Contributing to the Spoken Wikipedia WikiProject

Today in my search for web-based knowledge I discovered a new WikiProject which allows users to upload Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) audio files of wikipedia articles. It seemed like a nice little nerd project to begin on a relaxing day off from work.

I first needed to find a program that would allow me to record, edit and export audio files in the .ogg file format which is the only format wikipedia supports. I went with the free program Audacity. The program is fairly intuitive. I've never really used any audio editing software but was able to at least get by without reading the directions which, in general is the way I like to do things :)

Given my current obsession with Namibia I went ahead and tackled the country's main wikipedia page.

I dove right in, recording sections individually and compiling them using Audacity. After about two hours of recording I had a complete file. As I went back to the wikiproject page I realized that there were a couple spoken wikipedia conventions I hadn't abided by. I later discovered that, being a new wikiproject, these conventions really are just guidelines and it even states if they would prevent you from using a file its probably best to just upload it anyway.

I thought that I should include the recommended introduction and concluding statement. Going back and adding in parts to the Audacity project was difficult. I ended up having to make minor additions to each of the 20 or so separate tracks which ultimately made up the .ogg file.

Once that had been taken care of and the file was ready to go I discovered that in order to upload files to wikipedia you have to be an "established user". In order to be autoconfirmed as an established user you need to have an account active for more than four days and have made ten or more contributions or edits. I have made a few but not ten, so before I could upload my file I had to find a few more things to edit in the wikiworld. Once I reached the threshold I was able to upload the file.

At 27 minutes 10 seconds the audio file is quite long but if you're interested in hearing all or parts of it just go to the Namibia wikipedia article and click on the audio icon in the upper right corner.

Africa and Google Search or Burkina Faso's Assault on the Internet

Two recurring themes on this Yuppie blog include Africa and Google. I use Google Analytics and Google Earth almost every day. I also think about traveling to Africa each and every day.

A few weeks back I created a map that displayed the number of tweet mentions per African country per million residents. I found it quite fascinating.

This post is similar but instead of tweets it simply compares the number of pages a Google search will find for each country (in millions). This number can be found at the top of any google search.

I...hypothesized that there would be a big discrepancy in what I expected to be the big dogs such as South Africa and Egypt and the lesser known countries like Equatorial Guinea or Eritrea (which I swear NOBODY seems to know about despite the conflict in and around the area).

Well, I was half right. SA and Egypt came in at number one and three respectively. Number two in our countdown, however, is the biggest of several unexpected placements.

Burkina Faso? Seriously? Now, there were a few unintuitive results I half expected (haha- how can you half expect something :) whether it be Chad placing high because it's also a name or Somalia's search results being inflated because of the American twenty-something's fascination with pirates, Guinea, being part of Guinea Pig certainly would rank high- What I'm getting at is that I knew there would be some surprises but I wasn't expecting this many.

I thought and thought about why Burkina Faso would be so high. I looked at the first few pages of results hoping for a clue but nothing. I thought to look at the google adwords that popped up on the side: Burkina Faso Pictures, Burkina Faso Girls and Burkina Faso, Trip Advisor. After seeing the second result I thought perhaps Burkina Faso was the new Russia when it came to mail order brides...I don't think that's it though. So I ask you, please help me solve the mystery of Burkina Faso in Google Searches. WHY?!

I know google can be sensitive to location and your own search history. I wouldn't think that the number of results found would change from place to place as I'm pretty sure that number would remain relatively static but if you find anything different than what I have, I encourage you to comment and let me know (cause this sort of thing really fascinates me for some reason).

In the map below the countries towards the red end of the spectrum have the highest number of search results whereas the green end of the spectrum indicates fewer google search results. I've included the full list of countries and the number of results in millions below the map.

I was also surprised to see Zimbabwe second to last. For a country that has been in the news a LOT in the last couple years, it sure doesn't have a big presence on the internet, er...I mean Google. The internet is much more than Google....right? :) Ethiopia was much lower than expected too.

I was surprised to see Burundi have more search results than Rwanda, and Mali! Mali is another place nobody seems to know about. I'd venture a guess that more American's have heard of Timbuktu than Mali. Although Timbuktu only has just over 2 million hits on a google search.

And here is our map:



South Africa 214
Burkina Faso 182
Egypt 166
Mali 135
Nigeria 123
Kenya 118
Guinea 113
Angola 110
Congo (Kinshasa) 105
Congo (Brazzaville) 105
Madagascar 104
Ghana 103
Sudan 98.7
Togo 98.1
Morocco 96.8
Chad 94.8
Senegal 92.6
Botswana 91.2
Malawi 89.7
Uganda 89.3
Tunisia 88.8
Sierra Leone 88.6
Algeria 87.2
Mauritius 87
Tanzania 87
Seychelles 86.7
Burundi 86.7
Liberia 85
Namibia 84.9
Gabon 84.9
Lesotho 84.7
Mozambique 81.9
Somalia 80.8
Benin 79.5
Zambia 79.1
Rwanda 77.5
Libya 76.7
Gambia 76.4
Cape Verde 76.3
Guinea-Bissau 75.1
Eritrea 72.7
Djibouti 72.1
Mauritania 72
Swaziland 71.9
Ethiopia 71.7
Central African Republic 70.8
Cameroon 66.4
Comoros 65.7
Western Sahara 57.3
Equatorial Guinea 57.1
Sao Tome and Principe 38.9
Côte d'Ivoire 30.5
Zimbabwe 21.3
Niger 15.7

iPhone Photography

I've recently downloaded two photography apps for the iPhone that I simply MUST tell you about. The tiny 2 or 3 megapixel cameras are a frequent target of iPhone haters but I've found them to be good for snapshots provided I keep the lens clean. When you add the power of the camera bag and colorsplash apps you can easily create effects you'll be happy to show your friends.

The first app I downloaded is called camera bag by nevercenter.com. Once you select a picture from your library you can render the image in several different styles. Holga (which they insist on calling Helga) creates the unmistakable toy camera vignette. The app sports two different epoch styles, "1962" which turns the image into a high contrast black and white image and "1974" which adjusts the colors to give it a retro-faded-with-a-hint-of-brown look. Other styles include cinema (widescreen), instant (polaroid), Lolo (which I used to know the meaning of), and infra-red (which leaves much to be desired).

I've enjoyed using pictures of office environments and sporting events and using the 1962 rendering. All in all, well worth the $1.99.

But the REALLY exciting app is Colorsplash by Hendrik Kueck. When I first saw the app a few months back, the pictures looked good by I was convinced it would be too complicated. The colorsplash app allows you to take images from your library and selectively color or decolor. The ability to zoom and use a red mask for the detailed clipping makes the images look fantastic.

The app is a bit limited in that really all you can do is select areas of a picture to color but it does just that so simply and dare I say elegantly that it is a must for anyone with an interest in photography and faux art.

I've included a few pics I quickly edited using the colorsplash app. None of them took more than two or three minutes.


Me after a Tigers game in my kick-ass hoody


AnnArbor.com offices


16 days until Michigan football!

These are so fun to do that I'm sure more will follow!

Countdown to Namibia

After my trip to London and Tanzania I knew I had caught the international travel bug - BAD. Every day at work I stare across my desk at the 50 x 70 National Geographic world map and think about the possibilities. An infatuation with flight price checking on kayak.com also seems to work its way into my daily activities.

There are few places in the world I don't want to visit. Places in Africa, however, always seem to rise to the top.

When I was 17 or 18 and still lived at home I stumbled upon (of course this was before stumble upon) the Christmas Island Marathon. The annual event held on the Australian Island just south of Indonesia. It made perfect sense, train for a marathon, travel to a tiny remote island in the Indian Ocean and have stories for a lifetime.

It's always seemed like a good idea.

In the last ten years I've looked up information on the Christmas Island Marathon a handful of times but the timing or desire was never quite there.

After returning from Tanzania the idea began to intrigue me more and more. The last time I had looked up the Christmas Island Marathon I couldn't find anything past 2006 or 2007, I was concerned that the event was no longer being held.

A few weeks ago, when the idea once again crossed my mind, a google search revealed information about the 2009 Christmas Island Marathon. Thrilled that the event is still going on I got information about travel to the island. I was getting very excited about the idea.

I don't know what the google search was but later that day I came across something that just clicked with me. I knew, right from the time I read about it that it was for me: the 2010 Namibia Marathon.

I registered, secured my spot, and paid my registration fee of 150 GBP. I have a shit load of work ahead of me but am incredibly excited about the challenge. The wait for my Tanzania trip was horribly long and drawn out. This time I get to work each and every day towards the trip.

And so, I have begun my training for the 2010 Namibia marathon and I couldn't be happier.

PRK Laser Corrective Surgery

Six minutes after I first met my surgeon he was removing the epithelial layer of my eye. As what I can only describe as a drill descended towards my cornea, I couldn't help but think about the multitude of disclaimers, both pre and post op procedures, and my coworkers suggestion to go "one eye at a time".

Despite the numerous eye dilations, the dry eyes, the nerves and cost, my experience with PRK was amazing. There was virtually no pain during the procedure and the despite minor complications my recovery was almost pleasant.

Four weeks ago, after a couple weeks of pre-op appointments I had PRK laser eye surgery to correct my astigmatism and near-sightedness. PRK is similar to LASIK only the reshaping of the eye to focus light occurs on the outside of the eye as opposed to under a flap.

My Optometrist told me that LASIK is so popular because it gives people the instant gratification Americans seek. With LASIK, your vision is clear almost immediately and the recovery time is very short.

While the results of PRK are about the same, (my Ophthalmologist told me there is an argument that PRK will create better vision- of course he probably says the opposite to the LASIK patients) the recovery time is much longer.

As most people who about to get PRK do, I searched the internet to read about the experiences of a few. Willingly allowing someone to scrape off some of your eye and shoot lasers in it deserves more than just a googling...but it can't hurt.

Once I had been prepped for surgery, adjusted in the chair, had my eye locked open with a ring and my eye "sucked" up (its the only way to describe it), I was asked to look directly at the light in the laser. I did. Or at least I thought I did. When the surgeon said "I don't think you're quite looking at it" I got a bit nervous. I've been using my eyes for not too short of 30 years and I have a pretty good idea of when I'm looking at something. After being instructed to look slightly left of where I was looking I got very nervous about where I was supposed to look. Should I look right at the light or just to the left of the light where the surgeon half-way suggested? After what seemed like a half a second but in reality was more like ten, I sort of went with in between the two. As the ticking of the laser machine began I became very nervous that I was doing something wrong. It was too late for questions so I just focused all my energy on keeping my stare as still as a robot's until the laser stopped.

One down one to go.

After the surgeon rinsed the residue out of my eye I could tell that my vision was pretty clear. Not crystal clear, but much clearer than I can remember. The feeling was reassuring. I thought to myself "at least you'll have vision in your right eye!"

The procedure for the left was much the same only no issues with the direction of the light. About ten seconds after the laser began ticking I heard one of the surgical tech staff say "procedure stop" followed by what seemed like a sort of sigh from the surgeon. I'm convinced my eye jumped at the fear of "procedure stopping" but after a split second of confusion my eye was right back to the light. Apparently I heard something wrong. The procedure continued and concluded about 20 seconds later.

I was ushered into a post-op chair where I saw the optometrist. Dr. Hayes was very reassuring, provided me with some eye drops and said things looked good.

For the next few days I really milked it. I got meals cooked for me, laundry done - the whole nine yards. The evening of my surgery I did have a scare; one of my protective contact lenses fell out. I talked to the surgeon on the phone and he told me to just keep the eye closed. I had an appointment at 7:45 the next morning but it's HARD to keep one eye closed for 14 hours.

My vision slowly improved, however, after three days I was scared. I could see hints of clarity but the crispness just wasn't there. I had read about how vision continued to get better after surgery. I felt as though I could get glimpses of where my vision would be and it was not great. It was a difficult few days. I knew I was one of the less than 1% of people that have significant issues.

By day four I was cleared to drive. It was great to drive without glasses but my vision was still at a point (20/40 at best in both eyes) where I felt like I shouldn't be driving.

My vision continued to get better. Still not great but I was getting to a point where I though that if it stopped improving I could still lead a happy life.

Then dumbass me was drinking with some friends at a work conference.

I should point out that the Doctor I saw in Battle Creek (near where my conference was) told me a couple drinks would be ok. What wasn't ok was me agreeing to play "belly-busters". That is the game where you run towards someone, jump in the air and bump stomachs.

I'm not a big guy and the guy who "belly BUSTED" me has some weight and height on me.

BOOM

Down goes Ryan.

Another friend told me I was bleeding from my eye. This is not what I wanted to here. I had a small cut over my right eye but I felt fine. I went to bed not worrying too much.

I awoke the next day and noticed that the vision in my right eye was significantly diminished from the previous day. After freaking out for a few hours I made an emergency appointment with my Doctor.

It turns out everything was just fine.

So, four weeks after surgery my vision is a touch better than 20/20 in my right eye and not quite 20/20 in my left.

My surgery was not cheap, $3,900 at the TLC eye center in Ann Arbor. My surgeon, Dr. Sensoli was great. My Optometrist, Dr. Hayes has been the most encouraging, friendly Doc I've ever had. I have to be careful about what I saw or the man crush accusations come out.

For those of you who are about to have or just had PRK surgery and are concerned about the surgery - it's not bad as long as you go to a reputable place.

I had virtually NO pain during recovery. As Dr. Hayes told me, with PRK you have to EARN your vision, it takes time and will test your nerves but the benefit is amazing. Waiting and hoping for your eyesight to get better is a rough experience. Trust in your surgeon and prepare for a life without glasses!

Twitter and Africa

In what may prove to be the most random thing ever, I embarked on a new nerd project today. I incorporated three interests of mine, Africa, Maps and Twitter. I wanted to compare the "twitter footprint" of each country- just how many mentions might each African country get in a week? I used tweetdeck for my "research". I quickly discovered that, using the week long search history, most of the countries had reached the maximum 100 search records. To combat this I instead searched using the hashtag #. I've never understood the reason for using hashtags but it helped this exercise since it greatly reduced the number of search records.

I went ahead and multiplied the results by a million. I did this a.), because it seems to be the way to do these things and 2, because comparing .0000001 and .0000003 isn't all that interesting, or at best, less interesting than when increased to numbers we're more used to seeing.

A few things stood out:

1. People don't often refer to their friends named Chad using hashtags. That, and I'm glad Ocho Cinco hasn't done anything worth mentioning in the last week.
2. I forgot Lesotho! Oops. I checked - zero hashtag mentions, so it's safe to say it would be yellow in the map below.
3. Differentiating between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo for this exercise is not worth the effort.
4. Not a single person mis-tweeted the word Mail by typing Mali in the last week.
5. More people live in Washtenaw County in Michigan than Western Sahara. While that isn't a surprise, it was surprising to see that the county which boasts both Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan had no #mentions in the last week.

You can click on the map below for a larger image.



I hope you enjoy this little nerd project. I've done a few others you should check out including:

Africa-US Relations
Michigan Man on the Moon
Unredeemed Giftcards

Each country is listed below in its category

Tweet Champs
Seychelles
Western Sahara
Botswana
Mauritius
Liberia
Namibia
Gabon
Madagascar

Very High
Somalia
Gambia
Ghana
Zimbabwe
Cape Verde

High
Congo
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya

Moderate
Rwanda
Swaziland
Malawi
Uganda
Sudan
South Africa
Mauritania

Low
Morocco
Djibouti
Senegal
Burundi
Zambia
Egypt
Tunisia
Congo (Kinshasa)

On Twitter life support
Libya
Mali
Eritrea
Tanzania
Ethiopia
Nigeria
Guinea

Tweet Chumps
Benin
Niger
Algeria
Sierra Leone
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Togo
Chad
Angola
Mozambique
Côte d'Ivoire
Comoros
Central African Republic
Equatorial Guinea
Sao Tome and Principe

Happy map making, wander-lusting, tweeting and blogging.

For a great perspective on the topic, check out Soyapi Mumba's Blog post

My Top 10 Pet Peeves

On any given day this list could look quite a bit different but I thought creating a list of my Top 10 Pet Peeves would be fun. I'd love to add yours to the list. Go ahead, let it out!

These are in no particular order.

1. When people pronounce the "s" in Illinois. If it doesn't belong to the state, it didn't make a noise... Get it?

2. Old people who use the u-scan at the supermarket and use change to pay for all of their "no barcode" items for which they can't read the #'s.

3. People who open the door and stand there for more than six seconds, therefore forcing you to run to the door to offer your thanks.

4. People that don't pay attention to the other bidders on the price is right and therefore don't recognize the bid that would guarantee a spot on stage.

5. Waiting in line at Subway only to discover the person in front of you brought a list of customized subs for the entire office. They often start with "Sorry, but I have a lot." Don't apologize to them, apologize to me.

6. Twitter timing out!

7. Commenters on posting boards who criticize others for their poor "grammer".

8. ohio. Both the state and THE University.

9. Ugh, Nancy Grace!

10. Heirs to Nigerian fortunes who need me to hold on to their money for awhile, but who will reward me handsomely

Discussion and Map of US-African Relationships

With President Obama's recent trip to Africa I started thinking about the political relations between the US and the many African Nations. The forgotten continent is a source of great natural resources, cultural richness and strategic geographic location.

I thought it would be interesting to facilitate a conversation on US-African relations. I've created a draft map of Africa showing each country's relationship with the United States. I've broken the map into six different categories, Negative, Strained, Neutral, Improving, Positive and Good.

These ratings ARE completely subjective. This draft is based on my knowledge of African-US relations along with some quick research. It was hard to define criteria for the six different categories I used but listed below are a few general guidelines.

Negative - Beyond minor political differences, a negative rating suggests severely strained and complex relationships.

Strained - Various issues have caused either sanctions or specific actions by the US Government.

Neutral - While some positives are included in the relationship, various issues prevent a better relationship with the US

Improving - Countries who have historically had a strained relationship with the US but are improving and steps have been made to better the relationship.

Positive - Most African Countries were placed in this category which represents a cordial relationship, mutual respect and support.

Good - Often involving military agreements with the US and strong support of each other in International groups such as the United Nations. These nations also generally have respected democratic political processes with duly elected leadership willing to work with the United States.



Again, this rating system and the ratings themselves are subjective. I welcome your comments, suggestions and criticisms. I'm really interested in facilitating a discussion on the US relationships with African countries. Let me know if you agree or disagree and WHY!

I've included the categorized list below. To get a large, high quality view of the US-African relationship map, click on the image.


Negative
Somalia
Sudan

Strained
Eritrea
Zimbabwe

Neutral
Mauritania
Gambia
DRC
Libya
Central African Republic

Improving
Liberia
Angola
Congo
Uganda
Algeria

Positive
South Africa
Burkina Faso
Ghana
Côte d'Ivoire
Guinea
Sierra Leone
Guinea-Bissau
Cape Verde
Seychelles
Mauritius
Comoros
Malawi
Madagascar
Mozambique
Rwanda
Burundi
Swaziland
Lesotho
Namibia
Gabon
Ethiopia
Kenya
Egypt
Chad
Niger
Cameroon
Equatorial Guinea
Nigeria
Benin
Togo

Good
Morocco
Mali
Senegal
Tanzania
Zambia
Botswana
Djibouti
Tunisia
Sao Tome and Principe

Playman Track & Field App for iPhone...and some other goodies

When the App Store was launched last year it completely changed the way I used my phone. For several months I was very successful in my "don't pay for apps" policy. It was all new, and there were so many free apps to choose from that it was a pretty easy rule to live by.

Early this year the success of my policy began to waver. The first app I bought was Koi Pond from the Blimp Pilots. At only 99 cents, the graphics, sound effects and the sense of equilibrium achieved through playing with the little Japanese fish, the app was well worth the cost. In fact, I was so thrilled with the app that I searched for other Blimp Pilots apps and ended up purchasing the Distant Shore app. At first I really liked this app. I thought it opened up a yet to be explored social networking niche. Whereas most social networking sites focus on your friends, Distant Shore focuses on connections based on chance and anonymity. I don't think I've launched the app in a month or two.

Back to the apps.

After those first two, I still attempted to follow my no-pay policy. I still felt pretty good about scrolling through my screens for friends and saying I'd only paid for two. It helped that some fantastic apps were released for free, the best possibly being the google earth app. The useful apps from the big guys were almost always free, AIM, google voice search, facebook, seadragon etc.

Over the last month or so my policy has more or less evaporated. So much so that I usually check the paid apps before the free ones. I've realized that, big boys excepted, you get what you pay for.

I wanted to share with you one in particular today (and I have the feeling more will follow), the Track & Field App from Playman. Unbelievably intuitive, you can participate in five different events, 100m dash, 110m hurdles, long jump, pole vault and javelin. The game's "fun factor" reminds me of the original Nintendo games. The graphics aren't breathtaking but they get the job done. There are only two buttons to press and some timing. It's one of those easy to play, impossible to master apps that seem to be a rarity in the app store.



The other thing worth mentioning about this app is it is great for quick play. It loads quickly and you can pick up right where you left off as there is a top notch auto-save feature. So, you can whip out your phone on the can, pass a level or two and feel like you accomplished something...you know, multitasking.

If you happen to have an iPhone or iPod touch and end up getting the Track & Field app I offer perhaps THE tip to help you do well: The alternative green dots you have to press are a seemingly randomly generated sequence, switching from left to right and back again. However, the green light will never appear on one side more than twice in a row. As such, if you get two green lights on the right side, you can immediately click the left side and gain some valuable time. You WILL need to use this strategy to get past the second round!

I'm looking for some more app buys, let me know of any you recommend!

The Ubiquitous Billy Mays

Given my previously stated mainstream-ism, it should come as no surprise that I was a big Billy Mays fan. I never gave any serious thought to buying any of the products he's endorsed, with the exception of that amazing impact gel, but I found Billy to be a great entertainer and a hell of a marketer.

Recently I was intrigued by the not-so-made-up rivalry between Billy Mays and Vince the Shamwow guy. The competition between them was great to read about.

Upon hearing the news of his death, I was reminded of a facebook status and resulting thread talking about Billy. I thought I'd share that thread with you.


Ryan Buck is wondering who would command the room were both Billy Mays and Vince the Shamwow guy around...what do you think?

Darrell Harden at 7:17pm February 7
I'm giving the nod to Billy Mays. He's louder. Then again, Vince the Shamwow guy would clearly insist that Billy can't do that all day.

Ryan Buck at 8:21pm February 7
yes...only for the next thirty minutes could he keep that going!

Jessica Jones at 11:57pm February 7
I think you'd just set it and forget it.

Ryan Buck at 11:38am February 8
A Ron Popiel reference. Good one JET! Now we need a good Chef Tony one!

Steve Stepek at 9:08am February 9
Totally Billy Mays! He'd seal up Vince with some space age polymer Smart Lidz borrowed from Chef Tony!

Ryan Buck at 9:09am February 9
are ya gettin' this camera guy?

Camille Stark at 3:23pm February 9
i have to go with the shamwow guy....i bet he could work a room

Darrell Harden at 8:04pm February 9
While I'm still giving the nod to Billy Mays, I'm thinking Vince the Shamwow guy would inflict some damage, as he's also Vince the Slap Chop guy.

Ryan Buck at 10:36pm February 9
I noticed he can't do it all day with that either.

Darrell Harden at 11:05pm February 9
I noticed that, too. Then again, that little thing chops up stuff in a hurry, so maybe he doesn't feel the need is there. Even still, Billy Mays has a much greater array of weaponry at his disposal.

Darrell Harden at 11:06pm February 9
Sidebar: I'm rather intrigued by the amount of interest this status has created. Good status, Ryan.

We'll miss ya, Billy.

What a beautiful library...why couldn't they put a Barnes & Noble here?

Over the last year or so I've come to terms with the fact that I'm terribly mainstream. My tastes are so average that I'm strange. I love a meal at Applebees, Chi-chi's was the best Mexican restaurant ever and Olive Garden seems like a great example of fine Italian cuisine.

It's not that I don't appreciate the towny bars and mom and pop shops - I do. But chain stores are built from experience. While they don't always fit in the context of the community around them, they always seem convenient.

Today, however, I reached a new low. I was walking around a brand new community library. A block off of the main drag, within easy walking distance of the entire community. Its a prime example of a public library. My downward spiral started when I asked a few local officials if a coffee shop was included as part of the development. I realized after I had opened my mouth I've never seen a coffee shop in a public library. I suppose I see a conflict that would prevent a private business sharing space in a public library but that is one of those conflicts that never seems like it would REALLY matter. The picturesque library lies next to a gently flowing river meandering back and forth with a train track in the background. It truly is a beautiful space.

Wouldn't you know, all I could think about was how much I wished it were a Barnes & Noble.

A friend put it best. "Wouldn't it be great if you could buy the books instead of getting them for free".

But I really could use a cup of coffee.

The 1st Amendment vs. Scranton City Council

Sometimes you just need to laugh and what better way to do it than the expense of someone else! If Mr. Lyman doesn't put a smile on your face...well, you need to attend more public meetings! For fans of the show The Office on NBC, the fact that this is taking place in Scranton PA is icing on the cake!

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Mr. Ray Lyman.

1. Who's the liar now?
2. The constitution outranks the law of the land
3. In the constitution you can speak as long as you want and this rules of Council does not exist
4. The constitution outrights any law in the land
5. The rules of council do not exist
6. They had two guys in suits comin around now!
7. You have a business, you can pave your sidewalk!

More to come regarding the City of Lithonia and hopefully a little something special about David Thompson and John Walsh!

Twitter Wars vs. Facebook and Myspace

After rereading my thoughts on the recent cultural explosion known as twitter, I thought it would be prudent to look at real numbers on the subject of social networking competitions. Who's REALLY your social daddy?

I used google trends (you might remember we used to call it zeitgeist) to see how the toddler twitter is truly fairing against big brother facebook and ugly uncle myspace. And yes of course using google trends is fool proof, providing real, tried and true scientific results. If you don't believe me - Google it! If you don't believe in sarcasm...then you should look it up on wikipedia.



As you can see (actually you can't, really, so you'll need to click on the graph above to get a clear image), twitter barely ammounts to a blip on the screen when compared to facebook. Before you go getting your panties in a bunch and burry twitter remember that facebook is a giant multi-billion dollar institution which makes comparisons using it as the basis difficult for all but things like "Obama" or maybe "Limbaugh".

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but Ryan, you just said Twitter is a cultural phenomenon, how can it only be a blip on the screen? While the search results for Twitter have only skyrocketed compared to themselves and remain a blip against facebook, the number of news stories about Twitter eclipsed that of facebook for a brief period of time during April 2009.

Why did this happen?

Freakin' Ashton Kutcher! Part of the draw of twitter for many is the fact that you can feel "at one" with the celebrity community. You can tweet "@aplusk wow its great what you are doing for world malaria day" and you can feel like you are friends with someone famous and, after all, thats all American society wants these days: to be a celebrity or a youtube sensation.

I guess the irony in this whole thing is that it was that very same obsession with celebrity that made twitter is what it is today. Twitter is the Paris Hilton of Social Networking: It is famous for being famous.

What's Paris doing these days anyway?

And feel free to follow me on twitter @rybupsp If you're interesting I'll even follow you back.

Tweet it

I have participated in social networking for about five years. It started with facebook. After that it didn't take long before I had a myspace page.

When I finished college, facebook was still a bit of an elitist network. Not everyone could join, you had to be part of an existing network such as a college or university that was affiliated with facebook. Eastern Michigan University didn't agree to be a facebook network until after I graduated, however, since I still had an emich.edu email account I was able to use that and join before many of my friends who had graduated before me.

Myspace at the time was the undisputed social network king at the time. Tens of millions of profiles! Once facebook opened its doors to high schools, the general public and then business and "things and places" it qrew much faster than myspace and has taken over as king particularly on the networking end. While myspace certainly provides more customization, facebook displays tons of information about many people in a way that is extremely easy to navigate.

Then here comes this twitter thing...again. I say again because twitter is not a new thing. I created a twitter account a year or so ago but it had been around a while before that. All twitter really is is a website that lets you send quick text updates to your subscribers. Now, facebook has something similar, It used to be called "status" but a couple months ago was strangely changed to "share". As strange as that move seemed, far be it from me to criticize changes to the facebook layout as they continue to increase the efficiency by which you can gain information about those you wish to learn about. While facebookers almost always complain against these changes with complaints about the "new stalkerbook" everyone...EVERYONE comes around in the end. Whatever it is that facebook calls it, it really has the same functionality of twitter but its only a small piece of what the book has to offer.

So, anyway...the reason for this post was to talk about how twitter has come back on the seen. The way I see it, it happened in the blink of an eye. I left for Africa in the middle of March, came back in mid April and all of the sudden CNN is in a tweet war with Ashton Kutcher and every radio show I listen to along with sports organizations and even Coach Rich Rodriguez are tweeting away.

I mentioned this at work today to a colleague and he commented on how amazing it was that a minor cultural phenomenon could appear, or reappear as it were, on the scene, during the course of a vacation.

Needless to say, I'm paying much more attention to my twitter account and tweets.

So we have facebook for the networkers, myspace for the high schoolers and twitter for the tmz/gossip loving Americano yuppies.

And then the old people and come and mess up everything.

Geo Challenge Tips and Tricks Part II - Map Mayhem

This is the second in a series of posts on the Facebook application Geo Challenge. This post will give you a couple of pointers on getting your score up in the second discipline, Map Mayhem. Again, our goal is to get you to 30,000 points.

Remember that these tips will help you increase your score, these are not cheats, but rather techniques to help you nudge your score just a touch higher. Nothing replaces a basic knowledge of Geography. HOWEVER, learning the ins and outs of how the game works can make you a BETTER player and earn a higher score than even a seasoned globe trotter. Who cares if you can't find Cambodia on a map? What you need to know is that when you see the straight line on the right side of the circular country you click the Ca...... on the right side of the screen!

This level displays the outline of a country and you have to pick the name of that country out of a list of four. Since there are only four choices this level can move fast and thus be a great point generator. However, this level is very tricky.

When you are looking at a map you have several cues to help you with what country you are looking at. The big two cues are location relative to other countries and size. At the beginning of each Map Mayhem round, these two cues are removed and you are left to base your decision by shape alone. This is harder than it sounds.

The good news is that, much like the Suitcase Shuffle round, you don't need to know every country. You're not going to need to know the differences in shape between Rwanda and Burundi. You will however need to be able to differentiate between Japan and New Zealand. While that may be easy on a map, with none of the normal cues, this is pretty hard.

So here are a couple of pointers.

1. Repeats of correct answers are infrequent - The exceptions I can think of include South Africa and South Korea. In general though, once you pick out a country, it won't be the correct answer again. So if you've already found Slovakia, you can pretty much forget about it for the remainder of the round.

2. Go to your home, that's your home...are you too good for your home? Answer me! - Cursor placement is again critical. You have to be ready to deliberately move to any of the four options. I suggest your home position in this discipline to be just off the left side of the country names, just above the middle of the third country down. This way you can see the whole country and read all the answers and still have to make a deliberate move both up or down and slightly to the right.

3. Don't think, react - This can backfire on you but to get a top notch score you have to rely on a little luck. When the country appears, if you know it, say the name in your head. If you see that is is Ireland, scan the choices for an I. You'll sometimes get Iceland, but the time advantage you can gain from a touch of luck will be what helps you get a higher score.

4. Associate shapes and names - This is probably just a fancy word for learning. Figure out a way to remember the shape and the word you see on the right. With practice this becomes like second nature. You probably do this in your daily life anyway. Italy is a boot, Michigan is a mitten, the state of ohio is a joke, etc. This game is no different except you don't need to know where these countries are, you just need to learn the names of some new shapes. Just like in Flag Spotter, you aren't going to need to know every country, only about 60 or so.

Here are a couple examples of how I relate shapes to names

Croatia looks like a C
Kyrgyzstan is the backwards C
Ecuador is the goldfish that swims to the top
Latvia is that f'ed up L
Austria has the panhandle
Afghanistan is the backwards Austria


You don't need to use these, this is just to give you an idea of how it all works.

5. Don't waste your time. The longer you wait, the more the cues on location and size come in to play. By the time this occurs though you're already losing valuable time. If seeing that Zambia is to the East of Angola is really going to help you, then go ahead and wait but chances are if you don't know it....you don't know it. I always struggled with Mongolia for this reason, it doesn't look like anything and without a size reference I could never figure out what it was. So, to fix this I've added it to the list in number 4 and now when I see "the one I don't know what it is" I click on Mongolia. Even Steven.

6. Trial and error - In the end you're going to have to learn, the key is to not realize that you're learning. For the purposes of this round and this game its not about knowing the countries its strictly learning the names of new shapes.

I hope this helps boost your score in Map Mayhem. Remember we still have TWO more rounds to get you to 30k points in Geo Challenge. Keep practicing and come back soon for not only more tips and tricks but a study guide I'm working on.

Happy Geoing.

For more Geography fun and a place to test your new found knowledge check out www.geosense.net

Geo Challenge Tricks of the Trade - Suitcase Shuffle

The good people at Playfish have created an amazingly addictive game called Geo Challenge which can be added as an application to your facebook page. Simply search "Geo Challenge" in the facebook search box and your first result will be the Geo Challenge app where you will see that there are more than 4 million active monthly users. Those are serious numbers, even for Facebook.

As a geography buff myself, I found this game to be not only entertaining but also quite challenging. The game tests your knowledge and reflexes on four different disciplines: Flags, country name, city location and landmark location.

As of this moment my high score is 45,687, much higher than my less nerdy friends that I have convinced to play along. But that's only because they haven't followed my advice!

While you won't find me on any high score boards, (which you will find are all filled with cheaters) I've learned some tricks to the game. With practice and a little advice I'll teach you how to score over 30,000 points on Geo Challenge legitimately!

This post will give you some tips to improve your score on Suitcase Shuffle. I'll come back with posts on the other disciplines soon and ultimately I plan to include a study guide post.

This discipline tests your ability to pick out the flag of a named country against a field of three (for the first three rounds) or six (everything after the first three).

1. Make sure you have a fast internet connection. Anything less than a high speed connection will not load fast enough for you to get a high score. With practice, your aim for this level should be near 10,000 - but don't get discouraged.

2. Find a "home" spot for your cursor. I use the middle flag and later the middle lower flag. After you click on a flag, immediately place your cursor in your home position. It's more important that your moves are deliberate and accurate than fast. Far too often I would try to move the cursor too fast, over shoot the flag and click on empty space. When you get faster, a click on nothing is a high score killer.

3. Sometimes what you don't know can help you.

Notice that earlier I said you need the ability to pick out a flag against a field, NOT know the flag. Knowing the flags certainly helps but it is not the only way. For example, I constantly mix up the flags of Spain and Mexico (I'm waiting for some interesting comments on that) knowing them doesn't' help me at all. I know both of them but something in my brain seems to mix them up.

This is most helpful when you get in to the later rounds. Remembering the difference between the flags of Senegal and Congo might be hard but if you need to find the flag of Congo, you'll be able to eliminate the ones you do know, giving you a much better chance.

For the first ten or so rounds, you'll want to have a pretty good base knowledge. Here's the ones you need to work on actually knowing and memorizing and they'll help you later on. United States, United Kingdom, England, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, Albania (trust me).

4. Its written all over the flags

This is not only the easiest tip but will likely help you the most, especially in the early stages of practice. Most of the more obscure flags have hints about their name right on the flag. Central African Republic has a stripe down the middle, making it stand out from all the rest of the African flags. Solomon Islands has stars to represent islands. Most of the countries with two names i.e. St. Kitts and Nevis have something that denotes "2". Tonga has pluses on the flag that look an awful lot like a "T". This isn't a sure fire measure but it will greatly improve your chances of guessing right. Antarctica? The flag used in this game is just a picture of the continent. The Vatican...money in the bank.

5. Continental divide

For a continent so diverse, the flags of Africa sure look an awful lot a like. Many of those used in the game incorporate green yellow and red/orange. Just by looking at a flag in this game, you can guess with about 80% certainty if it is from Africa. The good news is that most of the time there aren't two African flags in a series of six.

The same is true for many Central America flags. I couldn't pick out the flag of Honduras vs. the flag of Nicaragua but you can spot a flag from Central America in less than a second and the chances of two flags from the same area being in a grouping of six are slim. Use this to your advantage.

The trick is that you have to use these tips together. When you come to a screen, pick out the ones you know its NOT, figure out if the country name sounds like it is from Africa or Central America and if so, pick one of the African flags or the Central American flags. Be deliberate and take your time. It's probably better to let the game remove a few flags than to guess wrong blindly. But with these tips in mind your guess will be an educated one.

6. Seeing is believing - Its easy to sit back and take a passive approach to suitcase shuffle but you have to squeeze every millisecond out of each question. When the flags begin to descend so to does the name and you have to know what your looking for prior to letting your brain pick up on the subtle visual cues in each flag. Don't wait for the flags to settle before you start to read the name!

7. Don't be discouraged. Out of all the countries in the world, there are only fifty or sixty you're likely to run into. Pay attention to the ones you miss and after a few times you'll find that when you see "Palau" you know that its teal with a yellow circle even though if someone asked you what the flag of Palau looked like you might not have a clue. You will inevitably mix up the flags of Romania and Chad or Belarus and Portugal, let it go!

Good luck, have fun and let me know how you do and if you have any tips. I'll get to the other disciplines as well as more tips for here soon.

This Michael Phelps thing

In August of last year Michael Phelps was the unequaled star of the Olympics in Beijing (and remember its Bei- JING). I would still argue that Usain Bolt's accomplishments were more remarkable but I wouldn't guess that the giant of a Jamaican hasn't had his share of mistakes and transgressions, like Phelps.

There are a couple things about the fallout from this incident that I find fascinating.

-From a somewhat juvenile standpoint, I find it funny when adults (my self not included) use the words "marijuana pipe". It just sounds funny and misplaced.

-The fact that Michael Phelps only receives an 1800/month stipend from USA swimming (at first this sounded like a lot but then I actually realized how little it is).

-That people refuse to believe that someone who was the face of the nation for the duration of Olympics can actually have faults and that the aww-shucks media coverage might not actually be reflective of the actual person.

-And lastly, that I'm actually writing about this. After all, the Olympics were what, 6 months ago? Who cares about swimming anymore :)

One Pavilion to Another

Blogging is fun. It requires a certain amount of dedication and time. I'd say the last post on about half the blogs out there deal with apologies from the author about how they've neglected their audience...and those posts are often a year old (I've also found this to be the case with b-list star's websites - why I know that we'll leave up to your imagination).

So I guess this is my version of that so common post. But I had a good reason (and now it sounds even more like all the rest). I don't have a desktop at home, only a laptop and one that is about 4.5 years old at that! In part due to its age and in (large) part due to the visiting of sites not suited for work and some sites that are REALLY not suited for work, my computer was rendered ultimately useless and pathetic. My old HP Pavilion served me well, but it was time to move on.

...to ANOTHER HP Pavilion. Installation was a breeze and I have a computer in good enough shape to type blog posts again. Given that, and the ever changing soap opera that is my life, you'll be hearing more from me once again.

6 weeks to Africa!