sw'as

Beyond the check-in

2011-02-10T23:01:52+10:00

The use of personal geographic data has very quickly become the next big thing on the social web and it's a driving force in the localisation of something that has been thought of as 'world wide' since its very inception. Indeed, the 'world wide web' was (and still is) amazing in large part because of its ability to circumvent the barriers of vast geographic space, but that novelty is over and the future is social and local.

The possibilities exposed by attaching geographic data to online content have excited me since the day I discovered I could geotag my photos on Flickr, and the much more recent explosion of services like FourSquare and Gowallla tells me I'm not alone.

Last time I got really caught up in a personal web project, the result was What do you suggest?, this time it's All The Places I Go.

Collecting and exploring personal geographic data

It's immediately obvious that some very interesting things can be done with a record of personal geographic data. But those two examples only scratch the surface; I wanted to dig deeper. Once I started though, one thing kept bothering me...the gaps.

Check-ins are quite isolated pieces of data; there are huge gaps in both the record, and types of analysis that can be performed. It's difficult or impossible to expose some of the facts that may be of most interest. A data set of discrete check-ins can tell you how many times you've been to Gertie's on a Wednesday night, but it can't tell you how long you spent there, let alone discover things like how long your average work day is.

For the duration of 2011, I'm going beyond the check-in: collecting a complete record of my geographic location.

Throughout the year, I'll be analysing the data and publishing the resulting charts, graphs, maps and statistics at alltheplacesigo.com. I've started by picking off some low-hanging fruit, like finding the locations I frequent the most, and spend the most time and doing a brief analysis of my average day.

The possibilites

Really, I've only just begun to think of the possibilities and I'm already overwhelmed with choice. There's definitely plenty to come - as a start I'm thinking things like:

data visualisations (heat maps, path animations, etc.)
comparisons between days/weeks/months/weekdays/weekends/etc.
integration with other online data sources like Flickr, Twitter, and last.fm, etc.)

There must be so many data visualisation possibilites I haven't thought of yet and it would be great to hear any ideas you might have. In fact, if you've got any questions or comments at all, please leave a comment below or get in touch (you can also leave comments directly on most pages at alltheplacesigo.com or message me on Twitter @drzax). I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sculpture at the Queensland Art Gallery

2010-11-28T22:19:04+10:00

For a good few months now, the Queensland Art Gallery has had a good portion of its sculpture collection. Something to be seen all too rarely for my liking. A few months back I enquired as to how long this collection would be on display and was worryingly informed that it was 'just a space filler.' So get down there while you can still see it!

I've managed to make my way down there to see it a few times now, and last weekend I finally made the time to add Sculpture at the Queensland Art Gallery to my growing collection of sculpture photography.

Although it's mostly bronzes on display, there are a good variety of artists and styles to see, including the likes of Auguste Rodin, Harold Parker, Jacob Epstein and one or two unknown Romans/Ancient Greeks.

I'm endlessly fascinated with the Bloomsbury Group, whose members and associates seem to crop up everywhere in 20th century art, literature, politics and philosophy. One of the sculptures on display is a portrait by Jacob Epstein of his daughter Kitty. Kitty (Kathleen) Garman, happens to share a name with her mother, Epstein's long time lover and second wife. Kathleen was one of the three Garman sisters, famous (in part) for their bohemian life styles and complex personal relationships with prominent artists, and intellectuals of the time. At one point Kathleen was shot and wounded by Epstein's wife Margaret, however the affair to continued, with Margaret even encouraging her husband into other affairs in the hope that he would soon get tired of it all and come back to her.

If you haven't yet, I highly recommend taking the time to see this exhibition before they all, sadly go back into storage (or on loan).

WP-Footnotes 4.0

2010-08-05T14:35:14+10:00

The first update to WP-Footnotes, my WordPress plugin for simple creation and maintenance of footnotes on a WordPress site has just hit the shelves.

It's the first update in over two years - sorry about the delay - and should bring the plugin inline with WordPress 3.0.x.

I suggest downloading it from the WordPress Extend site. If you have any bug reports or feature requests head on over the the WordPress Plugins Trac system. Thanks.

If you're a crack WP Plugin developer and want to contribute, get in touch. I think the two year timeframe for an update indicates that I could do with a little help. Do good work and I'll consider adding you as a committer.

What Do You Suggest? - V2

2010-07-19T19:27:48+10:00

It's been a while since I released the original WDYS and since then I've slowly been working on a feature I wanted from the very beginning, but didn't have time to implement: cross locale comparisons.

You can check them out now at What Do You Suggest v2.0.

Google's suggestions are tailored to your location. So for any given set of terms, Google will suggest something different depending on where you are in the world. You can now compare the suggestions made by Google across two locations. To take a (somewhat topical) example, if you're in Australia and you type the word Rudd into the Google search box, all of Google's suggestions are related to ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. However a Canadian doing the same thing will get an entirely different set of suggestions, with zero overlap (here they are compared.)

Personally, I find it fascinating to expose the differences in suggestions. Let me know if you find anything fascinating.

Although the suggestions Google makes are drawn (as far as I know) directly from the frequency and volume of searches made by users, this demonstrates the potential Google has to influence what people see, hear and learn about the world. Do you think it could inadvertently reinforce prejudices and stereotypes or escalate nationalistic thought or behaviour?

I don't expect the influence would be great, but it seems a logical conclusion to draw that it might have at least some effect. Especially when you consider that search results, not just suggestions are tailored to your location.

Notes

If you'd like to see a specific location or language added, let me know
I've added, a few locations and languages, but need additional help testing and adding letters, words and questions to the suggestion feature for languages other than English. Can you help?
At the time of v2 release, Google doesn't seem to be returning a count of results for each suggestion.

Have fun exploring. Leave a comment or get in touch if you find it interesting - I'd love to hear what you think.

GHD Resolutions 4/4/10

2010-04-15T18:10:13+10:00

Yeah, it's a little late.

My resolutions this year were:

Just Do It,
Take Financial Control, and
Engage More

More mixed results this month. I'm not feeling particularly motivated to do this, so it's going to be a laundry list this month:

Until recently I'd maintained Inbox Zero for nearly a month.
My Weekly Review seems to have become more of a Monthly Review - which obviously isn't good enough. Thursday mornings. No matter what. (Easier said than done.)
I've maintained my morning walking habit which is good. I'm starting to get a little bored of it and plan to step it up to a running habit soon. Having something goog to listen to helps. I've been bingeing on the Sunday Night Safran Podcast this week.
Wake time has slipped a little. Winter makes it hard, but I'm trying to move it back to 6am.
I did get my hair cut last month like I promised myself I would, but it's time for another already.
I need to go to the dentist. I need to go to the doctor. These are two things that are failing to just get done.
Laura now has her name on the title deeds to a house and on a mortgage contract.
I went to last month's BWD meetup, but I'm missing this month's to write this.
I've been hanging out at Gertie's as a default something to do on Thursday evenings. You should come.

The wrap

Not a great month for sticking to GHD Resolutions (or reviewing them in a timely fashion). This month I'm going to focus on: - keeping up my walking habit and evolving it into a running habit, - doing a weekly review on Thursday mornings rain, hail or shine.