O’REILLY – Programming Interactivity arrived

Surprisingly my new O’Reilly book – Programming Interactivity – arrived today. Way earlier than expected. I ♥ Amazon.

Filed under: Visual Diary

New Scientist – The Remotest Place on the Earth

Like so often when I browse the web on the look out for inspiration, I start off or end up at VisualComplexity.com, founded by Manuel Lima and launched in late 2005. This time an information graphic caught my attention that has been created according to the research of several international institutions. One of them is the World Bank. The graphic via color code maps out the most remote places on earth, by comparing the travel times it would take people from all over the world to reach the next largest populated area of a minimum of 50.000 inhabitants. The map only considers land and water ways as the two forms of transportation. According to summary the Tibetan plateau is the most isolated place. But also Russia is quite interesting to look at, remembering that it is the largest country in the world.

I straight away recalled a Ted talk held by Parag Khanna in which he talks about world countries interconnection and their shifting borders over time. Parag points out that only about 1/5 of Russia’s population is spread over the eastern regions. That is by the look of it roughly 2/3 of its overall size. The fascinating thing about comparing the first with the second map is, that they complement each other very well coming from different sources.

It was an interesting find which I can recommend to have a look into and the “Remotest Place on the Earth” map also satisfies my daily cravings for eye pleasing information graphics.

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Visual Diary

Duemilanove has arrived

Yup…that was one quick delivery, haha. My Arduino board is here. And came in a tupperware like plastic container. Actually quite smart.

The original Arduino controller (there are many similar products on the market ) has been developed in Italy and bears the www.tinker.it domain printed on its PCB. I have added this website to my link list and will be browsing it tonight after finishing work. I have also ordered a paperback version of O’reilly’s Programming Interactivity book. Reading more than 700 pages on screen is suicide. Unfortunately it will take quite a while until I can smell the scent of freshly printed spreads. 12th of November – an Amazon estimate 😦

Can’t wait to start tinkering. My tool box felt so lonely recently.

But first things first.

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Hardware, Visual Diary

Arduino Duemilanove Is On Its Way

I’m reporting back from Sydney CBD. The “Speed” coffee bar to be precise. The coffee here is delicious and two cups of Flat White definitely get you going. The atmosphere is great for one can observe summer approaching 😉 I’m currently busy writing quotes for some dynamic flash games and due to that need to delay my website launch even further. Bear with me. It’s coming soon. I have also just ordered my first Arduino Duemilanove Board online and can’t wait to get my hands on the Development Environment, which is based on Processing IDE. The programming language is based on Wiring and this is pretty much all I know so far. I have also organized the relatively new O’reilly book “Programming Interactivity”, which is another subject to study.
Ok, back to work 😉

Cheers

Gabor

Filed under: Visual Diary