Google Earth API for Web!! and new additions to the NYC FREE CONCERT CALENDAR!

Google Earth API for web!!!!!!!



I've added the free Wednesday night Madison Square Park summer concerts to the Concert Calendar and...

McCarren Pool Announces Free Sunday Shows (Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York). I've added them to my Free Summer Concerts Calendar:

JUNE 29
The Hold Steady, The Loved Ones, J Roddy and the Business
JULY 6
Ronnie Spector, The Rabbit Factory Soul Revue, Featuring: Roscoe Robinson, Ralph 'Soul' Jackson, Hermon Hitson, and Wiley & The Checkmates
JULY 13
(Headliner TBA), Matt + Kim, The Whip
JULY 20
Liars, Fuck Buttons, Team Robespierre
JULY 27
MGMT, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Ting Tings
AUGUST 3
Black Lips, Deerhunter, King Khan + His Shrines, Tall Firs
AUGUST 10
TBA
AUGUST 17
Aesop Rock, Panther, Special guests
AUGUST 24
TBA


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River To River Concerts, TomTom deal for TeleAtlas, KML to Shp converter, Google/ESRI keynote, trash as art, and 3D Earth iphone app

River To River NYC concerts and events are starting up. Many of these concerts can be found at my free concert calendar.

From CNET "EU greenlights TomTom deal for TeleAtlas."

Here's a kml to shape converter that I tried out. I got it to work once but now I keep getting the same error. More on this to come...

Where 2.0's Google/ESRI keynote.

More and more I'm seeing trash as art works by artists.

And last but not least check out this sweet iphone app that tilts along with a 3D Earth.

NYC shrinking; Return of One-man Bands; Free Seeds and GeoBallon markers

New York City is shrinking! or just refining its land area measurements. I'm amazed, yet not surprised that NYC DCP had this major oversight.



image from NY Times showing what the 17 sq. miles may be worth

One-man band: Owen Pallet of Final Fantasy from NY Times

Lately, I've been linking to a lot of New York Times articles. Perhaps its because of my recently installed RSS feeds or just peak in my interests. There is a great article on the "Return of the One-Man Band" featuring St. Vincent, Panda Bear and more. The article puts a great emphasis on the ability for one to create music by themselves yet play shows with more than an acoustic guitar. Some of these one-person groups play a multitude of instruments or tinker with a few samplers and a laptop. Either way, we can all hope that we won't see any of them with cymbals tied between their knees. (j/k)

Get your free wildflower seeds at Fort Greene's Artisan Market on Sat. 5/31. Help the bees!!! I'll stop by early on my way biking from Chinatown to Long Beach.


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And lastly, learn to make sweet geoBallons from Geochalkboard.

Have a great Memorial Day!

Google/ESRI!!! and other news

Everyone's been talking about the Google/ESRI partnership. Here's a posting from the official Google Enterprise Blog. I'm still not sure how this integration will play out.
-James Fee is worrying about the Google/ESRI partnership and what that means for spatial data.

Sorry about the lack of posting...busy at work and developing a virtual CV website.

New York City's Fleet Week is here so the ships are currently coming up the Hudson.

Via NY Times-Local Brooklynite grows beer hops in his own backyard.

Google Maps Flash API and Wind-Powered Town

Google Maps Flash API - read more here.

Read about a town running solely on wind here

or read about it below from CoolTown Studios

Wind-powered town in the U.S.

Rock Port, Missouri may only have a population of 1300, but it claims a title that no other community in the U.S. can - all of its energy is generated by a renewable resource. In fact, its four $90 million 1.25 MW wind turbines producing 16 million kilowatt hours annually leaves 3 million kilowatt hours in excess.

How was it financed?

That can best be explained via this CNN Money example involving five windmills, five farmers, and a total project cost of $10 million:

A creditor, like John Deere (extensive capital, farmer friendly) puts up $4,950,000. The farmers contribute just $10,000 each. The remaining $5 million comes from a bank loan.

The farmers' cooperative secures a contract to sell power to a local utility, then puts up the wind turbines. The projects are usually fairly small in scale, say 5 to 10 turbines producing 7.5 to 15 megawatts of power in total, or enough to power about 5,000 to 10,000 homes.

Deere gets the federal production tax credit of about 2 cents per kilowatt hour and just about all of the proceeds from selling the power for the first 10 years.

The farmers get a maintenance fee of about $20,000 a year each for managing the turbines - keeping the access roads plowed, calling technicians for repairs, handling the paper work with the utility.

After 10 years, when the loan is paid off and Deere has recouped its investment plus profit, the ownership structure flips, with the farmers becoming majority owners.

What's holding up other towns? The factories to build the huge wind turbines need subsidies to get off the ground, no different than our road system. Once the government extends a wind energy tax credit program for such production look for thousands of towns to join Rock Port.

Local - Jersey kids fight to ride, Laptop theives found by Apple technology, and new Ratatat

Local Jersey kids fight to ride bikes to school

check out this interesting article from the NY Times - thieves beware
Stolen Laptop Helps Turn Tables on Suspects


Guitar electronic Brooklyners Ratatat are releasing some new music.

Myanmar Disaster - getting the science to those in charge

We are kicking off an exciting water pollution forecast model at work and I'm very excited about planning the GIS component of the project. Lately though I'm angered with what went on in Myanmar. Over and over research and advice are ignored by decision/policy-makers. While investigating new technologies and GIS methods, should geographers also be doing more to spread data and information to the uninformed regardless of social hierarchy status. The 'trickle-down' approach to natural disaster information clearly doesn't work.

-text following below is from Vector 1 blog

Myanmar: Forecasting Worked, Mitigation - Response Failed Again

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) supplied the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) of Myanmar with information about cyclone Nargis as early as April 27. The WMO reported that “The New Delhi Office of the India Meteorological Department started to issue RSMC advisories at 00 UTC every 3 hours on 27 April, which continued until 06 UTC on 3 May. The last advisory said “the status of Nargis is a Severe Cyclonic Storm (50 knots) about 90 km south-west of Yangon”. The first forecast of landfall was issued at 06UTC on 1 May (36 hours in advance of landfall), which said that “Nargis will cross the Myanmar coast between 16 to 18 degrees north by the night of 2 May”. At 21 UTC of 1 May, it was forecast that “the maximum wind speed at landfall is expected to be 90 knots”. At 09 UTC on 2 May, the forecast was that “Nargis will cross near 16 degree North by 12 UTC with 90 knots wind speed”.

The question that needs to be addressed is, “if all of our spatial information systems are capable of forecasting, and for all intents and purposes are quite accurate, why is there still so much death and destruction?” Does this bode well for any other place on the planet in the future?

The WMO says,

“Effective early warning systems involve: (i) observing, monitoring and forecasting the hazards; (ii) development of authoritative and understandable warning messages that include hazard and risk information; (iii) timely dissemination of warnings to authorities and those at risk; and (iv) emergency preparedness and response measures at community level based on warning information. These capacities must be supported by clear national and local emergency plans and legislation which clearly lay out the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies in the operational warning system. “

Clearly I-III were happening. Much more work needs to be done on IV. Other communities should take note.

Tragedy in Myanmar and Google App Engine

Tragedy struck Myanmar.

Here's a satellite image from the tragic natural disaster that hit Myanmar. See this blog to find out more about it.

I finally got notification that I can now develop for Google App Engine. I watched all the videos and how-to's like a month ago so I forgot everything.

Grand Theft Auto Google Map App and latest Animal Collective EP

Check out the GTA 4 Google Map App


Animal Collective just released an EP called Water Curses. It's only four songs and is pretty tame but has some very cool moments sonically. (2.7/5) Check out the review from PrefixMag.

WFC gets rid of overnight bike rack use during Bike Month, Quantum GIS 10 released & new Google Geocode for API

May is bike month all over and in New York City. So while everyone is amped about bikes my company's building is now restricting people from using the bike racks overnight (see below).

Quantum GIS version 0.10.0 released with some GUI improvements and label and style upgrades. QGIS has been my Open Source GIS of choice as of late.

The latest addition to the Google Maps API is an improved geocoding service which sets addresses back to the proper side of the street and lands the point on the roof of the building. I haven't QA/QC'd it yet to see if its always the correct building. It'd be interesting to see if they created unique address points or come up with some other solution.

Google Streetview Image of the overpass near WFC 1's bike racks.

Below is a copy of an email by Brookfield Properties, who manages the World Financial Center. Apparently, bike rack users can no longer lock their bikes up after work. So if it rains or for whatever reason a bike commuter does not feel it to be safe/convenient to ride home they will dispose of the bikes.

To the Tenants of One World Financial Center:

This e-mail serves as notification that all bicycles must be removed from our bicycle racks by 10 p.m. on Friday, May 2, 2008. Any bicycles remaining past 10 p.m. on Friday will be removed and disposed of. Notifications have been posted by all bicycle racks that bicycles are to be removed each night by 10 p.m. or they will be removed accordingly. This policy has also been discussed in our Tenant Security Meetings. Please pass this e-mail on to your co-workers.

Thank you,

Brookfield Properties Management Office
200 Liberty Street, Building Office
New York, NY 10281

www.brookfieldproperties.com