Alex Reid

Last night I couldn’t insert an image into a blog post on alexreid.ca. Clicking the ‘image’ icon next to the ‘Upload/Insert’ text, above the toolbar and the blog post space, would lead me to a frameset page and while my image got uploaded, nothing happened to the image. Also, I couldn’t add more categories.

After searching the Internet for a discussion on what was happening, I found it was the WordPress plugin Headspace 2 that was conflicting with the new upgrade to WP 3.

There are other plugins too causing this conflict error. Click here for the growing list of known issues and bug fixes.

I hope this helps someone else.

Eric Fischer created two series of major world city maps showing where people take photos, using geocoding information from Flickr and Picasa. In his first series hosted on Flickr, titled The Geotaggers’ World Atlas, he used geo tagged photos over a nine day period in late May 2010 to show a heatmap of where most photos were snapped.

A week later, he created a second series over a five day period in early June 2010, titled Locals and Tourists giving the city maps more depth by comparing “tourists” to “locals”.

He explained:

Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more).

Red points are pictures taken by tourists (people who seem to be a local of a different city and who took pictures in this city for less than a month).

Yellow points are pictures where it can’t be determined whether or not the photographer was a tourist (because they haven’t taken pictures anywhere for over a month). They are probably tourists but might just not post many pictures at all.

Purple would obviously be the merging of both tourists and locals.

Of course, these only count those photos that were geo-tagged and posted on Picasa and Flickr publicly. But the series gives you a great idea of where to go on vacation, where the locals go and if you’re thinking of opening a camera supply store, where to setup shop.

For me, this is a big help as I have a planned trip to San Francisco in a couple months and it’s also quite inspiring; data visualization made art!

It’s that time of year again, the annual 48-hour film contest.

For the first year, teams will randomly draw a genre, line of dialogue/text, and prop/item to include in their film. The idea is to storyboard, shoot and edit your entire short-movie (maximum four minutes) in 48 hours (Saturday & Sunday) using these surprise elements. Previously only one keyword was used in which it was easy to make a general video in advance and include the one keyword afterward.

Because it’s the Film Group, uploaded videos on Youtube won’t suffice. Your videos must be presented in either:

* playable, non-looped DVDs
* miniDV
* 16mm
* 35mm

Notes about the Contest

* The contest is open to all interested parties. You do not have to be a member of the Winnipeg Film Group (WFG) to enter.
* You do not have to live in Winnipeg to participate but you must be present at the beginning and end of the 48 hour period to be eligible.
* You must register with the $10 entry fee. Cash only!
* Only 25 teams will be entered into the contest.
* No equipment will be provided to filmmakers but you can call the WFG at 925-3455 if you need to rent gear.
* The entered films can be about anything you choose but must contain the randomly drawn items chosen by a team member at registration time.
* Completed films must be submitted to the Cinematheque on playable DVD, miniDV, on 16mm or on 35mm by 6:00PM on Sunday, June 27.
* DVDs should be non-looped, and de-interlaced. Please include screening ratio on your DVD.
* Films are not screened prior to the premiere on Sunday so they may contain imagery and situations not suitable for all audiences. Films will not be rated.

For more information contact: distribution@winnipegfilmgroup.com

Friday, June 25 – Sunday, June 27, 2010
Registration is Friday, June 25 at 5:30-6:00 ($10 per team/film)
Screening is Sunday, June 27 at 7:30 (Admission is $5. All are welcome!)
Winnipeg Cinematheque
100 Arthur St.

Karin Dreijer of Fever Ray accepted an award for being the years best dance artist at “P3 Gold“, a Swedish awards show, earlier this year.

This may be a first; game developers using open government data.

A group of seven technical students from Vancouver’s Center for Digital Media have created a game using Vancouver’s Open Data. Built on Microsoft’s Silverlight development platform, Bing Maps and the City of Vancouver’s Open Data Catalogue, the group of students have developed “TaxiCity” a Web-based driving game that allows the player to take on the role of a taxi driver, pick up passengers and deliver them to various locations around Vancouver.

The realism isn’t so much Grand Theft Auto, more pre-Google Street View, such as block outlines, building shapes, green spaces and the centre medians along main routes. The group also pulled their data from VanPark, a site that used Vancouver open data to help people find and track parking during the Olympics.

Open Government Data expert David Eaves was involved in the project, and he says the project is “pure R&D experiment.”

“It begins to show us some of the really complicated things that could become possible if cities shared their data,” he said. The game “also takes a step closer to being able to create games where you actually race around the City of Vancouver, which could be fun from a game perspective,” Eaves said.

You can play the game here.