ArcGIS Online Application Transparency Issue

Issue

I published a Map in ArcGIS Online, and converted it to an Application to add some custom functionality (splash disclaimer, print button, etc.). Unfortunately, there is a city boundary layer that is displaying with a 60% transparency, and the requestor wants this to be much darker. I cannot seem to adjust this at the Application level.

Application view

 

 The layer in the map has all transparency removed in the Symbology properties, as well as in the layer's Appearance settings. Despite removing and re-adding the hosted feature layer, the Application still renders the transparency.

Map view

Solution

 Check the settings at the feature layer level:

• In ArcGIS Online/your Portal, navigate to Content 
• Search for- and open the hosted feature layer
  
• Navigate to the Visualization tab
• Click the Change Style icon  
• Click the Options button to open the symbol properties
• Review the Overall Transparency setting and adjust if necessary

60% Transparency applied

Discussion

 In my case, this is where the issue originated. After I set the Overall Transparency to 0%, the property was able to propagate through to the Application level. Despite explicitly configuring the transparency in the Map that is directly consumed by the Application, the Application still reached across the Map and pulled the default transparency variable that was defined in the feature layer.

That is annoying because I had intended for the default City Boundary layer to render with a decent amount of transparency; and this application is an outlier from the otherwise uniform graphic standard I was hoping to implement.

Alternatively, I'll try to apply a transparency value inside the symbol fill/outline settings, rather than at the Overall layer transparency. 💁

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Emoji on Desktop

! When this was first published, Facebook and other apps did not have desktop emoji support. Even now, it's a bit clunky and cramped so this post might still be helpful

I love using emojis on mobile. It's childish, but I entertain myself by posting eleven cry-laughing faces in a row; or any insane flood of emotional responses and random items. I find that it adds a bit of dimension to plain raw text without having to find the exact rage comic or photo to accompany a quick message.

Even my wife sends entire emoticon shopping lists.

On desktop, however, it's annoying to have to Google a set of icons to use for just a casual Facebook interaction. Using Chrome, I created a bookmark and made a short keyword to quickly launch a preferred page of symbols.

Link a Page to a Keyword

I've been using this set of "facebook symbols" because its layout is decent, the emoji organization is similar to my Android, and it automatically copies single selections and it can copy an entire string of emoticons. Something like Emojipedia is not as rapid-user friendly.

• Navigate to Chrome Settings (chrome://settings)
• Scroll down to the Search category and click Manage Search Engines
• Scroll to the bottom the lower box (Other search engines) 
• Type a page title in the Add a new search engine box. Something like Facebook Emojis will do
• Pick a short keyword to launch the page. For my Facebook Emojis page, I entered fbe here
• Finally, paste the URL of the page in the last textbox
• Click Done and close Chrome Settings

Now simply open a new tab (Ctrl+T) and type your keyword to launch the page.

Problems with Font Awesome Icons

I love Font Awesome, but it's been a pain in the ass for me to work with their icons on my Windows machine using Inkscape. I blame this on Inkscape's buggy text element interface, but I'm happy to use it as a free, open source package.

Anyhow, it's hard to select an icon from the Font Awesome Cheatsheet or from individual icon pages becasue I'm not able to select the icon directly. I end up copying a space character.

I ended up relying on Microsoft word to act as a medium to get access to copying the character:

• Open Word
• Type the Unicode address, for instance f041
• Select the 4-digit code and hit Alt+x to convert the unicode value to its designated character
• Change the font of the unknown character to FontAwesome, then I can finally move on with my life...

Even after I'm able to copy the desired character from Word, Inkscape still doesn't always work since it's a nightmare tying to tell Inkscape to render the character using the FontAwesome font.

Anyway, here are a few things to consider to ease the transition

Download the Latest Font File

If you have any problem, first update to the latest Font Awesome font file:

• Uninstall any current Font Awesome fonts you have installed. Make sure to close any software that's running it including Inkscpae, Gimp, Illustrator, or even Word or Outlook just to be safe
• Go to FontAwesome.io and click the Download button to grab the latest version
• Install the .ttf file and try again

Chrome Won't Let me Select Icons

I found a cool Chrome extension that streamlines the search-copy method.

Download the Font Awesome Icon Picker extension for Chrome for a quick Font Awesome reference. It'll let you easily navigate the catalog of icons, and most importantly, it allows you to directly highlight and copy individual icons.

Since I started using this, I haven't had a problem directly pasting the desired icon directly into Inkscape.

Rapidly Send Encrypted Information via Email

Never send sensitive information through email, or text. This includes passwords, social security numbers, bank account information, maybe even sensitive medical information, etc.

Sometimes you can't chat in person or over the phone to tell someone the information they need, or maybe you just need to send it to yourself for another location. Take a moment to quickly encrypt that data before sending it.

All you really need to encrypt information is a common program called 7-zip. Download and install it from 7-zip.org.

Encrypt your data:

• Create a new text document. A Notepad or Wordpad .txt file is the fastest, but feel free to use Word, Excel, a nice looking template saved as PDF, or anything else
• Write your sensitive data, save the file, and close the document

• Right click on the file, navigate to the 7-zip sub-menu and choose Add to archive

• Enter a password, choose your desired settings, and also check Encrypt file names just for an extra level of security. Click OK to continue

A zipped file with a .7z extension will be created. If a user attempts to open it, they will be prompted for a password. Without the password, file names nor the enclosed content will be able to be viewed, so any enclosed data is safer to send through e-mail, etc.

Color Development: Tools and Methods

I accidentally went nuts writing about the basics of digital color, so I decided to make it a separate article.  Check that out:

Color Development: Digital Color Basics

In this article, I'll list a few tools I use for color development, and discuss how I like to brew and develop colors in graphic design and cartography environments.

Color Brewing

These are some of my favorite tools to build and tune color sets.

• Adobe Color CC (formerly Kuler)
• coolors.co - Palette Generator
• Paletton / Color Scheme Designer
• ColorBrewer
• Google Color Design
• Material Design Palette Creation
• CSS Drive - Pull palettes from images

Browser Utilities

ColorPick Eyedropper

ColorPick Eyedropper is a Chrome extension that enables you to quickly grab a color from a Web page. There's even a rad little magnifying visualization that helps zero in on the exact pixel you need.

Desktop Utilities

ColorPic

ColorPic is a great desktop tool to help snag Hex, HSV, RGB, CMYK, values, and save your own custom groups of color. There are even sliders, and grids to use to help build or tune your colors if necessary.

ColorOracle

ColorOracle is a fantastic color deficiency simulator. It's a quick way to preview your entire monitor view for any potential issues with color patterns which may be difficult to read for those with color-vision impairments. No exporting

Add a Web Mapping Data Service to ArcMap

I have a hole in my current coverage of waterbodies - I need to know the name of a few streams, and the dataset of Rivers doesn't include the stream I need. I don't necessarily want to download and manage another whole dataset of flowing waters. Temporarily referencing a Web mapping service in my ArcMap project would be great.

The best database I am aware of that includes comprehensive waterbody geometry and names is the USGS's National Hydrography Dataset. Thankfully, they do indeed provide a Web mapping service!

Search for a Mapping Service

A quick Google search with the phrase nhd web map returns a direct link to the USGS National Map's map service endpoint:

http://services.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/nhd/MapServer

• Copy this URL from the browser for use in the next section

These Map or Feature Service URLs (referred to as "service endpoints" or simply "endpoints") aren't always so easy to find, so other projects/data services may require more digging. Look for clues in the URL itself such as the /rest/services/ directories, and for minimal styling (basic-looking fonts, colors, lists, etc.).

To link to a specific portion of the map service (for instance a specific layer or layer group within the main service layer), follow some of the links under the Layers list (see below). Copy that specific URL for use in the next step if you would like. Compare the following URL that represents the Waterbody layer which is layer position 11 in the service package:

http://services.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/nhd/MapServer/11

Add a Service to ArcMap

1. Click the Add Data button 
2. Change the Look in category to GIS Servers

3. Double click on Add ArcGIS Server to launch the Add ArcGIS Server wizard
4. Accept the default value to simply Use GIS services and click Next
5. Paste the Server URL that was copied from where you found the chosen service endpont
6. Leave the User Name and Password blank if the server is open for public use, and click Finish

Adding the Service Layer to an ArcMap Project

• Hit the Add Data button again if you aren't already there
• Ensure your Look In category is pointing to GIS Servers, just as we did in the last section
• Double click on NHD on services.nationalmap

! Note: Slow double click on this element to rename this to "National Hydrography Dataset" or anything else if you don't prefer this title

• Double click the nhd service layer to add the dataset to your project

! Note: This is a large dataset with that's referencing a ton of layers and information. Depending on the speed of your computer, your network connection, and the size of your existing ArcMap project, it may take some time for the layer to be added to your project.

Structure of the NHD map service. Notice that scale-
dependent drawing is set for a number of layer groups.

Color Development: Digital Color Basics

I intended to just write about how to create colors and suggest some cool tools I've found, but this got out of control. Check out the next article:

Color Development: Tools and Methods

There are various ways of building colors for a project or symbol. For general, rapid selection, users are often offered a basic color palette to select a color:

Default color palette from ArcMap

Color palette from Word

Even MS Paint offers a few basic colors

Notice that each of these provide an option to edit the color further.

Color Values

Colors commonly have names: like Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Cyan, Magenta, Olive Drab, etc.

! Specifics aside, Black, White, and shades of grays are referred to as colors here

Various environments like CSS, and HTML accept some reserved names to act as color values, however those names correspond to very specific numeric values (discussed below), and can be easily referenced on lists like this one. A color isn't "like red" to a computer. It's Red, or it's not.

In the world of coding, there's a need to describe color in a more articulate way than just names. Due to the diverse nature of how light acts (See Further Reading, at the end of this article), there are also a number of different methods that programmers and graphic artists use to build and digitally represent color. Although the various methods may describe a color value differently, they are basically just providing a group of three or more numerical values that act as measurements of various criteria that go into building a representation of color. There are four types of units you may expect to see in these groupings:

• Percentage - values from 0 to 100%
• 8-bit - Values from 0 to 255
• Hex - Values from 00 to FF
• As in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 11, 12, etc.
• Degrees - Values from 0 to 360º

Zero will always equal zero in any of the first three modes, but the "full" value values will be either 100%, 255, or FF. Those three are all equal values, written in different base units; in the same way that a measurement of 10 centimeters  is 100% of 3.93701 inches.

I'll get to degrees later in HSV/HSL.

Color Models

RGB

RGB Selector in ArcMap

The RGB triad stands for Red, Green, and Blue. Colors in this model are altered by adding or subtracting values in for any of the three primary color channels. As an "additive model," greater values result in brighter color instances, and lower values result in darker colors. This is based on a model of emitted light, where mixing red, green, and blue light produce the color white.

Users can adjust the sliders in this interface to control values of each of these channels between values of 0 and 255; where 0 = no value, and 255 = the full value of a given channel.

Alternatively, users can type a number they have in mind - this is particularly helpful when one wants to jump between increments of a values when searching for a color to use (e.g. changing the red value from 10, to 20, to 30, using the keyboard's number pad).

Color values are read as (#, #, #) or 

(Red value, Green value, Blue value). Since the RGB model is 24-bit (16.7 million possible color combinations), the values in each of the three channels will be some combination between 0 and 255.

As the example above illustrates, to build the color Red, tune the Red channel all the way up to 255, and leave Green and Blue channels at 0 since there should be no other color in Red but red. Done. Aside from various settings on your personal monitor, this is the standard, globally accepted, fullest possible value of Red.

Mixing two of the primary colors, Red, Green, or Blue produces
the "additive secondary" colors, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.
Mixing all three primary colors produces White.

The value (0, 0, 0) produces Black (the absence of light), and (255, 255, 255) produces White. Shades of gray are produced by matching all three values from (1, 1, 1) (darkest gray but not Black) to (254, 254. 254) (lightest gray but not White).

Back to our example of building the color Red, adding some value to the Green or Blue channels will yield some other color that may look reddish, but it isn't Red.

Additonally, the ArcMap interface gives you hints as to what other colors can be created from the current settings. With Red at 255, adjusting the Green channel will produces shades of red, through orange, and finally arriving at Yellow. Alternatively, adjusting the Blue channel will move through shades of reds and pinks and finally arrive at Magenta.

This is a good model to use to begin learning how to mix colors, but it's not my preferred model to use because it's tricky to imagine how to add a little red or remove a little green to target your preferred color.

CMYK

CMYK is a subtractive color model, used most often when printing is involved as an output medium. Pigments and inks absorb light (as opposed to how RGB works to emulate emitted light), so this model helps printers create the correct color with their ink print heads, as opposed to a computer monitor's LED pixels.

CMYK stands for Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key, where Key represents a black ink head. Black is used in printers as an efficient and controlled way to provide shadows, dark values, and black text to the printed material.

Just like mixing color with paint (where light is absorbed and the remaining wavelengths provide the observer perceived color), the CMYK model begins with the color white. Value is added to the channels, and lightness is removed. So zero values are White, and full values in all channels produce Black. Additionally, a full value in the Key channel also produces Black, regardless of the settings in the CMY channels.

Notice that the secondary colors in the RGB model produce Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. Conversely, mixing two primary colors in the CMYK model will produce Red, Green, and Blue.

This is also not my favorite model to use to produce color, and it's generally just a pain in my ass when I'm printing large format maps.

HSV / HSL / HSVa / HSLa

HSV dialog in ArcMap

HSV selectors in Gimp, adjacent to RGB selectors
with the Hex code value, below

HSLa Selectors in Inkscape

These triads stand for Hue-Saturation-Value, and  Hue-Saturation-Lightness. The following "a" stands for Alpha, which is a metric of transparency. Sometimes this is included as a channel, sometimes it isn't. It's very important to recognize whether or not it's included. If you don't want to bother, make sure it is set to 100%, or 255, or FF.

This model is a bit tricky, so let's break it down.

Hue can be though of as the root color you're looking for on the color wheel: either a reddish, or a blueish, or a yellowish color, etc. The wheel starts at 0º, and continues through oranges, yellows, greens, blues etc, and eventually ends back at red at 360º; which also = 0º, but that's okay because both values are the same red.

A color wheel with 0° and 360° at the 12:00 position

Next, Saturation describes how muted gray (lack of color) or vibrant (fully colored) a color should be. This is usually a percentage, where 0 means no color is present and 100% represents the full colored potential of a color.

Examples of saturation gradients for several hues,
which correspond to the color wheel, above

! Note that the units can change between software packages. Inkscape uses 8-bit values (numbers 0-255) for each, HSLa channel. So a Hue value of 255 will correlate to 360° on the color wheel, and a 255 in the Saturation channel is equivalent to 100% saturation.

If you are building colors that are way off, you may need to check your units and convert when necessary.

Finally, Value and Lightness and are.. Also a bit tricky. Go ahead and read about the differences over on Wikipedia. Essentially, this component controls how light or dark a color will be.

Zero values in both HSV and HSL produce the color Black, regardless of Hue or Saturation settings.

The main difference between Value and Lightness is that the highest Value setting produces a fully saturated color (see the Saturation illustration above, and the ArcMap HSV selector below), and

the highest Lightness setting will produce a pure White color (see the Inkscape HSL selector below). A fully saturated color using HSL will have a Lightness value of 50% - or 128 (as Inkscape uses 8-bit values for each channel).

Hex

I didn't really touch on Hex, other than that it is another method of preserving a value of color. There's not much to it. It essentially is just a concatenation of the three or more channels in the fewest logical number of characters.

Short answer: Hexadecimal notation throws a couple of letters after the number 9 so each significant figure can be one of 16 possible values:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Hex usually stands for RRGGBB, and sometimes for RRGGBBAA (for Alpha).

To find the Hex value of Red using the common six-digit RRGGBB method, first find the RGB value of Red:

  (255, 0, 0)

Then convert each value to its hex equivalent:

(FF, 00, 00)

Finally, remove the formatting, and stick the three values together:

FF0000
123456

For Inkscape and the few other examples of hex RGBa values, just throw another set of F's on the end. Here, we'll have a fully opaque value of Red:

FF0000FF

12345678

HTML & CSS

There are two ways to write hex color values in CSS and HTML.

There's the long way (again, using Red as an example):

#FF0000

And when all three RGB channels use doubled digits for their channel, you can use a 3-digit format:

#F00

Additional examples:

#112233 = #123

#00FF00 = #0F0

#333333 = #333

Further Reading

The physics of light are fascinating. I learned a lot about the subject in my various Remote Sensing courses in grad school, and in the practice of GIS and graphic design over the years. There are plenty of other great resources to use on these matters. Here are a few search terms to consider:

• Emitted vs. Reflected light
• Additive vs. Subtractive color
• Color models
• Primary color of light and pigment
• Light vs. Pigments
• Pigment vs. Dye
• Blackbody radiators
• Color theory

HTML List with No Heading/Bullet/Number

I make a lot of bulleted lists for this blog, as well as other Web-based tutorials and design documents.  Often I will want to insert a centered graphic for a given bullet point, however the indentation of the list will offset the center justification of the image - which looks like garbage on the narrow area provided in this blog's style.

I can usually close the tags of the list, insert a centered graphic and move on with my life, however there are a few instances where I will want to return to the indentation of the list without starting a new bullet point.

Basic illustration:
Example:

• A single item in an unordered list

A centered image outside of an unordered list

Code:
<ul>
<li>An example list</li>
</ul>

<img src="lolinternet.gif" />

Omit <li> tags or use <p>:
Instead of using a list item tag (<li>), use a paragraph tag (<p>) to jump back into the indentation without including a new bullet point.

Example:

• Another unordered list item

Another centered image,
outside of <ul> tags

Returning to indentation without a bullet point
• An additional bullet point

Code:
<ul>
<li>Another unordered list item</li>
</ul>

<img src="lolinternet_8bit.gif" />

<ul>
<p>Returning to indentation without a bullet point </p>
<li>An additional bullet point </li>
</ul>



Jump back into ordered lists in any defined order:
However rarely, it is sometimes necessary to have more control over the order of a list.  One can begin a list at any position using any style.  These attributes have been deprecated and one should instead utilize a style, but the idea is still the same.

Example - The Buzz Ordering System:




1. I'm not that lucky

2. We have smoke detectors

4. We live on the most boring street in the United States of America; where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period!

Code:

<img src="buzz.PNG" />
 
<ol type="a">
<li value="1">I'm not that lucky</li>
</ol>

<ol>
<li value="2">We have smoke detectors</li>
</ol>

<ol type="A">
<li value="4">We live on the most boring street in the United States of America; where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period!</li>
</ol>

Where the type="" attribute sets the ordered marker style, with numbers as the default/inherent value:

• 1 = Numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
• A = Capital letters: A, B, C, D, E...
• a = Lowercase letters: a, b, c, d, e...
• I = Roman numerals: I, II, III, IV, V...
• i = Small Roman numerals: i, ii, iii, iv, v...

The value="" attribute sets the starting position, with 1 as a default value. 

Read more about these methods:

• http://bignosebird.com/docs/h30.shtml
• W3Schools: HTML Lists
• W3Schools: Ordered List Tags

Impossible Khan Academy Question

KhanAcademy.org is very cool.  This Web site offers lessons and exercises on a wide variety of mathematics, science, and other subjects.  I am going through and playing with some exercises in hopes of honing my advanced statistics, trig, and calculus skills.

I came across this scuba diving example that uses simple arithmetic to solve.  The math is correct, but the situation is virtually impossible:

Daniel was scuba diving 28 meters below sea level when he spotted a beautiful fish below. To see the fish up close, Daniel dove 29 meters until he was level with the fish, staring into its eyes.

Where was the fish relative to sea level?

Answer: -57 meters

57 METERS DEEP!? Really? That's 187 feet!  Let's convert this situation to imperial units and interpret what is more likely ocurring:

Some BS open water diver isn't prepared for a deep dive and heads down to 92 feet on a ledge somewhere amazing for far too long time and gets narced out of his mind since he's breathing air instead of Nitrox.  In a hallucination he sees something and decides to dive another 95 deeper and immediately dies from running out of breathing gas.
How deep was Derpo when he died?

Answer: Derpo died at -187 feet

The follow is my nerdy response when I reported a problem for this question:

---

Greetings,

Although the math is correct, there is a problem with the unrealistic units of depth that are chosen in this example.

A basic recreational scuba diver - who would be interested in observing and following fish rather than performing industrial or scientific work - is generally limited to diving within 100 feet from the surface (≈30.5 meters).  Beyond this depth a number of physiological factors limit a dive without having highly technical training and gear; including nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity, and an elevated risk of decompression illness.

The question states that a diver finds a fish at 28 meters below the surface (92 feet), and descends another 29 meters (95 feet) below this, giving a maximum dive depth of 187 feet.  This diver will surely suffer narcotic effects from the high partial pressure of nitrogen unless he or she were to switch to an anoxic breathing gas that is a specific mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium (referred to as "heliox" or "trimix") which cannot otherwise sustain life at the surface.

Beyond physiological limitations, it is technically plausible however unlikely that a diver will encounter conditions where visibility beyond 80-90 feet of vertical visibility.  In the case that a diver could view an object that lies an additional 95 feet below in the water column with any definition, it is unlikely that the object will appear to be anything more than a dark shadow, as water quickly absorbs much of the visible light spectrum.

Without significant and expert dive planning in perfect conditions, this description of a scuba dive is virtually impossible.  Simply switching the units of depth from meters to feet would make this a far more plausible, and realistic example.

Best regards,
 - Derpington

Dinosaur Comics Mishegas

In response to the May 6th Dinosaur Comic:

Taco arrows:

And once again, my "Raptogram" projection (full description):

Tech Mashup Idea: Live Street View for Google Maps

Cell phone cameras are getting much more impressive.  I just saw an 8 megapixel HD camera on an Android  phone.  Neat.  Also about time.  Android also has lots of great apps too (I really need to dig into Java programming a bit more).  After all, it's free to develop apps (eclipse.org, android.com, etc.) for it.  A friend (@alanlupsha) and I were swapping app ideas when it finally hit me: live street view feeds.

Given that phones have:

• high quality cameras to capture photos and video
• the ability to record a lat/long position, and a bearing & angle (via compass app/tilt/acceleratometers)
• the ability to send data and communicate with other devices/computers

then this app can:

• automatically geotag photos with a lat/long, direction, and angle OR
  automatically geotag frames of a video with locations along a recorded along a path (also see RoboGEO software)
• upload geotagged media to a server when you return to your home wifi connection, or any other wifi hotspot (@alanlupsha)
• server geocodes the images (with minimal effort now) and updates an internet mapping application view that can be shared individually as a single view (see Google's Street View @ the 2010 Olympic ski runs)

Browser Spellchecking: Text areas and text boxes

I love Mozilla's dictionary extension/add-on, though I noticed that it only works on text areas (blog entries, facebook comment boxes, etc.) as opposed to other one-line text boxes (blog titles, "Enter your name" type fields).  It turns out that this is a setting that can be changed so all text input boxes can be checked for spelling.  Also, it's not difficult to change either:

Using Mozilla:

• type about:config into the URL address bar and hit Enter
• take note of the resulting message, warning users to be careful with any changes and click the, "I'll be careful, I promise!" button to bring up a list of all of the preferences available in the browser
• type layout.spellcheckDefault into the filter and double click on the matching result to change the setting from 1 to 2
• 0 = Disable Spellchecker
• 1 = Enable Spellchecker for multi-line controls (default)
• 2 = Enable Spellchecker for multi- and single-line controls
• Click OK to save the parameter

That's it!  Change it back to 1 if you don't like it, though I find it to be pretty useful.

Challenges of February Album Writing Month

February Album Writing Month is a challenge to write and record 14 songs in 28 days.  This is quite a feat in itself, however the collective of artists with whom I have joined live hundreds of miles apart!  The solution is a (so far) effective integration of web technology, project management, discussion, collaboration.  Somehow, we have found enough time to cram some creativity in there.

Discussion and Collaboration:
E-mail is the main form of communication however many of the members meet in a group chat session to discuss various topics ranging from media about material to management techniques.  These are assisted by the use of a private Google Group, which we use to group e-mail topics and discussions together, an also to store web pages to jot down notes, lyrics, and other information about songs, and other information.


Project Management:
The Google Group is a very important tool to keep ideas flowing together smoothly, however key bits of information can get easily lost in this massive amount of flowing thoughts; especially if a member misses a message, or cannot keep up to date with every discussion.  A more specific collaborative table of information was created using a Google Docs spreadsheet to track the process of individual songs that are in various stages of being created.  Take a look below:



Web Technology:
Many thanks are given to Google for providing such power and effective tools, however there's still more to this endeavor.  The nature of internet recording projects introduces a problem of sending content (numerous large .wav files).  We have been using a private FTP site to house the final cuts of each contributing part of a song to be mixed at the end of the month, however drop.io is used to post intermediate audio tracks (loops, samples, ideas, grooves, individual cuts, etc.) to quickly reference for writing and recording sessions:



In addition, several members are posting thoughts and musings about the process in our blog: TheseGnarlyBeasts.tumblr.com.  As the recording for each song is completed, we intend to post minute-long raw mixdown samples here.  The final album will be released free of charge via bandcamp (also see TheseGnarlyBeasts.bandcamp.com):



I have been streaming my recording sessions live on the web via justin.tv/justinberke.  Each time I start a session, I post a link to my friends via Twitter & Facebook, and justin.tv automatically posts a bulletin on MySpace.  This allows any of my friends, or other fellow Beasts to tune in and check out how each drum track or other portion of recording/mixing is progressing.

These Gnarly Beasts draw upon a plethora of technological advancements to assist in making this daunting challenge possible.  A combined management effort from all members ensures that these various tools work effectively to facilitate a continuous flow of creativity and collaboration all month long.  Look for an additional link to the full album in the first week of March.

Languages of Modeling

I recently became interested in modeling everyday occurrences. This is mostly a joke, though it's definitely good practice to keep statistical analysis techniques fresh in my head. Additionally, it's helping me brush up on some much needed math topics that are in dire need of refreshment.

To effectively convey this information (nerdy jokes), I realize that I draw upon four sorts of languages: English, stats, math, and the newest L^AT_EX.

• English is used to concisely describe a situation: "Shaquille O'Neal is the greatest living actor"
• Statistical modeling is used to describe and quantify predictions, interactions, and tendencies: "My love of killing hookers by playing Grand Theft Auto is directly proportional to your love of killing literature by obsessing over Twilight - as modeled in relation to characters who look like they're addicted to meth." English is used as the core language, however the subset dialect of statistics is well defined. Certain graphs and diagrams are often added to convey an idea
• Mathematics are used to explicitly define what is happening in a specific, overly technical, dry-witted manor:

• and finally, the newest of which, L^AT_EX, is used to create the pretty looking mathematical and statistical functions and algorithms: (see above)

Throw in some HTML as the medium of dissemination, and you have one nerdy kid that needs to record more music and make some bad decisions.

LaTeX is a markup language used in typesetting information into standard, pre-existing document templates. Whereas writing a paper usually consists of typing text into MS Word and setting the page margins, paragraph spacing, indentations, etc., the same plain text of the paper can be pasted into the LaTeX environment with bits of markup wrapping around it. All standard formatting is automatically applied so numerious authors can easily produce articles with the same formatting.

Additionally, high quality formulas are easier to create. The methodical and intuitive prasing can get cluttered, but pretty much everything is grouped by braces ( { } ).

As an example, here is the code used to create the formula above:

Nickelback = {\sum{StabWounds}^{MyEars} \over{time}} - Enjoyment(life)

While reading just a little bit about it, I immediately began to recognize this as the formatting used in many of the journal articles that I read. Of course I learn about this on my way OUT of grad school! Instead I'll use it for nerdy internet jokes. Wonderful.

App Idea: Facebook History

I've tried on a few different occasions to see how I have previously wasted my time in the past. I scroll to the bottom of my Facebook wall, click "Older Posts" and repeat. This happens up to a half dozen times before I loose interest (I've read studies that internet users' attention span is as short as seven seconds [I would have posted links, but I don't feel like reading these articles]). This technique usually yields no more than a day or two of my Facebook history. Who cares?

I'd like a more efficient way to (possibly) quantify and (more importantly [not importantly]) reflect on just how much of my youth I have wasted. Assume each wall post can equal 10-20 seconds, each posted picture/link amounts to a bit more time, etc. Also, it'll just serve as a simple tool to navigate through a given time frame to see what you/your friends were up to at least 100 years ago.

Masters Research using Google

Why do I not own stock in Google? The bubble has not burst yet so it seems pretty solid; with GOOG-411, the forthcoming Google Voice, and Google Wave, etc. Let's go holidays!

Update: RIP Goog-411, hello Android voice-to-text

Speaking of celebration, I just finished my masters research. I was assisting with (and thanks to the shortcomings of ArcMap, I am continuing to finish) research at Florida State University which is continuing to investigate spatial patterns of cloud-to-ground lightning flashes across various landscapes. My contribution primarily aimed to build a geoprocessing model to assist with the preliminary data preparation for future iterations of similar research. Some other bricka-brack followed.

I decided to write it using Google Docs because I knew I would be working at home, in my office at DEP, and on campus and versioning is a pain in the ass. This is the 90's... nobody needs to save separate/new copies to a flash drive or send via e-mail anymore. This allowed me to edit a standard copy from various locations on demand. Very clean. Of course I formatted and submitted the final versions with Word (2003), though this MS Dependency is becoming increasingly antiquated with the assistance of LaTeX (a very good formating and publishing medium).

Although I didn't really need to use this feature, it is easy to set permissions and invite other users to view or edit any text document, spreadsheet, form, or presentation thuswise:

Project Proposal
Survey of Literature / Background
Data Management
Visualization & Spatial Investigation

I strongly recommend reading the Survey of Literature / Background and ignoring the rest of it. It "briefly" introduces what a thunderstorm is and how they are created.

There are around 40 references in total (each document basically composes the final report) - to which I would like to give many thanks to Google Scholar and Google Books.

Scholar is aided by a proxy connection to FSU's library which has subscriptions to many of the journals that are returned in a search. Books doesn't have every book, nor does it allow users to see every page of all available books, however I was able to serach thousands of books for a single word or phrase, and the results are not only higlighted, but each page is presented with separate previews and links to the specific page of the book.

I can't imagine a world (I'm looking at you, the 20th centrury) that did not have the luxary of these efficient tools. Walking to the library and reading through hundreds of pages of books and journals absolutely has its benefits (learning vast amounts of supplementary information and providing a more comprehensive overview of the topics of interest), but it's for suckas.

Additional Blog for Mobile Updates

I started a blog for my cell phone. It has a qwerty keyboard and camera and I seem to often encounter mildly entertaining hilarity. The internets must know about this.

Peep justin-berke.blogspot.com.

Website Ideas: FML-Style Web Sites

In the style of FML and TFLN, where users submit short, text based hilarity, I'd like to build three web sites.

One is dedicated solely to "That's what she said" opportunities from inappropriate situations. As much as I would like to shout it across a meeting with my division director, or at my roommate's mother when she walks into a giant bucket of hilarity, I'm often bound to a puritanically imposed sense of of tact.

The second is simply a compilation of quasi-believable erroneous facts. For instance, skin is actually an acronym for its composing elements: Sodium Potassium Iron & Nitrogen. The human body contains exactly 100 bones (101 if you count the skull). Fire ants prefer hickory BBQ sauce. Pi is exactly 3. That sort of thing. See Look Around You.

In an xkcd stylee of nerdiness, the last is a site dedicated to user-submitted equations, algorithms, functions, statistical inferences, etc. that model everyday occurrences or nuisances. For instance, Matt's First Law of Mexican Restaurants states that "The quality of cuisine at a Mexican restaurant is inversely proportional to the cleanliness of its bathrooms," or my postulation that "the likelihood of vegetarian options existing on a given menu decreases as the number of televisions at a restaurant increase." Yeah, statistics jokes are GOLD these days. Also, jokes involving computer programming/coding or diagrams (chemical, physical, electrical, etc.) are fair game. OpenWetWare has a cool santax for creating diagrams.

• Update: thisisindexed.com (thanks, DLC)
• Update: GraphJam (thanks, lolcat network)

I created new blog called Unnecessary Modeling. For now I'm using the graph builder at GraphJam for my templates, but they're not showing up as well as they could, so I might switch over to Google Docs soon.

These are not really that great but I would like to learn basic web based database management programming. I love LAMP!