Panayotis Vryonis

The history of rapid-transit began 150 years ago, with the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in London in 1863. In the next century and a half, dozens of architects and engineers have worked on underground tunnels and stations. Some are abandoned now, but others are as good as new. Here are some of the most wonderful underground railway stations.

Rådhuset, Stockholm, Sweden

Rådhuset (Court House) station was opened in 1975 as a part of the Stockholm rapid transit system, one of the best examples of organic architecture. Pictured above.

(via Tobias Lindman/Flickr)

T-Centralen Station, Stockholm, Sweden

The only place where all three of Stockholm's metro lines meet has this really wonderful one platform station, opened in 1975.

(via Paolo Rosa/Flickr and Erzsébet)

Solna Station, Stockholm, Sweden (1975)

(via Wikimedia Commons/Wargklo)

Stadium Station, Stockholm, Sweden (1973)

(via Skye Christensen/Flickr and Wikimedia Commons/Allgau)

Westfriedhof Station, Munich, Germany

This station was opened in 1998, but the 11 large lamps (with red, blue, and yellow lights) were installed three years later.

(via Hannes Maurer 1 - 2)

Marienplatz Station, Munich, Germany

Marienplatz Station is one of the most frequently used stations in Munich, and was opened as part of the new S-Bahn network for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

(via Jaw3, Flickr/MrOmega and Wikimedia Commons/FloSch)

St.-Quirin-Platz Station, Munich, Germany (1997)

(via Wikimedia Commons/Florian Schütz, Wikimedia Commons/FloSch and Ian Fisher/Flickr)

Brudermühlstrasse Station, Munich, Germany (1989)

(via Jaw3)

Olaias Station, Lisbon, Portugal

Olaias Station was designed by Tomás Taveira and opened shortly before the Expo 1998. Walk through the station on 360cities.

(via IngolfBLN/Flickr)

Drassanes Station, Barcelona, Spain

This station was opened in 1968, but was completely renovated between 2007 and 2009 with GRC (Glass Reinforced Concrete) panels and interesting details designed by the Barcelona-based ON-A Architects.

(via buildtonet)

Budapest Metro Line 3, constructed in the 1970s and 1980s

(via Hype and Hyper)

Avtovo Station, Saint Petersburg, Russia

This highly ornate white marble station was opened in 1955 and designed by Y. A. Levinson.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Sbarichev, Wikimedia Commons/Florstein and Andrew L. Moore)

Elektrozavodskaya Station, Moscow, Russia

Elektrozavodskaya Station was named after an electric light bulb factory nearby and opened in May 1944 during the WWII. It's famous for its decorations, designed by Vladimir Schuko, Vladimir Gelfreich and Igor Rozhin.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Eugeny1988)

Komsomolskaya Station, Moscow, Russia

Opened in 1952 and designed by Alexey Shchusev and Viktor Kokorin, this station has some mosaics, red granite, marble and other artistic decorations.

(via 3 years in Moscow, Chaos In Patterns and Wikimedia Commons/Lite)

Kiyevskaya Station - Koltsevaya Line Hall, Moscow, Russia

The richly decorated hall was opened in 1954 and has a quasi-baroque style with large mosaics by A.V. Myzin and gold-colored trim.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Antares 610)

Slavyansky Bulvar Station, Moscow, Russia

The station, designed by S. Volovich and opened in 2008, has green Cuban marble on the walls, and grey granite with darker (Gabbro granite) marble edges.

(via Wikimedia Commons/VanHelsing.16, Jaime Silva/Flickr and somebody_/Flickr)

Zoloti Vorota Station, Kiev, Ukraine

The Orthodox cathedral-like Zoloti Vorota was opened on December 30, 1989 as the part of the first stage of the Syretsko-Pecherska Line. Designed by Boris and his son Vadim Zhezherin, S.Adamenko, and M. Ralko.

(via Wikimedia Commons/AMY)

Puhŭng and Yonggwang Station, Pyongyang, North Korea

Puhŭng

Many foreign tourists were allowed to travel only between Puhŭng Station and Yŏngwang Station (both opened in 1987) on the Chŏllima Line. The Pyongyang Metro is the deepest in the world–the track runs 360 ft (110 m) underground.

Puhŭng

Puhŭng

Yŏngwang

Yŏngwang

(via Wikimedia Commons/Gilad Rom, Wikimedia Commons/John Pavelka, Geolocation.ws/afchagen, Flickr/John Pavelka 1 - 2)

Museum Subway Station, Toronto, Canada

This station was redesigned by Diamond and Schmitt Architects in 2008.

(via architecture NOW)

O'Hare Station, Chicago, Illinois

This station, with its curved and luminous walls made of glass, is located at O'Hare International Airport. It was designed by Murphy/Jahn and opened in 1984.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Daniel Schwen and Eden Politte/Flickr)

Arts et Métiers Station, Paris, France

The steampunkish underground station near the Musée des Arts et Métiers was opened in 1904, but was redesigned by the famous Belgian comics artist François Schuiten in a style inspired by the works of Jules Verne.

(via Pathien/Flickr, Steve Calcott/Flickr and RG1033/Flickr)

Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

This transfer station was built for the 2009 World Games, but opened in September 2008. It has the largest glass work in the world, designed by Narcissus Quagliata, covering an area of 23,465 sq ft (2180 sq m) with 4,500 glass panels.

(via Wikimedia Commons)

The stations of the Line A, Prague, Czech Republic

The colorful opened Dalek skirts with hemispheres on the walls make these stations from the 1970s look really fantastic.

(via Flickr/Brad Ackerman, Flickr/ian LF and Kristin Esteves)

Bockenheimer Warte Station, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The construction was finished in 1986, but it was expanded in 2001 under the leadership of Zbigniew Peter Pininski.

(via Wikimedia Commons/Jcornelius, Bobanac Andreas/fotocommunity, Christine Moje/fotocommunity, mibi55/fotocommunity and Jürg Stuker/Flickr)

In 2006, I moved to New York and started working for David Karp doing web development for various media companies. That fall, in a brief gap before starting a new client, David said that we were going to make a prototype of an idea he’d had for a while. He had already bought the domain: tumblr.com, because it was an easy platform for publishing tumblelogs.

David Karp in September 2006, a few months after hiring me to build websites with him for clients.

In March 2007, Tumblr exploded after Gina Trapani wrote it up on Lifehacker and her post made it to the Digg front page (the first Digg!).

We soon added following and reblogging, which dramatically turned this publishing platform into the social-publishing hybrid that has made it so compelling and unique.

That summer, David decided we should stop doing client work, take some funding, and take Tumblr full-time. I was nervous about the idea, but he knew it was the right thing to do — and since he had been paying me (and the hosting bill) from consulting income and his own savings until then, we’d clearly need some headroom in the budget.

On November 1, 2007, we announced the funding and launched Tumblr’s third major design with lots of new features and architectural improvements.

David’s characteristically spotless desk in December 2007.

Growth continued extremely strongly. It’s a good thing we got the funding, because we desperately needed more capacity. In what was becoming a pattern that would continue throughout our working relationship, my previous doubts and fears were proven wrong, and David was right.

David and me in February 2008. David had done some sort of interview that required a photo, so I set up a tripod and shot this with a remote trigger. We both still look pretty much the same.

David and I were like-minded in prioritizing user-, geek-, and designer-friendly needs. Our priorities, free custom-domain hosting, and full HTML-template editing made Tumblr a big hit among creative people from the beginning.

MySpace was where you went in the past, WordPress and Movable Type were where people went if they had the patience and writing output to maintain a traditional blog, Facebook was where you went to define yourself by schools and checkboxes, and Tumblr was where you went to make your own identity and express your creativity.

David and I surprise-attended the very first Tumblr meetup in February 2008 organized by Lee “Sharingtime”, left-center.

Even though Tumblr was never a one-person company, it usually felt like a one-person product.

David always had a vision for where he wanted to go next. I was never the “idea guy” — in addition to my coding and back-end duties, I often served as an idea editor. David would come in with a grand new feature idea, and I’d tell him which parts were infeasible or impossible, which tricky conditions and edge cases we’d need to consider, and which other little niceties and implementation details we should add. But the ideas were usually David’s, and the product roadmap was always David’s.

My infamous standing desk improvised from Coke cans and IKEA bookshelves, March 2008.

David always obsessed over his newest ideas, features, and designs until they were completely polished and ready to go. He’s a workaholic — he truly lives and breathes Tumblr. I’ve never even seen him show any desire to work on a side project. David is all Tumblr, all the time.

He expects people around him to be similarly into work and Tumblr, and often drove me hard with seemingly impossible demands. But David has a lot of Steve Jobs-like qualities, and like many people who worked for Steve, I look back on Tumblr’s crunch times with mixed feelings: I don’t want to return to that stress level, but David pushed me to do amazing work that I didn’t think was possible.

David working on a Dashboard redesign in November 2008.

Intense focus requires neglecting almost everything else. David’s focus on pushing the product forward meant that he didn’t want to think about boring stuff: support, scaling, paperwork, and money.

Every time we’d get close to needing more funding, I’d try to convince David to hold out a bit longer or try to become profitable, and he’d convince me that everyone was better off if we’d focus on the product instead. And every time, he was right.

Jacob Bijani joined in December 2008 as a designer, front-end developer, and wall of hair.

We tried to hold out as just two (and then just three) people as long as possible. We were scared of growing the staff, so we just put it off — for too long, in retrospect.

Eventually, David knew that we’d need to expand to handle the load, but his job never changed: rather than become a businessperson, he just hired one.

Then Tumblr began its most challenging growth: David needed to become a product manager, start overseeing a lot more people, and delegate some of the duties he really wanted to keep doing himself.

David and me figuring something out in January 2009. Most of our conversations looked exactly like this.

After a rough start, David got the hang of being a manager. But he still didn’t want to think about money — his heart just wasn’t in it.

Instead, he continued doing what he does best: driving the product forward, knowing exactly what people want from it.

I’ve only seen one other “product person” as good as David, and that was Steve Jobs. (Believe me, there are many parallels.)

David has an impeccable sense of what’s best for Tumblr, and he doesn’t need anyone else telling him what’s best for the product. Many people, myself included, have tried to convince him to go different directions, and we’ve been proven wrong every time.

Tumblr is David, and David is Tumblr.

By June 2009, the staff had grown to include (clockwise from Jacob’s wall of hair) Jacob Bijani, Jared Hecht, Meaghan O’Connell, Peter Vidani, and Josh Rachford.

I didn’t have any advance knowledge of the Yahoo acquisition — I got official confirmation this morning, just like the public. When I read the rumor a few days ago on AllThingsD, I didn’t know whether to believe it until I read this:

Sources said that as part of the deal, founder and CEO David Karp would continue to operate the business, with Mayer promising him a level of autonomy, despite the need to integrate closely with Yahoo too. He will be locked in, sources said, via a four-year deal…

That sounded like David.

Peter, Jacob, Topherchris, Andrew Terng, Matt Hackett, and I tested new shirts at Shake Shack in June 2010.

Generally, what Tumblr needs, and what Tumblr has always needed, is to get support and maintenance roles off of David’s plate so he can focus on the product.

David’s perfectly able to worry about money and operations, but I bet he really doesn’t want to. At best, it would be a tremendous waste of his time and talent.

We — internet users, creative people, publishers, socializers — will be much better served if David can focus on his product’s features, design, and messaging instead of worrying about server architecture and raising more money.

Shortly before I left Tumblr, in July 2010, the original corner of the office looked almost the same as it always had.

This is why I’m optimistic about the Yahoo acquisition.

Anyone who knows David can tell, very clearly, that he wrote every word of his announcement post. Not only did Yahoo let him end it like that, but the subhead on their official press release shows that Tumblr and Yahoo are seeing eye-to-eye on quite a lot already. In many ways, this feels more like a merger than an acquisition.

This is clearly what David believes is best for his product. On such big decisions, he hasn’t been wrong yet. This time, though, I don’t have any doubts.

Acquisitions on this scale usually work well — YouTube, for example, has gotten much better, faster, more stable, and more sustainable since Google bought it.

Buying Tumblr is a big enough deal for Yahoo that they clearly aren’t intending to ruin it or shut it down — like YouTube and Google, Tumblr will probably become an extremely important part of Yahoo indefinitely. And I believe they’ll do a good job with it. Yahoo today is a very different company than the Yahoo that neglected Flickr for years — it has extremely competent new leadership making bold changes. (Including fixing Flickr.)

More importantly, it gives David, and the rest of Tumblr’s team, the freedom to continue making the best product they can while offloading a lot of the grunt work to Yahoo’s leadership, staff, and infrastructure.

As for me, while I wasn’t a “founder” financially, David was generous with my employee stock options back in the day. I won’t make yacht-and-helicopter money from the acquisition, and I won’t be switching to dedicated day and night iPhones. But as long as I manage investments properly and don’t spend recklessly, Tumblr has given my family a strong safety net and given me the freedom to work on whatever I want. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

Probably you already know about Geeksphone‘s Firefox OS Developer Phones. A couple of days ago I received mine (the Keon version) as a Mozilla Rep for testing and showcasing Firefox OS on upcoming events.

Keon comes with an old Firefox OS build, which means that it misses many cool features already landed on the current release branch (for instance most of the contacts import options), but also makes bug reporting difficult since you have to determine if a bug you’ve found has already been resolved before reporting it.

So with a little help from (Flash)Fredy here are some quick steps to get your Keon device updated :-)

Flash a new Firefox OS build

At Geeksphone forum you’ll find a relevant thread with unofficial recent builds and detailed guidelines on how to flash it on your device. Nothing else to add here, besides the fact that flashing a build comes with a certain amount of risk :-)

Update Gaia

If you are feeling less adventurous you could just update Firefox OS UI (Gaia). The steps are really easy. Plug your device and run:

git clone https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia.git
git checkout v1-train
make reset-gaia

This will restart your device and when it comes back you’ll have the new Gaia.

The tools you need

In order for all the above steps to work you need adb, which stands for Android Debug Bridge and it’s a simple command line tool that helps you communicate with a connected Androd/Linux phone device.

Here are the steps needed to have adb working (at least on Fedora). First download the SDK tools from Android. Let’s assume that you uncompressed the archive on ~/android-sdk/.

cd ~/android-sdk/tools
./android

Then you check to install the “Tools”, that would probably have a “Not Installed” status on your system. This will download and install everything you need under ~/android-sdk/platform-tools.

If you want to use adb from everywhere you have to add it on your system’s PATH. In this case:

export PATH=$PATH:~/android-sdk/platform-tools

You can add this to your ~/.bash_profile for permanent effect.

One last step is to add a udev rule for the specific device. Running lsusb on a terminal gives you the vendor identifier. For Keon this is “05c6″. So you have to add the line below at /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="05c6", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

and tell udev to re-read the rules:

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

If you did everything correctly then plug your Keon device and run:

adb devices

You should see a line for keon.

Hack

If you are developing an Open Web App then you could just use Firefox OS Simulator to push it on the Keon device. See how simple that is. The only thing you’ll need for this to work is the udev rule above. You won’t need adb, since the simulator comes with it’s own copy.

If you want to hack around Gaia and the core apps, then just fork the code, do all the changes you want and use your repo to flash Gaia on the phone as described above.

Happy Hacking :-)

 
Important: Don’t ever choose to reset your phone to Factory defaults. It seems that currently you get stuck if you do it and the only way to undo it is by flashing a new build (I speak from experience :P).

Background

Of all the things I’ve written on this site, I’ve received the most email about Naming and Searching Files Part 1. The most common question I get relates to how my naming methods integrate with my photography workflow. In my original post, I skirted discussing photography because I’ve found this type of data is hard to properly manage. This post extends my previously discussed naming and searching methods in the context of photos and described how these methods integrate with my photography workflow.

Overview

Photo organization is a hard problem. The crux of the issue is that there is no mapping from pixels to words. Text-based data is semantic—bytes map to characters which have meaning. Unlike photos, this property allows text to be searched, filtered, compared, and classified.

Another problem with photos is that they resist taxonomy. Hierarchal file systems classify files and bind them to physical addresses in a 1-to-1 relationship. This association mimics our physical world—an object can’t be in two places at once. For the majority of data, this model works well. A mouse is a rodent, a rodent is a mammal, and a mammal is an animal. The taxonomy of photos is sometimes less clear. Photo data can exhibit a many-to-many mapping. Many photos can have many taxonomies. This notion disbars analogies to the physical world and makes photo organization more complex.

Photo data must also be robust. Unlike other documents, photos become more important with age. Safeguarding these memories from corruption, software incompatibilities, and other catastrophes is of foremost importance. For robustness, my photo system decouples data from tools. Orthogonality is a principle of fault-tolerant design. I use open standards as much as possible, which allows me to move freely among different photo software with the knowledge that my data is not dependent on any particular tool.

An effective photo system must also deal with consolidation and distribution challenges. If I take a vacation with my family, multiple people will have many unique photos that the group would like to obtain. My workflow must be able to integrate different types of data input streams and then redistribute the consolidated data.

A major issue with any workflow is finding the correct balancing between the investment required to build and maintain a system versus the derived benefits that those methods return. Annotating every photo in great detail isn’t something I’m willing to do. My workflow strives for something akin to the Pareto principle. I try to find the few things that provide the most functionality and then implement them.

Setup

Despite all of the difficulties with photo organization, I’ve converged on a system that works for me. I store my photos on a Synology DS413 NAS¹ using Cloud Station. I use the DS413 because it solves many of the robustness and distribution challenges I discussed. Cloud Station is a Dropbox-style private syncing service. I use Cloud Station because it facilitates collaborative editing of my library and allows me to edit my library from multiple computers. Synology also provides photo support for Mac/iOS as well as a web interface for sharing photos. For robustness, I’ve configured the DS413 in a 4-bay RAID configuration.

Aperture is my primary tool for working with photos. I shoot most of my pictures with my iPhone and use Photostream as a common ingress point to automatically import images into Aperture.² I use the same method to capture photos from other people using the Family and Friend’s Photostream. Whenever I go on vacation or to events where multiple people are shooting photos, I make sure to have everyone setups a shared Photostream prior to shooting so that I receive all the photos.

Metadata

At the foundation of my photo workflow is metadata. Almost all the metadata that I work with resides in two open standards—IPTC Core and EXIF. I use the IPTC Core schema because of its stability, controlled vocabulary, and broad compatibility with other tools. The core specification focuses on photo environment and contains fields for things like caption and keywords. EXIF is a natural complement to IPTC, it contains metadata about the camera and technical details of the photo such as camera make/model, lens type, shutter speed, and location.

Most cameras automatically pre-populate the EXIF and IPTC metadata fields when they shoot a photo. Some cameras even allow the shooter to control how these fields get populated. This limits the amount of manual annotation that’s needed during import.

One field I manually annotate is the IPTC Keywords field. I use keywords primarily for search. In practice, I find that I construct searches based on 3 things—persons, actions, and ratings. These keywords can be combined with numerous other metadata fields to efficiently find most photos. Each keyword is prepended with an abbreviation of the label name. A photo can contain any number of keywords or none at all. Here’s an example picture I took a few years ago on a ski trip in British Columbia:

The IPTC metadata associated with this image has an action and rating keyword:

I prepend keywords with a label abbreviation primarily for fuzzy searching. Using a label allows me to construct label-specific searches. Sometimes I’m looking for an image of someone, but I can’t remember their name, only that it starts with an A. In this circumstance I can find the image by fuzzy match on p::A. Aperture’s startswith option allows me to perform this query directly inside Aperture.

Workflow

As photos are imported into Aperture I immediately append them with some base metadata.³ New imports get flagged with the keyword r::-1 to signify that the photos have not been fully processed yet. I also use a few of Aperture’s presets to batch fill metadata fields. For example, one of my preset fills me in as the author, adds copyright information, flags the photo, and renames the image’s file name. Keywords are added on a per project or per shot basis. I also use the headline and caption fields sometimes to logically group photos belonging to an event like a wedding or vacation.

My system uses a rating keyword to represent the importance of the image. I rate the majority of images as r::1. This rating is used to filter out photos that aren’t particularly good compositions or where the subject is uninteresting. Ratings r::2 and r::3 are reserved for photos I’m likely to search for again. A rating of 3 represents the best one-hundred or so photos I’ve ever taken.

The wealth of information contained in metadata largely obviates the need for a complex file naming system. In the parlance of Naming and Searching Files Part 1, I use an ID string, token, and an incrementing counter for photos. A basic file name looks like this:

The ID string is an ISO 8601 date stamp followed by a record token indicating that the file is a photo and then an incrementing counter. The counter provides a helpful way to view a consecutive series of files while editing.

I store my photos in Aperture as referenced images rather than using Aperture to manage my photos. I use referenced images because the files are easier to access with other tools. I can also move the location of the master images independent of where the Aperture library is located. Apple also claims that referenced images take up less disk space.

With my referenced images I use a shallow folder system where files are housed in a parent directory of the year the photo was taken.⁴ My system doesn’t need folders for organization, but I use these shallow folders mostly for performance. The file system and indirectly Aperture can take a performance hit when a single directory holds a large number of photos.

Batch Editing

I like to use Aperture’s batch editing tools in my workflow. Applying metadata, basic image manipulations, and other post processing steps in batch is straight-forward. Aperture provides a simple way to lift metas data from one photo and apply it to another. Sometimes I need to perform a specific batch operation that isn’t possible in Aperture. For these situations, I like to use command line tools.

Exiv2 is one of my favorite command line tools because it can be used to view, search, and modify both EXIF and IPTC metadata. One common operation I do with Exiv2 is to strip metadata when sharing photos:

exiv2 -d a *.jpg

Exiv2 can also be used to add, remove, or delete metadata. This command adds the keyword foo to a group of photos:

exiv2 -M "add Iptc.Application2.Keywords foo" *.jpg

There are a number of other tools like ImageMagick that I also use for bulk watermarking and other manipulations.

As the web now flourishes with new feed readers, we have decided to help that community by simplifying the subscription process as it is still extremely complex for a user to say “I want to know when there is new content here”.

Today, we’re excited to launch the SubToMe Store. It’s a list of web or mobile applications that users can use to subscribe to feeds on websites.

Of course, adding your app to the store is one pull request away, so please, if you’re working on an RSS consuming app, make sure you add yours, as well as don’t forget to add discovery for your users, so that they won’t even have to add your apps!

I lament the end of the personal CMS market; I was happy to back Ghost on Kickstarter today for the same reason that I back pretty much any effort at making blogging software — I think these tools matter. I find it interesting, and telling, that there are still so many static publishing tools that geeks care about, and though I think WordPress is an awesome tool, I lament the virtual monoculture that's resulted from its success in the run-your-own blogging software market.

This is a particularly acute pain for me not just because I used to help make these kinds of tools, but because my own needs are sort of prosumer-grade concerns. We have the Garage Bands and iMovies of blogging, but we really don't have Logic or Final Cut for individual bloggers who aren't trying to run some giant professional blogging network.

So, my contribution is to collect some of the notes I've been gathering for the last few years about what I'd like to see in a blogging tool. I know there are apps with many, perhaps even all, of these features, but I'd like to see one emerge as a leading platform for doing innovative work. My blogging features wishlist:

• I enter markdown in plain text files; these are stored on Dropbox/Google Drive/Skydrive and/or S3 and/or GitHub.
• The system renders those plain files into JSON assets in a documented format.
• A Bootstrap-themed reading client app lives at my site, on my domain, and reads a single simple config file to learn how to display and navigate between those JSON assets. This client app would also have to handle URL routing and persisting states, while ideally also keeping preferences and reading history for readers.
• The default theme offers a YouTube-style browsing view of all my content, where people can make playlists of posts (this is equivalent to navigating my archives by tag), embed my posts on their own sites, and easily explore by traditional groupings like category or date.
• There might be an optional administration interface separate for me, just for editing the markdown files through a plain text in-browser editor; In this case, it should be a responsive app that works in all my browsers.
• Ideally comments are handled as small messages in a documented json format, sent between instances of this blogging application. Of course in the short term I would just embed Disqus/Facebook/Google-style comments until that infrastructure was further along.
• Having a documented format for the json objects which represent posts and comments would permit transclusion and sending of posts between sites, in a manner analogous to how Fargo does this for outliners, and in a way that would bring back some of the positives of TrackBack in the early blogosphere.
• "Themes" would largely be implemented as Bootstrap CSS stylesheets, with some affordance for separate content modules. By default, themes are public so I would just be able to tell an admin app to import a theme from your site so I could remix it.
• The API endpoint for discovering the json representations of content would double as the API for others to access my data to build around it; Eventually a posting app which saved POSTs of that json format as fiels in dropbox would allow a write API.

I think that's it for now. Let me know if somebody's got all these boxes checked on their platform today, but I suspect the hardest part is the client app for readers, which works in a way analogous to an RSS reader or email client, but would have to support a new format and would be optimized for clean reading and subsequent discovery, rather than the three-pane model which has dominated those apps for the last decade or two.

We've seen planes create a fiery vortex in the sky before, but here's a more peaceful version of it happening in real time. It's majestically beautiful. The wingtip vortices formed when an Airbus A340 landed at Zurich Airport on a foggy night. Though it looks gorgeous, vortices can be pretty dangerous.

Wingtip vortices occur because of the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of a wing. The air in the upper and lower start swirling to create a vortex of sorts. Those vortices eventually disappear but can also cause downflow behind the wing and form wake turbulence (turbulence behind the aircraft). The great internet encyclopedia says:

Wake turbulence is especially hazardous in the region behind an aircraft in the takeoff or landing phases of flight. During take-off and landing, aircraft operate at high angle of attack. This flight attitude maximizes the formation of strong vortices. In the vicinity of an airport there can be multiple aircraft, all operating at low speed and low height, and this provides extra risk of wake turbulence with reduced height from which to recover from any upset.

Looks that kill, I guess. [Andy Ruesch via Laughing Squid]

Το SolEol είναι μια εφαρμογή που είχαμε ξαναδεί στο παρελθόν αλλά καλό είναι να ξαναγράψουμε για αυτήν μιας και μπορεί να διαφεύγει από αρκετό κόσμο .

Πρόκειται για μια εφαρμογή που αυτοματοποιεί την διαδικασία αναζήτησης υπότιτλων .

Απλά κάνεις ένα drag n drop το αρχείο ή ακόμη και το folder που θέλεις στην εφαρμογή και αυτή αναλαμβάνει να σου βρει τους υπότιτλους .

Τόσο απλά. Πολλές φορές εάν όχι πάντα, τα αποτελέσματα είναι σωστά.

Μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε την εφαρμογή από εδώ, φυσικά δωρεάν .

Helicopters swoop in to attack an armor-less Tony Stark at his California mansion in new Iron Man 3 footage released at the MTV Movie Awards. The billionaire hero summons a prototype suit to defend himself, but it doesn't appear to be much help during the attack — presumably orchestrated by the Mandarin, a villain hellbent on ruining Stark's personal life.

SEE ALSO: Watch New 'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' Teaser Trailer

Iron Man 3 stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley.

The film arrives in theaters on May 3 Read more...

[Ruben van der Vleuten] wanted to get a look at the adventure a package experiences when shipped from one place to another. So he threw together this mishmash of components to record the experience. We certainly enjoyed watching the fast motion video found after the break. We wonder what the shipping agency thinks about this sort of thing?

Camera, digital storage, and battery technology have gotten to the point that it’s both cheap and easy to do this sort of surveillance. But there are a few logistical things that [Ruben] took into account to make this work quite well. First off, he need to hide the camera in a way that would ensure the package didn’t look suspicious. He ended up writing his name on the side of the box and boring a hole through one of the black letters which is smaller than a pea and very hard to spot. To make sure he wasn’t recording a ton of empty (dark) frames he also included electronics to sense motion. When the package is moving the video is always rolling. when not moving the hardware wakes for just 3 seconds every minute to shoot video.

[Thanks Brandon]

There's no better way to start off the afternoon than coming to terms with your mortality, which you'll need to do if you want to take advantage of Google's new Inactive Account Manager. Google launched the service on its account settings page to give users options with their account should it remain inactive for an extended period of time.

It's simple to set up: choose a timeout period—three, six, nine, or twelve months of inactivity—and from there you can direct Google on what to do with your Gmail messages, Blogger posts, Contacts, Google+ account, Google Voice, and YouTube accounts. (Basically, any Google services you've used in the past.) After that time period of inactivity, Google will send out a text message and e-mail the secondary address you provide. If you don't respond, it will assume... well, the worst. "We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife," Google concluded in the blog post.

If you have intentions of allowing a friend or family member to have access to that data, you can set up the service to notify up to 10 people that your account has been inactive for the time you've specified. Google will then ask for verification details for the listed people, like a phone number and e-mail address. When you're ready, you can send out an e-mail to those people you've entrusted with your data should anything happen to you.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A number of Google’s major competitors, including Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor, and others, have filed a formal complaint with the European Commission. They allege that Google has been abusing its position in mobile advertising as a result of the success of the Android operating system.

“Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to deceive partners, monopolize the mobile marketplace, and control consumer data,” said Thomas Vinje, Brussels-based counsel to the FairSearch coalition, in a statement. The group points to the fact that one industry analysis firm, eMarketer, finds that Google has a near-monopoly on mobile search ads.

“We are asking the Commission to move quickly and decisively to protect competition and innovation in this critical market," Vinje added. "Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google’s Android operating system.”

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Πριν το ΕΟΠΥΥ ήμουν στο ΤΣΜΕΔΕ. Το ΤΣΜΕΔΕ ήταν ένα απαράδεκτο ταμείο άλλα τουλάχιστον είχες τη δυνατότητα να πας σε όποιον γιατρό ήθελες, να εξεταστείς και μετά να πας την απόδειξη στο ταμείο να πάρεις μέρος των χρημάτων πίσω. Κάτι που ήταν στο πλαίσιο της λογικής.

Πρόσφατα το ΤΣΜΕΔΕ (όπως και όλα τα ταμεία) εντάχθηκε στο ΕΟΠΥΥ.

Όπως και εγώ, έτσι και η κόρη μου έχει μια μικρή δυσκολία στο γράμμα ‘σ’. Εγώ δυστυχώς την κουβάλησα όλα αυτά τα χρόνια και μερικές λέξεις δυσκολεύομαι να τις πω, κάτι που μου δημιουργεί ένα μικρό τρακ πριν μιλήσω σε κοινό. Αυτό δεν ήθελα να το έχει και η κόρη μου. Έτσι αποφάσισα να την πάω σε κάποιο λογοθεραπευτικό κέντρο τώρα που είναι μικρή για να μάθει να μιλάει σωστά. Περιγράφω τη διαδικασία ακριβώς όπως είναι με απλά(;) βήματα.

1. Τηλέφωνο στο 1535. Αναμονή μερικούς μήνες.

2. Αναμονή 2-3 ώρες στο νοσοκομείο παρόλο το ραντεβού. Λαμβάνω ιατρική γνωμάτευση (πρέπει να περαστεί πρώτα από πρωτόκολλο και μητρώο, όμως. Σφραγίδες)

3. Στο τοπικό ΙΚΑ για σφραγίδα από ελεγκτή ΕΟΠΥΥ (γιατί μια σφραγίδα παραπάνω πάντα χρειάζεται)

4. Φάκελος από το λογοθεραπευτικό κέντρο ο οποίος μεταξύ άλλων περιέχει φωτοτυπίες από τα πτυχία των λογοθεραπευτών (!)

5. Κατάθεση φακέλου και σφραγισμένης γνωμάτευσης  στο ΥΠΑΔ (Αιγάλεω)

6. Μηνιαία κατάθεση αποδείξεων από το λογοθεραπευτικό κέντρο στο ΥΠΑΔ στο Αιγάλεω.

7. Δεν περιγράφω άλλο!!

Και τώρα ας απαντήσει κάποιος στην ερώτηση: Αν το κράτος δεν μπορεί να αναθέσει σε κάποια εταιρεία να αναλάβει να φτιάξει το πληροφοριακό σύστημα που θα συνδέει γιατρούς, κέντρα, νοσοκομεία, ασφαλιστικά ταμεία, φαρμακεία ώστε να μη χρειάζεται να δαπανά ο κάθε πολίτης δεκάδες ώρες σε ουρές και αναμονές και μάλιστα χωρίς κανένα όφελος για κανέναν, ας το αναθέσει σε μένα και μάλιστα δωρεάν. Ναι, αυτοπροσφέρομαι, εδώ είμαι… για σας!!

Margaret Thatcher came to lead the U.K. in 1979 after a series of disputes between the government and Britain's then-powerful trade unions.

The new British Prime Minister set out to wage war on what she saw was the "enemy within" the U.K., and many people supported her in this fight.

To understand why Thatcher had this support, check out these photos of central London from 1979s "Winter of Discontent", which show trash piling up on the streets after U.K.'s dustmen (a.k.a. garbage collectors) went on strike.

It's worth bearing in mind that Leicester Square is pretty much the epicenter of London's glamorous West End — a tourism hot spot where movie premieres are held.

These photos show the incredible effect the unions (and union strikes) had on the average citizen's life, and — amazingly — they occurred under Thatcher's predecessor, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, a left-wing leader who relied on the union's support!

Just a few months after these photos were taken, Callaghan lost a confidence vote in the House of Commons and was obliged to call an election. Thatcher was voted in to power in the U.K., and the Conservative Party enjoyed 18 years of government.

These are very visceral images, but they really only scratch the surface of how much tensions between unions and governments affected the average citizen's life in the 1970s.

In another notorious example, the British government imposed a 3-day week in early 1974 for commercial users of electricity after industrial action by miners.

Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Χτες, κατά τη διάρκεια μιας μικρής εκδρομής στη Φωκίδα, είχα την ευκαιρία να επισκεφτώ δύο μουσεία: το Μουσείο Δελφικών Γιορτών Άγγελου και Εύας Σικελιανού στους Δελφούς, και το Ναυτικό και Ιστορικό Μουσείο Γαλαξειδίου.

Βέβαια, ήδη υπερβάλω χρησιμοποιώντας το ‘επισκεφτώ’ μιας και στο Μουσείο Σικελιανού δεν μπορέσαμε (: η γυναίκα μου κι εγώ) να περάσουμε την σιδερένια και κλειδωμένη αυλόπορτα.

Ο λόγος;

Το μουσείο δεν φαίνεται να έχει συγκεκριμένες ώρες που είναι ανοιχτό. Κανονίζεις την επίσκεψη με τηλεφωνικό ραντεβού. Πράγμα που μπορώ να καταλάβω για ένα μικρό περιφερειακό μουσείο. Αλλά στο τηλεφώνημα που κάναμε για να μας ανοίξουν πήραμε την απάντηση ότι … δεν δουλεύουν τα Σαββατοκύριακα (sic). Προφανώς, οι ανά τον κόσμο φίλοι του Σικελιανού γνωρίζουν διαισθητικά ότι πρέπει να πάνε μόνο καθημερινή και μάλιστα πρωινές ώρες.

Μικρό το κακό θα μου πείτε με όσα ζούμε αυτόν τον καιρό. Μικρό; Εξαρτάται.  Αν το καλοκοιτάξεις, διακρίνεις ότι συνοψίζει πολλά απ’ όσα ζούμε αυτό τον καιρό.

Λίγη ιστορία: το μουσείο ήταν το σπίτι που έχτισε το 1927 ο Άγγελος κι η Εύα Σικελιανού (που έχτισε η Εύα Πάλμερ δηλαδή, μιας κι αυτή έβαζε τα λεφτά) όταν ξεκινούσαν την προσπάθεια τους για την αναβίωση των Δελφικών γιορτών. Τι ήταν αυτή η αναβίωση; Με σύγχρονους όρους και χωρίς περιστροφές, μια παλαβομάρα. Αλλά χάρις σ’ αυτή την παλαβομάρα ξανάρχισε να παρασταίνεται σκηνικά το αρχαίο δράμα. Η εικόνα των πούλμαν που αδειάζουν θεατές και τουρίστες κατά εκατοντάδες στην Επίδαυρο είναι απότοκο αυτής της παλαβομάρας. Και γι αυτό οι παλαβομάρες δεν πρέπει να κρίνονται από τον στόχο τους αλλά από τις συνέπειες τους. Και κατ’ αυτό τουλάχιστον η παλαβομάρα του Σικελιανού είχε μια τεράστια θετική συνέπεια.

Πέραν όμως του δράματος, η ρομαντική αυτή προσπάθεια είναι μια ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία. Κι οι ενδιαφέρουσες ιστορίες μπορούν να τραβήξουν ενδιαφέροντα κόσμο. Το σε τι έχουμε ανάγκη τον κόσμο τώρα, στην εποχή των ισχών αγελάδων, ελπίζω να μην χρειάζεται να το εξηγήσω.

Μια άλλη πτυχή της ιστορίας του μουσείου είναι πως το σπίτι είχε μείνει ερείπιο για  περίπου 70 χρόνια. Και πως το αρχείο του Σικελιανού είχε καταστραφεί, καεί και κλαπεί σε μεγάλο μέρος. Αναρωτιέται κανείς γιατί. Γιατί χρειάστηκαν 70 χρόνια για να ενδιαφερθεί κάποιος.  Και μόνο ωφελιμιστικά να το δεις,  η θέση της έπαυλης (γιατί περί αυτού πρόκειται) είναι ικανή να τραβήξει από μόνη της επισκέπτες. Είναι στο ψηλότερο σημείο του χωριού των Δελφών, με απίστευτη θέα στον κάμπο της Άμφισας και δίπλα στον αρχαιολογικό χώρο στο ύψος του Σταδίου.

Απ’ ότι μάθαμε τώρα ανήκει (;) στο Δήμο Δελφών. Κι η αναστήλωση που έχει γίνει, εξωτερικά τουλάχιστον δείχνει υποδειγματική. Που σημαίνει ότι πρέπει να δαπανήθηκε ικανός αριθμός χρημάτων. Προς τι; Για να μισθοδοτείται κάποιος υπάλληλος να είναι stand by τις ώρες που δεν πατάει κανείς;

Στο δεύτερο μουσείο η εμπειρία ήταν πολύ καλύτερη: και ανοιχτό το βρήκαμε, και σε πολύ καλή κατάσταση και με περιποιημένο το ενδιαφέρον εκθεσιακό υλικό. Μια πινακίδα στην είσοδο μας πληροφορούσε ότι η ανακαίνιση έγινε με την αρωγή του ιδρύματος Νιάρχου.

Το αρχαιολογικό κομμάτι του μουσείου είναι σίγουρα ενδιαφέρον αλλά όχι κάτι μοναδικό. Η Ελλάδα βρίθει αρχαιολογικών μουσείων. Το ναυτικό μέρος όμως είναι μοναδικό μιας και σκιαγραφεί  την ναυτική ιστορία και τις  επιδόσεις  της πόλης στο τέλος του 19ου αιώνα. Μιας πόλης που αποτελούσε το δεύτερο μεγαλύτερο λιμάνι της Ελλάδας μετά τη Σύρα κι ένα από τα μεγάλα της Μεσογείου.

Παρακολουθώντας και μόνο τις υδατογραφίες των καραβιών του Γαλαξειδιού έμαθα να ξεχωρίζω το μπρίκι από τη σκούνα, το μπάρκο από το μπάρκο-μπέστια και το λόβερ από τη μπρατσέρα.

Κοιτάζοντας τους χάρτες με τα λιμάνια που προσέγγιζαν οι Γαλαξειδιώτες καπετάνιοι θαύμασα  κι απόρησα συγκρίνοντας με το σήμερα και την εσωστρέφεια που μας τρώει: Αζοφική και Κριμαία, Οδησσός και Βατούμ, Κωνσταντινούπολη, Σμύρνη, Αλεξάνδρεια, Μάλτα,  Βενετία, Λιβόρνο, Μασαλία,  Γιβραλτάρ κι ως πάνω στο Κάρντιφ και το Λίβερπουλ.

Κι εύλογα αναρωτιέσαι γιατί παρήκμασε; Το αίτιο είναι γνωστό: δεν προσαρμόστηκαν στον ατμό. Αλλά γιατί; Τι τους εμπόδισε; Δεν ξέρω, δεν έχω ιστορική γνώση για το θέμα όμως βλέποντας τα όργανα των καραβιών (πυξίδες, ρολόγια, ταχύμετρα, βυθόμετρα, διαβήτες για χάραξη πορείας κτλ) και τους χάρτες,  πρόσεξα ότι δεν υπήρχε τίποτα ελληνικής προέλευσης. Τα αντικείμενα που ενσωμάτωναν πολλή γνώση πάντα τα προμηθεύονταν από τη Δύση. Κι επειδή από το πανί στον ατμό είναι ένα άλμα σε γνώση, αυτό το παλαιό ντεφώ, της επίδοσης σε δραστηριότητες χαμηλής έντασης σε γνώση,  αποδείχτηκε μοιραίο.

Το μουσείο όμως έκρυβε κι άλλες εκπλήξεις, πιο ‘μοντέρνες’: οι τουαλέτες δεν διέθεταν χαρτί γιατί δεν είχαν να το αγοράσουν (sic) και τα βιβλία στης προθήκες στην είσοδο δεν επωλούντο γιατί τους το απαγόρευε η εφορία (sic). Για ποιό λόγο; Σε έλεγχο είχε διαπιστωθεί ότι δεν έκοβαν αποδείξεις (sic).

Αυτό το τελευταίο όταν  το άκουσα αφενός άρχισα να βγάζω ατμούς αφετέρου σκέφτηκα “κι εσύ αναρωτιέσαι για τον ατμό ηλίθιε”…

A little piece of tech history.

Earlier I wrote about how podcasting got its name. I wrote it because there's a reporter who says he gave podcasting its name. He didn't. It pisses me off when people who know they didn't do something claim credit for it anyway. I don't need to explain why it's wrong, do I? ;-)

Now, I want to say that even though I have never made a dime off podcasting, and I did a lot of work to make it happen, and I even spent money on it, it was still worth it.

Because it's a form of literature that's valuable and it persists.

To this day, when I go for a walk on a sunny day, or a frigid one, in NY or Seattle or Europe, I can listen to the people that I want to hear from, with no gatekeepers in the middle. I still listen to a lot of programming that is professionally produced, but I think it is better because it has to compete in a free market. One where the cost is pretty close to zero to distribute the programming.

So even though it didn't make me money, it gave me something much better. Ideas! :-)

It’s certainly been an eventful few days for smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones.

On Sunday and just before the premiere of the new season, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo went further than almost anyone expected by admitting that piracy does have an upside.

He described massive downloading of the show as “a compliment” and added that it does nothing to damage DVD revenues. A good thing, considering what followed next.

In their own inimitable way, on Monday at least a million file-sharers paid even more compliments to the show by setting a new BitTorrent swarm record.

But just when you thought Game of Thrones news and controversy was coming to an end, another influential industry player has thrown his hat into the ring.

Timo Vuorensola is a Finnish director and actor who recently directed the 2012 Disney movie Iron Sky. Like millions of others, Vuorensola is also a Game of Thrones fan but he’s hugely disappointed with the service being offered by the local arm of HBO.

“Your service sucks. I bought it because I wanted to be able to pay and watch legally some of my favorite TV-series, namely Game of Thrones,” he told the cable and satellite network in an open complaint.

“First, the quality you are claiming to be HD is far from HD; yes, resolution matches, but the picture looks rotten and crappy thanks to bad compression rates. The image snaps off and the buffering sucks on HD so badly that it renders the service practically unusable,” he continues.

HBO have been accused before of promoting piracy by failing to offer their product in a timely fashion in various countries around the world, but Vuorensola is unhappy with everything – timing, quality and price – all of which are driving people to torrents.

“In Finland we have a saying: ‘Pitäkää tunkkinne’. It means: I fucking tried to pay for this, but your service only promotes piracy through rather expensive pricing, shitty image quality — and, well, unfortunately also your programs are unnecessarily late,” he complains.

“[The] latest episode of GOT was already *everywhere* but on HBO Nordic, and I can’t see *any* reason you are putting a one-to-two day window to releasing stuff that’s going to explode on the Internet the moment it’s released,” he accurately adds.

And Vuorensola knows his stuff when it comes to the world of files and sharing. In addition to Iron Sky he’s also the director of two of the Star Wreck movies, a series of eight films available for free download under a Creative Commons license.

“You think fans are going to sit on their asses and wait obediently for when you finally grant your grace and decide to let the stuff float to the backwater countries like Finland and whatnot. I mean we live in 2013, not in 1993, there’s absolutely no motivation for such behavior,” he notes.

In what must be the final insult, Vuorensola tells HBO that while he will continue to grace the company with his money, he will shun their delivery service and begin obtaining Game of Thrones from the most notorious file-sharing site of all.

“So, here’s what I’m going to do: I will continue paying your monthly fee for the service because I support your taste in content, but the actual content I’m unfortunately forced to grab from Pirate Bay, because your service is atrocious,” he concludes.

That’s gotta hurt.

Source: I’ll Download Game of Thrones from The Pirate Bay, Iron Sky Director Tells HBO

“This is not a game” by artist Lorenzo Quinn is a large-scale sculptural installation of giant hands playing with a life-sized tank and toy soldiers. Exhibited on a floating platform at the 2011 Venice Bienalle, the installation featured a 37-ton Russian T-55 tank.

The human figure and especially hands show up frequently in Quinn’s work. In recent years he has created two other more playful installations of hands playing with life-sized toys. The 2010 installation “Vroom Vroom” features a giant hand playing with a Fiat Cinquecento car. “La Dolce Vita” is a 2011 installation of a giant hand playing with a Vespa scooter.

“Vroom Vroom”

“La Dolce Vita”

via My Modern Metropolis, Ian Brooks

On the surface, Twitter's recent update to Twitter Cards allows app developers to link directly to a download, but if you peek below the curtain you'll see that this presents all kinds of new opportunities for game developers. ...

Now that I've started a new business, my first business mentor speaks to me again, from childhood.

My grandfather, Rudy Kiesler, was a businessman. He came to the US during the war, a Jew fleeing the Nazis, with a few diamonds sewn into my grandmother's coat, which was stolen on the way. So they arrived in the US, to their new home in Brooklyn, like many other imigrants, without a dime.

He started a sewing shop, and grew it, and grew it, until when he retired after having a stroke in his 60s, he had a dozen factories in the South, and a nice bit of cash in the bank.

When I was a kid he didn't seem like a wise person. He yelled a lot, loudly, and had hard opinions about everything. But there was an intellect in there. He was a good card player, and a good provider, and he did teach me one important thing about business, an idea that keeps coming up.

"Pay for your sins," he would say. It's one of those ideas that means different things depending how you approach it. You're going to pay for them, one way or the other. So knowing that, think twice before you do it. And if you try not to pay for them you're only making it worse. There's a compound interest to sins.

Compare this to the lame "Don't be evil" -- which has none of the subtlety. Why not be evil? My grandfather knew the answer.