Map Monday: Voting in America
Tomorrow is election day. To celebrate, I want to highlight the University of Richmond (Go Spiders!) and their Digital Scholarship Lab who have a very cool online exhibition of electoral statistical maps on their website. (warning: auto-playing video)
Personally, I love seeing data presented in new ways. As a history major and a bit of a cartographic nerd, these time-lapse maps represent the ultimate in teaching tools. Things I’ve learned by putzing around this site:
- The populist party had a surprisingly heterogeneous geographic appeal.
- African-American populations haven’t really left the south — and there’s still a lot of empty space out there.
Psyched to make your voice heard? Find out where you need to go to cast your vote tomorrow using Google Maps.
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Fwd: Piglet Squid is Cute
Posted by Xeni “Hussein” Jardin at the famed BoingBoing blog. This Piglet squid is cute.
(Thanks Melissa)
Previously featured on Duenos:
- The Unappreciated Glass Squid – Another very pretty squid
- Life From the Deep – A stunningly beautiful documentary on deep sea life
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Map Monday: Hook-Up Maps
Interested in finding someone in your neighborhood looking hook up? Maybe you’re the more romantic type and want someone to share a crisp autumn evening with. Maybe you just can’t stand seeing movies alone. Hey, I’m not judging.
Hookupmaps is a new Google Maps mashup that combines a familiar and easy to use mapping interface with the Craigslist personals section. Unlike most mashups which just add mapping to an existing feature set, hookupmaps actually makes it easier to respond to ads with a built-in response form that kicks the hell out of the arcane Craigslist UI.
Not sold on trolling the ‘net for a date? Read this environmental plea from Slate.com on the latest green trend, locasexuality.
Previously featured on Duenos:
- Man Test, Inc – An introduction to the business of “honey trapping,” in which wives and girlfriends hire someone to test their partner’s fidelity.
- m4intern – An amazing blog put together by a DC resident to showcase the best Craigslist personal ads specifically targeting the intern population. These can be very scummy.
- Map Monday Tracking Troublemakers – Another novel use of maps, although the motivations are perhaps more pure here, the giggles are sadly absent.
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Another interesting computer game....
UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) is just full of surprises. One of my fellow VISTAs was complaining about dying in a game yesterday, and when I asked what she had been playing, she showed me a the UNHCR computer gamed called Against All Odds in which you can choose to play a refugee “running from persecution” after a military coup, “living in a border country,” or trying to find “a new life” (resettling in a new country). Especially fun are the parts where you get interrogated by the government and just see blood dripping onto the screen if you give the wrong answer; trying to click your possessions into a backpack to flee before the soldiers get to your home; and being murdered by the people you ask for help.
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Elephant self-portrait
A couple of friends told me about this last night and while I might be the last person to find out about it, I also may not be. So, for those who haven’t seen this video already, I bring you an elephant painting a self-portrait.
Previous elephant posts on Duenos:
- Elephant Stories and Psychology Part 1 : a look Topsy, the world-famous elephant from turn of the century Coney Island.
- Elephant Stories and Psychology Part 2 : Batyr, an elephant in Kazakhstan that was known to mimic human speech.
- Elephants Stories and Psychology Part 3 :Ruby, another famous painting elephant.
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Wii Beer Pong
That’s right, there’s a video game for beer pong enthusiasts, complete with 6 unique table graphics and characters that occasionally say such brilliant things as “I’ve got the munchies.” My sister found this article about how disappointed the Association of Fraternity Advisors was with Wii Beer Pong, which came out in August.
When asked about why she-my sister-thought there was a market for this unbelievably stupid game, she had this to say:
“Perhaps it eliminates space issues for renting spaces large enough for a pingpong table? You know as prices rise, people are looking for ways to conserve space… oh wait, housing market crash. hmmm… perhaps it is a way to avoid injuries due to drunkenly stumbling into the table… oh wait, game devices have cords that could strangle a stupid drunk person.”
Hmmmm… Can’t think of a good reason but if you’re interested in learning more, check out this video and review of some guy’s first 15 minutes with the game.
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A new kind of cheerleader mom
Until recently, Wanda Holloway was the most famous cheerleader mother. In 1991 Holloway tried to hire a hitman to kill her thirteen-year old daughter’s cheerleading rival. Holly Hunter even played Holloway in a mother based on the plotted murder.
Wendy Brown
But now Holloway has a rival herself for most messed-up mother obsessed with cheerleading: Wendy Brown.
Wendy Brown is a thirty-three year old woman who recently pretended to be her fifteen-year old daughter to enroll in Ashwaubenon High School (Green Bay, WI). Said daughter was actually staying with her grandmother in Nevada. Brown joined the cheerleading squad—in fact, she soon stopped going to class but still showed up for cheerleading practice. Her attendance record led to an investigation, which led to the discovery of her true identity. Brown is now being held on three criminal complaints. You can read the Green Bay PressGazette.com article here.
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Refugee Facts from Fiscal Year 2008
Recently, the Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2009 was presented to Congress. This report contained about seventy pages of really interesting statistics and proposals for the coming year’s refugee limits. A few of the numbers for the 2008 refugee population in the US:
Individuals from Burma made up 28.8% of arrivals (13,986 refugees with Burma listed as their country of origin were resettled in the US). Next came Somalia and then Iran for top countries of origin.
In the fiscal year 2007, the median age of refugees coming to the US was 25.
States least impacted by refugee resettlement:
Last year, Mississippi resettled 1 refugee.
Montana resettled 3;
Arkansas resettled 6;
Hawaii resettled 11.
Of the refugees resettled in 2007, the US accounted for 59.88%. Next came Australia with 12.14%, Canada with 12.03%, and Sweden with 3.55%.
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Welcoming the RNC....
While I think I’d prefer not to write political posts on the blog for a variety of reasons, this year the Republican National Convention has come to my home, the Twin Cities…and I can’t resist posting my favorite of the billboards that has been put up in honor of the event:
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Bugs are scary
These days digital cameras can take pictures with downright breathtaking quality of color and detail. A sweet deal… but then someone had to go and take pictures of bugs close up and holy crap these guys are freaky looking! It’s actually pretty remarkable how intricate the features of a tiny little insect are, when you get right down to it. Anyway if you have a moment or two, find your nearest enemy and put one of these up as their desktop background:
(click a picture to go to the website)
If you also happen to own a 5000$ camera you might try taking some pictures of bugs yourself, this guy gives some tutorials. He managed to get some of his pictures into National Geographic!
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Elephant Stories and Psychology: Part 3
Ruby, an Asian elephant primarily associated with the Phoenix zoo, became famous in the late 80’s for her abstract paintings. After her keepers noticed the elephant scratching in the dirt with sticks, they offered her a paintbrush, and Ruby the (very profitable) Painting Elephant was born. Art collectors from all over the world joined what became 18-month waiting lists for a painting from the elephant. An individual painting sold for up to $5,000.
According to her CNN obituary, Ruby’s paintings raised about $500,000 for the zoo. She died in 1998 at 25 years of age and at 9,000 lbs. during complications from an attempted c-section.
Elephant paintings have since become something of a fad, and there are multiple other endeavors to sell paintings done by the animals; this NOVICA article details just a few. Multiple kinds of animal art has been sold in auctions such as Christie’s. A team of two Moscow-born entrepreneurs, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, have even organized elephant painting-only auctions; they “began with dog art,” have exhibited photographs taken by a chimpanzee, and after their elephant project intend to “work with beavers using processed wooden boards on an architectural project” (read more about Komar and Melamid here).
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Map Monday: Walkable Neighborhoods
Many of my recent Map Monday tools have been more than just maps, but rather they have been tools that have harnessed mapping functions in order to tell a more complete story. Whether it be keeping your neighborhood safe or tracking the Olympic medal count, maps are very useful as a way of understanding or interpreting data. This Map Monday feature is an excellent example of that principle.
WalkScore.com is a website that rates neighborhoods by how walkable they are, and then serves as a forum/information hub for everything to do with urban walkability. This isn’t anything spectacularly new, but what is new is the way that the site’s rankings—walk scores—are determined. Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence and peer review like WikiTravel or other wiki-based sites, WalkScore runs addresses through the Local Google API to find amenities close to that address and then, based on the proximity and variety of the amenities found, rates the location from 1-100. Of course there’s more to it than that, and if the social scientist in you needs to read more, check out their methodology page for more.
Interested in learning more? Check out the complete rankings, or just view the 138 Walkers’ Paradise neighborhoods. Not interested in all this hippie bullshit and kind of feel like jumping in your Navigator and running over some wildlife? Check out the Why Walk? page for some reasonable explanations of why walking is right for you, me, and everyone.
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Caving out Wikipedia
You know as much as I talk up Wikipedia I had never bothered to become a member until just recently. I had even set up my own wikis before diving in, go figure.
Anywho I recently went on a spelunking trip out to Buckner’s Cave in Indiana and jumped on the web to scout out something on the cave on my phone on the way there in the car. Much to my dismay I discovered only a website from 8 years ago and a tiny piece of a Wikipedia entry. I decided it was time to put my knowledge to use and signed up to write an article.
Anyway for those of you who don’t know Buckner’s Cave is a cave outside of Bloomington, Indiana privately owned and operated by the Richard Blenz Nature Conservancy and is free access, assuming you contact them a week in advance.
The experience was spectacular! Three miles of cave with endless off-shoots and passages ranging from enormous caverns to tight squeezes where you have to push your bag first and wedge your shoulders side-ways. We went in without a real good idea of its layout and features and found it to be quite the adventurous exploration! I had the unpleasant experience of being the leader down a long mud tunnel that progressively shrunk smaller and smaller until it dead-ended and I couldn’t go any further… which meant I had to tell the 8 people behind me to back out army-crawl style backwards. We discovered cavern after passage after cavern, and explored in all sorts of directions and rock environments. On the way back we found ourselves lost (a few times actually) only to be saved by a bat who was in the same spot we left him the first time.
Once out from underground I paged up Wikipedia and wrote my very first official entry, officially wiping out the request for it to be expanded. Huzzah!
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Janeites in the 21st Century
I was never a fan of Jane Austen until I took a class that focused on her Aristotelian plot strategies and the core literary merit of her writing. Having converted in a traditional literary sense, then, it’s very difficult for me to take the pop culture Austen that has flooded US chick lit and the media. Nowadays a Janeite can be someone whose other favorite books include Confessions of a Shopaholic. In fact, one of my most recent book store shocks came when I discovered a book titled Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, detailing the adventures of a woman who is thrown by some sort of time warp into Regency England.
One of the most ridiculous symptoms of this chick lit take on Jane Austen is the recent “makeover” of Austen’s portrait for Wordsworth Editions.
The only uncontested portrait of Jane was drawn by her sister Cassandra in 1810 (Austen was 35) and is on the left side below:
This portrait has been described as “hideously unlike” Jane by Austen’s niece Anna. While it is the only uncontested portrait of Austen (the Rice portrait has always been a great controversy), the sketch does not seem to line up with familial descriptions.
Wordsworth’s version of Jane is the picture to the right of Cassandra’s portrait. Helen Traylor, managing director of the publisher, explains the publisher’s choice:
“The poor old thing didn’t have anything going for her in the way of looks. Her original portrait is very, very dowdy. It wouldn’t be appealing to readers, so I took it upon myself to commission a new picture of her.
“We’ve given her a bit of a makeover, with make-up and some hair extensions and removed her nightcap. Now she looks great — as if she’s just walked out of a salon.”
Nor is Traylor shy about her opinions of other authors’ looks. Since Wordsworth Editions tries to place author portraits on their covers when aesthetics “allow,” Traylor is also evaluating the makeover possibilities for other authors. “Virginia Woolf wasn’t much of a looker,” she says. “I’m also considering making over George Eliot, who was frumpy, and William Wordsworth, who was pretty hideous. Most poets were really unattractive, with the one exception being Tennyson, who has wonderful bone structure.”
Portrait of George Eliot:
Since this is one of the most common portraits of Eliot, I can only imagine that soon she will be remade into a likeness of Catherine Zeta Jones. After all, we wouldn’t want an author looking as though she hadn’t just “walked out of a salon.”
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Mud phobic pig
Although I originally intended to write a post for today that had nothing to do with animals, I stumbled on this and couldn’t resist: a pig that supposedly suffers mysophobia, fear of dirt, and has been given Wellies to overcome her issues.
The BBC Article explains that the piglet was afraid of wallowing in the mud, leading her owners to fit her with Wellies, overcoming the problem. Andrew and Debbie Keeble own a sausage company but no longer plan to slaughter Cinders, the mysophobic piglet.
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Map Monday: The Olympics
Track the Olympic medal count geo-spatially with Google Maps! I know, I talk too much about Google Maps but seriously, I’ll stop talking about them when they stop innovating. Anyway, check out this cool feature here at Google Maps Olympics.
Previously featured on Map Monday:
- Google Walking Maps: Google adds functionality for trip-planning pedestrians. Combine that with GPS and Street View and you’ve got yourself a toolkit.
- Tracking Troublemakers: A local blogger uses online mapping to patrol his own neighborhood.
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Doing it Doggy Style
Social Networking, of course. I happened upon DoggySpace.com this morning and thought it was funny but also dangerously dancing the line between cute and obsessive. Visitors can come to the site to create a social networking profile for their pooch. They can then choose to flush out basic information like gender and type but also fill in interactivity and comprehensive identity related items such as “about me.”
As a social scientist this makes me wonder about several things:
- How much are people projecting their own personalities onto their pets? Could it be a foray into identity tourism? Who is the man behind the Rottweiler? Why is this person hitting on my Westie?
- Will the site be a feat in misdirection and an indirect contact medium for people interested in meeting or dating others? I mean that’s largely what dog meet-ups are about, right? Nice dog, wanna frak?
- Do you think some bloke will be fan enough of our parents’ culture of fear to request privacy controls for their pet?
- Which dogs get the most friends? Just the ones who are the most active or do you think it’ll have to do with the cuteness/funny factor too?
- Will LOLcatz language dominate exchanges throughout the site? Or we see the spawn of a new tribute to grammar’s demise?
- Is this place more successful than the cat competition, MyCatSpace.com
- How soon until Facebook and MySpace start acquiring sites like this?
You know I still do believe one of the hallmarks of digital literacy is comfort and familiarity with virtual (digital) individual and group identities, but this is a little strange, even for me. Just wait until my mom puts our dog up on there…
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Elephant Stories and Psychology: Part 2
Batyr, The Talking Elephant (1970 – 1993)
In 1977 the young elephant Batyr made his ability to mimic human speech known to his keepers at the Karaganda Zoo in Kazakhstan. Batyr apparently learned to produce about twenty words by using his trunk—placing it in his mouth and using his bottom jaw and tongue. A. N. Pogrebnoj-Aleksandroff studied Batyr, recording the elephant’s speech and writing many articles about him. Wikipedia says that Batyr “delighted zoo-goers at large by asking his attendants for water and regularly praising (or, infrequently chastising) himself.”
Batyr had been rejected by his mother as a young calf and hand-reared by humans. He had no interaction with other elephants after his infancy.
VOCABULARY
According to Pogrebnoj-Aleksandroff, Batyr was able to reproduce the following words, phrases, and noises:
Баты́р — Batyr — abruptly (the trunk in the mouth)
Я — I’m — very abruptly and to combination of his name, at a long pronunciation so “I’m-Batyr,” sounded almost together
Ба́ты́р — Batyr — thoughtfully-tenderly and lingeringly (the trunk in the mouth)
Батыр, Батыр, Батыр… — Batyr, Batyr, Batyr — joyfully running in a cage (the trunk in the mouth)
Воды́ — Water — ask (the trunk in the mouth)
Хоро́ший— Good — as is good fellow (the trunk in the mouth)
Батыр хоро́ший — Good Batyr — (the trunk in the mouth)
Ой-ё-ёй — Oh-yo — (it is very sonorous — the trunk in the mouth)
Дурак — The Fool — seldom and abruptly (the trunk in the mouth)
Плохой — Bad — it is rare (the trunk in the mouth)
Батыр плохой — Bad Batyr — it is rare (the trunk in the mouth)
Иди́ — Go — (the trunk in the mouth)
Иди (на) хуй — Go onto penis (on-similarity the American expression ‘fuck you’) — the obscene Russian slang; first and unique time during telecast shooting (the trunk in the mouth)
Хуй — The Russian slang of the penis — seldom and abruptly (the trunk in the mouth)
Ба́-ба — the short of “babushka” — the grandmother; short children’s sound “ba” (the trunk in the mouth)
Да́ — Yes — (the trunk in the mouth)
Дай — Give (me) — (the trunk in the mouth)
Дай-дай-дай — Give, give, give… — (the trunk in the mouth)
Раз-два-три — One, two, three — dancing, being turned and hopping (the trunk in the mouth)
A whistle of human
The words of human speech said at level of infrasonic and ultrasonic frequencies
A gnash imitation of rubber or polyfoam (foam plastic) on glass;
The peep of rats or mice
The bark of dogs
The natural blares of elephants
In 1993, Batyr died; I have found two different accounts: that Batyr didn’t wake up from sedation after being put under for foot care, or that he died from complications regarding inflammation of the kidneys and kidney stones.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
A short list works about or including the story of Batyr:
The most truthful history or who are talking? An Elephant?!
A.Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff, 1979-1993. ISBN 0972126600.
Reincarnation-Перевоплощение
A.Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff, 2001. ISBN 097212666x.
Speaking Animals
A.Dubrov, 2001. ISBN 5879690865.
Speaking Birds and Speaking Animals
O.Silaeva, V.Ilyichev, A.Dubrov, 2005. ISBN 5944290161.
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Elephant Stories and Psychology: Part 1
Outside of Jumbo (and, in fiction, Dumbo), Topsy (1875 – 1903) is probably the most famous elephant in American history, and hers is a story worth knowing—definitive of a time, place, and moment in circus history.
Topsy was part of the Forepaugh Circus at Coney Island’s Luna Park. In three years, she killed three trainers—the last of whom was an abusive alcoholic who threw a lit cigarette into her mouth. Because of this, it was decided that Topsy needed to be put to death: she was sentenced to hanging. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) protested that this was inhumane; New York State had just replaced the gallows with the electric chair.
And so it was that Thomas Edison, currently battling George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla about electric current (Westinghouse and Nicola argued that alternating current was safer, Edison was currently living off patent royalties after establishing direct current as the standard), designed Topsy’s death by alternating current—meant to add evidence to Edison’s stance on AC as deadly. On January 4, 1,500 came to watch Topsy’s electrocution. She was fed cyanide-laced carrots, and fitted with wooden sandals with copper electrodes connected through a copper wire to Edison’s electric light plant. Topsy was twenty-eight years old. Edison captured the event on film and released it with the title “Electrocuting an Elephant,” found here on YouTube.
In 2003 a memorial to Topsy was created for the Coney Island Museum.
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What do you call a stolen yam?....a hot potato!
There’s no way around it: buying organic foods is expensive, usually 10 to 40% more costly than buying regular foods (according to Wikipedia). And if you choose to buy organic part of the time, like me, which products should you focus on?
A relatively recent study by the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration might be able to help you decide, if you’re living in the US. The Environmental Working Group has ranked pesticide contamination for forty-six fruits and vegetables involved in over 100,000 lab tests from the study as well as further testing by the state of California (all done between 1992 and 2001). Their results? The following:
Twelve Most Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables (buy organic):
1. Nectarines (97.3% of nectarines sampled were found to contain pesticides)
2. Celery (94.5%)
3. Pears (94.4%)
4. Peaches (93.7%)
5. Apples (91% )
6. Cherries (91%)
7. Strawberries (90%)
8. Imported Grapes (86%)
9. Spinach (83.4%)
10. Potatoes (79.3%)
11. Bell peppers (68%)
12. Red raspberries (59%)
Twelve Least Contaminated (not as necessary to buy organic):
(in alphabetical order)
1. Asparagus
2. Avocados
3. Bananas
4. Broccoli
5. Cauliflower
6. Corn – sweet (nearly all corn is genetically modified, however)
7. Kiwis
8. Mangoes
9. Onions
10. Papaya
11. Pineapple
12. Sweet peas
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