I am back

Took a short break but I am back, let the blogging begin!

nice bold

something about this image

The possibilities. Very inspiring...

splash of refreshing colors

I couldn't resist...

New York Talk Exchange

and another one from http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc


Year:
2008
URL:
http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/NYTE/index.html
Project Description:
New York Talk Exchange illustrates the global exchange of information in real time by visualizing volumes of long distance telephone and IP data flowing between New York and cities around the world.

In an information age, telecommunications such as the Internet and the telephone bind people across space by eviscerating the constraints of distance. To reveal the relationships that New Yorkers have with the rest of the world, New York Talk Exchange asks: How does the city of New York connect to other cities? With which cities does New York have the strongest ties and how do these relationships shift with time? How does the rest of the world reach into the neighborhoods of New York? The size of the glow on a particular city location corresponds to the amount of IP traffic flowing between that place and New York City. A greater glow implies a greater IP flow.

The NYTE project has been on display at MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, part of the Design and Elastic Mind exhibition, and the real time data is being provided by AT&T.

Visual Complexity

Then I found more amazing visualizations of data


URL:
http://www.timenetwork.org/
Project Description:
time=net.work was born in order to measure and evaluate transportation network complexity. As the author explains: "After having read the amazing A. L. Barabasi's Linked, I decided to develop some new approaches towards networks dynamics. How Ordered are they? How Small are they? How Robust are they?".

According to Fabio Lamanna, during the last years many physicians have been interested in transportation network analysis, laying the theoretical basis for extending complex network knowledge to real dynamical systems. Time=net.work tries to apply and verify physical theories on real systems, using timetable data of real moving entities under fixed constraints.

The main subject of study for the time=net.work project has been the Berlin urban network, consisting of U-Bahn, S-Bahn and Regional Bahn lines; strongly interconnected with Bus, Strabenbahn and Metrotram vehicles. The complex network approach requires a simple tool to analyse the dynamics of different transportation modes on real infrastructures. The image shown here represents the distribution of travel times and betweenness centrality of the entire Berlin transportation network.

mapping data

I have always been very interested in finding interesting ways to visualize data.
I stumbled upon this very fascinating project.

more from the artist

Description

Email became an integral part of my life in 1998. Like many people, I have archived all of my email with the hope of someday revisiting my past. I am interested in revealing the innumerable relationships between me, my schoolmates, work-mates, friends and family. This could not readily be accomplished by reading each of my 60,000 emails one-by-one. Instead, I created My Map, a relational map and alternative self portrait. My Map is a piece of custom designed software capable of rendering the relationships between myself and individuals in my address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in my email archive. The intensity of the relationship is determined by the intensity of the line. My Map allows me to explore different relational groupings and periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs and flows in various relationships. In this way, My Map is a veritable self-portrait, a reflection of my associations and a way to locate myself.
Notes

My Map can be viewed as a large scale static print (40″x40″ archival inkjet) or as an up-to-date dynamic visualization (see Quicktime video above). The interactive program is written in Java and uses the Processsing libraries, MySQL and various other libraries. The software includes a custom IMAP email client and a VCF address book parser that parses contact information and their images. This particular visualization strategy was influenced by similar cicular relational structures such as CAIDA, SCHEMABALL, GNOM, etc. Much of my initial email visualization research was influenced and inspired by the work of Judith Donath’s Sociable Media Group at MIT — particularly the work of Fernanda Viegas.

Africa--Flow and ingenuity

Every once in a while i ran into a great article about Africa.Copied from www.smashingmagazine.com its about getting inspiration from different places.

Kampala Uganda

History. The city grew as the capital of the Buganda kingdom, from which several buildings survive, including the Kasubi Tombs (built in 1881), the Buganda Parliament, the Buganda Court of Justice and the Naggalabi Buddo Coronation Site. If you saw the movie “The Last King of Scotland”, you know everything worst about Uganda. Well, the good news is, that was thirty years ago. Since then Uganda has rebounded to become one of the more stable and progressive regions of East Africa. The economy is healthy, the people are lovely and interesting and the equatorial climate is gorgeous! Careful getting around though, the highest cause of death here is automobile accidents!

Getting there. Getting to the capital of Uganda is tricky. First, there are no direct flights in the U.S. Instead, one must fly through a connecting in Europe, Dubai or another part of Africa and then continue to Entebbe International Airport in Entebbe, Uganda. From there the ride to Kampala is only about thirty minutes via hired taxi. Altogether the entire process can take anywhere from 20 to 48 hours.

Natural inspiration. Africa is the home to many wonders of the natural world and this is no different in the country of Uganda. Safaris, wildlife, camping with chimps, gorilla tracking, skiing (yes you can ski in Africa), whitewater rafting and the incredibly friendly people make it one of the most inviting destinations in the whole continent.

Why it will inspire? Flow and ingenuity. You have never found flow like you’ll find it in Africa. Local farmers get completely immersed in creating things out of limited resources, exemplifying two of the fundamental aspects of good design (focus and resourcefulness).

my favourite companies/website

I am going to compile a list of my favourite companies and what they do.
First and foremost.


http://www.care-international.org



CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Non-political and non-sectarian, we operate each year in more than 65 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, reaching more than 50 million people in poor communities.

CARE helps tackle underlying causes of poverty so that people can become self-sufficient. CARE is often one of the first to deliver emergency aid to survivors of natural disasters and war and, once the immediate crisis is over, we help people rebuild their lives. While CARE is a large international organisation with more than 14,500 employees worldwide, we have a strong local presence: more than 90 % of our staff are nationals of the countries where our programmes are run.

Adobe adds flash to Acrobat

Hmmm flash in pdfs, interesting. see article from...http://www.pcworld.com
Monday, June 02, 2008 10:20 AM PDT

Adobe on Monday is set to unveil the next version of its Adobe Acrobat software, which adds support for the company's Flash multimedia technology. The company also plans to launch a new Web site offering users free hosted services for document creation, sharing and storage.

The move positions Adobe competitively against Microsoft, Google and other companies offering similar services online and signals Adobe's first major move into the hosted-services arena for business documents.

Combined, the two announcements support Adobe's broader strategy to offer rich-media capabilities through Flash and other technologies for both online and offline documents.

Wadawida

Currently looking for Taita boy names. Someone needs to post baby names, very hard to find those on the internet. For those interested in the taita culture from Kenya. This should be a fun project.
check out wadawida.com and http://wadawidatiki.blogspot.com.

thanks dor posting this destiny.
Taita boy names? Most of the names have a pre-fix "MWA" then the meaningful part of the name. Eg KIO=night.....so a Taita boy can be called Mwakio, Dime=day, hence Mwadime, Chia=path, hence Mwachia, or Mwachyia, others do not have prefixes like " Isuwirio"=Hope, Kitatu, Lewella, Maghanga=medicines, Kishau, Lago or Lagho, Mcharo=one born away from home eg during a safari to some place, or the same child Mwachia could be called Msafari, which means the same. Other boy's names include Ndau, Mbela (rhino), Mshimba, shimba=lion, Mwachovu, chovu=elephant, Mshila, Msagha, Righa, Kasera, Kalela, Nyange, Maseghe,

June 9, 2009 12:25 PM

I have no tribe---I am Kenyan

Yes we are tired of leaders using our tribes to separate us.
we declare ourselves tribeless.

Daima mimi mkenya.

I found this poem at

http://www.ihavenotribe.com


Though i have no tribe,
i do have roots
My roots are deep and wide
I have a Luhyia Father and a Kisii Mother
I speak Luo, kikuyu and Luhyia
I have a kalenjin sister
daughter of my father
I have a kikuyu brother
Son of my mother.
I practice Luo customs,
Indeed iam a true Kenyan
I find it hard that people want to categorise me,
For in their pleasure my parents gave me a rich heritage
its a heritage i am proud of,
though some my recoil at it.
I am a kenyan
Yes i am a true Kenyan
I know no tribe
and that is the truth not a cliche
for in our house there are all tribes.
I love my mother and father and siblings
for giving me such a true heritage.
I am a Kenyan
I have no tribe

objects of neccesity

Oumou Sy

Oumou Sy

Oumou Sy fashion

Africa on my mind

I found this very inspiring article on Mshale.com.

Despite what is going on in Africa, we have to keep going. We need to focus on being
problem solvers, thats the only way we will overcome. We cannot dwell on the past.

Here is bits of the article...by Moraa Gitaa , Mshale Correspondent

Fundamental Principles of Wealth Creation

To create wealth is to use one’s own thoughts or imagination to work in order to bring something unique into this world.
The following is the recipe for wealth creation.

To Create Wealth, One Must:

i. Solve somebody’s problem.
ii. Provide solutions that people are ready to pay you for.
iii. Solve problems of as many people as possible.

His other statement was that there is an abundance of problems in this world and that we need to look for these problems and solve them, and that will be wealth creation.

We thus need to:

1) Identify our unique talent:
Talent is a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied.
Talent is not an action first and foremost, but a way of thinking.
Our uniqueness is our strength. Nobody can ignore you if you are unique.
It is that difference that makes you strong.
2) Acquire relevant Knowledge:
Relevant to your unique talents (Get all the facts and lessons that can be learnt)
3) Develop Skill:
Doctor Otabil defined skill as ‘Formalized steps of an activity. Consistency’
Skill helps you to predict and repeat success.

His conclusion on skill was that once you have it, you can maneuver success under any circumstance.

We declare peace in Kenya

some blogs on whats going on in in Kenya. Everyone has their own views.

http://www.kenyanpundit.com/ very detailed linked to numerous blogs

http://blog.thinkersroom.com/

kumekucha.blogspot.com

At the end of the day, we just want peace. PEACE IN KENYA!

PRAY FOR PEACE IN KENYA

ALL WE WANT IS PEACE IN KENYA. STOP FINGER POINTING, PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING.
http://josephkaroki.wordpress.com/