got soup and hot chocolate and coffee,” he said.

Joe already knows what's for dinner. "Catch northern pike, bass and bluegill -- and if you get real lucky every once in a while, you get a perch…the fish taste so much better when they come out of that real super cold water like this”.

Just another perfect day.

Ice thickness is not uniform on any body of water; the below chart is a guideline only--to be used along with good judgement.

Ice Fishing & Ice Thickness Safety
Source: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Ice ThicknessPermissible Load
2 inchesone person on foot
3 inchesgroup in single file
7.5 inchesone car (2 tons)
8 incheslight truck (2.5 tons)
10 inchestruck (3.5 tons)
12 inchesheavy truck (7-8 tons)
15 inches10 tons
20 inches25 tons

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009

Offense place names, Microsoft Vista replacement, etc etc.

NY Times reports on possibly offense British place names.

Microsoft OS for replacing Vista: Windows 7.

Rising temperatures in Antarctic
a; Researchers report in the journal Nature that temperatures across Antarctica rose an average of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The study looked at 50 years of temperature data. Researcher Eric Steig explains why the warming trend wasn't detected until recently.

I haven't gotten a hold of the hype behind Twitter, but none-the-less here are some Twitter tips.

Transfer Jet: the wireless new USB.

Google AJAX API playground.

Monday, January 19, 2009

New music Tuesday, Obamarama, Map of Prop 8 supporters and NYC restaurant week

This week will have some great new music releases. I'm particularly looking forward to Andrew Bird's Noble Beast and Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion. Andrew Bird's new album Noble Beast will now be coming out Tuesday and has an instrumental disc with the deluxe package. NPR is hosting streaming versions of these full albums here (Andrew Bird) and here (Animal Collective). I'll be attending the Bowery Ballroom Animal Collective show this Wednesday. Check out this NY Times article on Animal Collective and Pitchfork's interview and review of Merriweather Post Pavillion. The NY Times also did a piece on Andrew Bird and check out his latest blog post on Measure to Measure.

Yo-Yo Ma announces collaborative contest winners.

Living room jazz concerts article from NY Times.

And last but not least, the Obama inauguration will occur tomorrow. The NY Times has this cool map of the festivities.

And here's an article about how those who supported Proposition 8 (law to ban gay marraige in California) who were on a list were mapped out on Google Maps. An endless list of issues are raised by this map.

And don't forget its Restaurant Week here in NYC. So make a reservation and save some cash while dining at some of the city's best establishments.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

No Impact Man doc

The No Impact Man documentary film debuts at the Sundance Film Festival this Friday.

GLOBAL WARMING! The headlines scream it; the thermometer confirms it; but few of us do much to address it. Author Colin Beavan and his family are pictures of liberal complacency—sophisticated, takeout-addicted New Yorkers who refuse to let moral qualms interfere with good old-fashioned American consumerism. Then Colin turns things upside down. For his next book, he announces he's becoming No Impact Man, testing whether making zero environmental impact adversely affects happiness. The hitch is he needs his wife, Michelle—an espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping Business Week writer—and their toddler to join the experiment.A year without electricity, cars, toilet paper, and nonlocal food isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Or is it? As Michelle contends with caffeine and shopping withdrawal, compost worms, and defending her dreams in the face of Colin’s household hegemony, she’s gradually transformed by this life-without-wastefulness. Meanwhile, Colin’s numerous media appearances unleash a viral rash of criticism among bloggers and friends, raising doubts about the project’s integrity. Is it ostentatious or altruistic? Hypocritical or visionary?Whatever the conclusion, no one can deny we’re going to have to alter our habits radically to achieve sustainability. Through the intimate prism of conflict within a contemporary marriage, No Impact Man suggests that individual change can be the first step in a quantum leap toward a systemic, societal shift. And the temporary discomfort just might be worth it.

Monday, January 12, 2009

California rail project, biking politician, Cal. Rail project delays & Google Earth in presentations

image from NYTimes

Mapping the Sea and its Mysteries - an atlas of the sea.

A bicycling politician - spreading the word about bikes.

California high speed rail project in limbo. The economic crisis has suspended progress for an initiative to build a state-wide rail network.

Palm starts presentation with Google Earth.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

NYGeog's Best New Music of 2008 Mix download and a whole lot of other stuff

I've been trying to reproject some .dem files in ArcGIS and had to go all the way to using ArcInfo Workstation commands. It was one of those, 'oh this will take an hour' kind of thing to taking much longer to figure out. It looks like Global Mapper is the better software to do this rather than ArcGIS.

NYGeog's Best New Music of 2008 Mix
Download it here or from the FTP folder here.

1. Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace) - Yo-Yo Ma
I picked this song because 2008 felt like a tumultous year with violence and global economic meltdown and with hope that 2009 will be more peaceful than 2008.

2. Brothersport - Animal Collective
Brothersport will be released with Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion in late Jan. of 2009 but was leaked in November. This shows the transition of AC to a more mainstream yet still interesting sound.

3. Music Which Feeds the Guests - We All Have Hooks for Hands
We All Have Hooks for Hands is a cool band from North Dakota or Montana or something. I love this instrumental track from their album.

4. Blue Ridge Mountains - Fleet Foxes
The Fleet Foxes experienced great success in 2008 with their wonderful harmonies and and pastoral songscapes. Enjoy this one and check out all their material.

5. rr Vs. D - Au
Au's rr Vs. D is a fun whirling instrumental sounding piece that really displays the exposiveness of this Pac Northwest band.

6. Keep Marchin' - Rafael Sadiq
Former Toni toni tone member Rafael Sadiq steps up from the producers chair and up to the microphone for this new soul record with an old soul sound.

7. Jitterkadie - Death Vessel
Death Vessel is a fairly new to me but has quite a few pleasant surprises on his latest record.

8. Kids - MGMT
MGMT has enjoyed a huge amount of growth from its hit track Time to Pretend. Here's another good song from their wildly successful Oracular Spectacular.

9. Pull This Blanket Off - The Raconteurs
Hardly as good as their last record, the Raconteurs have a few decent cuts from their release in 2008.

10. Souled Out - Conor Oberst
Bright Eyes frontman goes for the first self-title album in a while. Good album overall for Oberst.

11. See Fernando - Jenny Lewis
A more disjointed effort from Lewis, who's first solo effort Rabbit Fur Coat was amazing, yet a few songs are really an enjoyable listen.

12. Gobbledigook - Sigur Ros
A fun weird song from a weird band.

13. Borrowed Your Gun - Spiritualized
The meloncholy of Spiritualized is very addictive and is evident in his great record Songs in A + E.

14. My Bucket's Got a Whole In It - Willie and Wynton
Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis released a great Country blues/jazz record that captures how fun that old-time music can be. What a unlikely great album for 2008.

15. Flume - Bon Iver
I didn't get Bon Iver at first. However, once fall turned into winter here in NYC I learned what was so appealing and endearing about Justin Vernon's ode to solitude of a Wisconsin winter.

16. Eraser - No Age
No Age's Nouns had to be one of my top 3 favorite albums of 2008. I have no idea how to classify it but it really represented a great collection of songs/sounds.

17. Old Paint - Medeski, Martin & Wood
I haven't listened to much new jazz in 2008 but MMW's kids cd Let's Go Everywhere is truly fun.

18. Street Flash - Animal Collective
AC's 2008 release Water Curses EP was a great offshoot of the Strawberry Jam effort. I love listening to this song walking on the sidewalk or riding the subway.

19. Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend, however divisive, released an upbeat pop album at the start of 2008 that elevated them to the spotlight, proving that in the day of blogs, bands can be too popular before they even release an album.

20. All the Pretty Little Horses - Laura Gibson
Laura Gibson's hauntingly beautiful covers of old songs shows that no matter how many synths and loops a band employs sometimes the best sounds are just a voice and an acoustic guitar.

NPR is streaming Andrew Bird's album Noble Beast. The album comes out late this month but click here to listen to it in its entirety from the NPR music website.


-Brian Eno voices his opinion on the situation in Gaza.

-MTA has no new contract for Transit Workers.

-More trouble with the Deutsche Bank Building deconstruction; theft.

-NYC gets rid of its Yankee Stadium tickets to recoup some money.

Friday, January 2, 2009

2009! NYGeog's best new music of 2008 and Knitting Factory closes

Welcome to 2009.

I downloaded a copy of Miroir Noir - the film about the Arcade Fire. It is great for both its content and cinematography. My favorite moment is when Renee and Wynn are in an elevator singing, playing guitar and drumming on the elevator walls as you see the background change through the glass walls from the movement of the elevator as it travels up and down through the building.

NYGeog will be proud to present The Best New Music of 2008 CD featuring new songs by artists that were released in 2008. The concept is to make a mix CD that flows in a practical manner. So some songs that may be really good that came out in 2008 may not even make it on the mix if they don't fit. I will upload the files to an ftp so it can be downloaded as a zip file and the song names will be prefixed with the track number of the mix. So that and the track listing will be up soon.

The Knitting Factory is now closed and will reopen in Williamsburg. The area of Tribeca where the Knitting Factory once was is now a ritzy expensive neighborhood, which is too bad because the Knitting Factory was a short 5 block walk from my Chinatown abode and I've seen quite a few enjoyable shows there.

Old Knitting Factory Location.


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The old Luna Lounge Location where the Knitting Factory will be.


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