Crime Map 2.0

John Winkelman

I just finished up the last hour of polishing on the new version of the Grand Rapids Crime Map. Here is a list of the changes:

-all incidents are up to date
-new filters are in place: date, weekday, and street name
-more organized, usable layout
-content managed to allow for easier and more frequent updates

I built the new version – interface and content management system – in PHP. The data for the crimes is loaded using a Python script. Eventually this whole site may well be ported over to Python. It’s a neat language.

Here are some interesting tidbits which came to light using the new filters:

-Monday and Wednesday are the crimiest days of the week
-Division Ave, Plainfield Ave, Leonard Street and 28th Street have the most incidents
-49507 is the busiest zip code
-the SouthEast quadrant is by far the most exciting area of town.
-March, May and August are the angriest months

I am sure there is still a little clean-up left to do in the data, so expect things to shift around a bit over the next week or so.

Enjoy!

Procedurally Generated Flower Pattern, Part 1

John Winkelman

Procedurally generated flower pattern

Click here to launch the generator. Once it opens, click the flower to generate a new one.

The petals are arranged using the Fibonacci sequence to generate a Phyllotaxis pattern. The colors in each petal are created using Perlin Noise, and that pattern is re-drawn using a custom color map. Result: Billions of possible variations in about a hundred lines of code.

The Condition My Condition Is In

John Winkelman

Well, howdy, y’all!

The past several weeks have been more chaotic than usual, which, considering the past year, is saying something. Ergo my reduced presence on the www.

After the car accident I made several immediate changes in my day-to-day life, cutting out a lot of frivolous expenses, opening up some free time, and taking stock of Where I Am In My Life. It seemed the appropriate time to do so, as so many things in the world have recently entered a state of transition: Western new year, Eastern new year, new president, new car, additional debt, changing global economy, my impending 40th birthday…the whole bit. I decided it was time to concentrate on more tangible things.

Oh: And I had problems with my home internet connection for about three weeks, and only just got back online a few days ago. I will probably post something about that here for any other Comcast subscribers who have problems setting up a wireless connection.

In my enforced down time I have buried myself under a pile of books, including, but not limited to, the following:

The Chronicles of the Black Company (ten books!) by Glen Cook.
Drood, by Dan Simmons
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan is one which I find particularly interesting, because it points out the futility of basing a complex system on predictable events, when it is the *un*predictable events which drive the system. We only need look at the current state of the economy to see where this would be useful information to have.

After the average temperature around here moved back above ZERO, my girlfriend and I ventured outside to explore some more of the open spaces in West Michigan. Two weeks ago we drove to Duck Lake State Park and wandered around on the Lake Michigan beach for a couple of hours.

P1010542

Click here to see the rest of the photos in this set.

More focused updates on my life will appear anon.

2008 Goes Out With A Bang, Crash, and A Boom

John Winkelman

So there I was, driving Rick home from tai chi practice. We were heading east on Logan, at the Madison Ave intersection, when I noticed the stop sign. I hit the brakes, but on the fresh-fallen snow even ABS gave me no love. At about the middle of the intersection I saw “GMC” fast approaching my side window, so I let off the brakes and gunned the engine.

Apparently, I was half a second too slow.

The Escalade hit this side.

The Escalade hit my car about even with the driver’s side rear wheel, which spun the back end of my car around, up onto a curb, and into a telephone pole. The pole made contact just behind the passenger side rear wheel, and spun us back the other way and into a snowbank.

A telephone pole and a curb hit this side

We sat there for a second, making sure all of our parts were in the correct places, then jumped out and ran over to the SUV to make sure everyone was okay. Other than a smashed grill, there was not a mark on it. According to the tire tracks, the Escalade didn’t even slow down appreciably when it swatted my car out of the way.

Fortunately, no-one was hurt in either vehicle.

That was all last night about 9:30. I just got back from Wealthy Body Shop, getting some personal things out of the car. Seeing it in the daylight gave me a serious case of the shakes. The specific damage is not as bad as seeing that the car is no longer symmetrical, left to right. The whole thing is…warped.

my car is no longer bilaterally symmetrical

This is the first accident I have been in where I was at fault. It sucks.

I Think I Figured It Out

John Winkelman

Back in February I posted a quote from Neal Stephenson’s book Interface, wherein he suggests we have, politics-wise, come through the ages of ideas, character, and charisma, and were now in the age of scrutiny. When Mr. Stephenson was at his local book signing earlier this autumn, I asked him what he thought the next “age” might be. He declined to give a specific answer, although he pointed out that people seem to be more attracted to simple-or simplified-answers as the world grows more complex.

I have been giving this issue a lot of thought, and I think I have an answer for what the new age is: Perception.

The age of scrutiny came about before the explosion of the internet, and blogging, and YouTube, and the instant transmission of information from the insect-eyed crowds at every public gathering. The age of scrutiny has become buried under an influx of signals so vast it is indistinguishable from random noise. Now we are caught in the flux between conflicting viewpoints, and trying to tease un-distorted images from a kaleidoscope as big as the world. An event barely has a chance to occur before ten thousand sources provide spin and commentary, and soon the most pressing question is “Did anything actually happen in the first place?” If there is something verifiable, should it be thought of as good or bad? Patriotic or traitorous? Profitable or unprofitable? The uncountable eyes in the hive of perception each provide a unique view, but in aggregate that which is most seen becomes a form of consensual reality.

We have always lived in an age of perception to some degree, but during the age of scrutiny people – briefly – were able to use technology to sift through any available information coming in. But now our ability to produce information has so far outstripped our ability to make sense of it that we are back where we were in the late 1960s. And we will probably stay here until the next paradigm shift in pattern recognition.