steadyblogging on posterous

Letter From Cornell Univ President re "NYC Tech Campus"

Landed in my inbox yesterday, following the big annoucement Monday:

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, Mayor Bloomberg announced this week that Cornell, in collaboration with The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, won the competition to build a new campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The mayor deemed the Cornell proposal to be visionary. 

This is a historic and transformative moment for Cornell. We won because of the brilliant ideas of our faculty, the enthusiasm and energy of our students, the hard work of our staff, and the careful scrutiny and ultimately strong support of our board of trustees. I want to express my gratitude to everyone involved in this massive effort - and for the amazing outpouring of support from students, alumni, and friends from across the globe. In a very real sense, our proposal succeeded because our campus community came together in a way that happens rarely in higher education. 

I know you will join me as well in thanking The Atlantic Philanthropies and its Founding Chairman, Chuck Feeney, whose extraordinary gift will help make this historic opportunity a reality. 

We have much to accomplish in the next few years to open the doors of our new campus in time to celebrate Cornell's 150th anniversary. As we move forward, I want to assure you that we will involve Cornellians in Ithaca and New York City every step of the way in order to make sure that New York Tech is an integral part of our university, sharing our institutional culture and our values. 

It is fitting that this transformative opportunity comes on the eve of our sesquicentennial, and I look forward to working with you on this initiative along with all the priorities in our strategic plan.

David J. Skorton

Online Language Learning Communities: My Experience with Livemocha

I came across this article via facebook last week (I'd liked this site BigThink at some point), and started using Livemocha as a result:
Of all the early concepts we have seen in education 2.0, the idea of a language learning community proved itself without any doubt to be the most successful one today. The three biggest startups in this space, [Seattle-based] Livemocha, [Madrid-based] busuu and [Berlin-based] Babbel together have attracted more than 15 million users.
via bigthink.com

So I created an account on Livemocha and spent about 30 minutes doing the 1st lesson of their Brazilian Portuguese 101 course. Most of it was just Rosetta Stone-lite type exercises (which is fine--it's a lot cheaper than Rosetta Stone..free!). But at two points in the lesson you're asked to record a speaking sample and submit a writing sample. I was going to skip them, but went ahead and did them anyways--and unexpectedly in the following 10 minutes I got about 13 short reviews from various Brazilian users, including written corrections to my writing sample and comments on my pronunciation. As a result, I'm thinking of adding some of them as friends on the site, and I'm inclined to help them (and other users) by reviewing their English (or even Bengali??) submissions. More from the BigThink article:

Part of their success is the mix between self-paced learning and practice with feedback from native speakers. The casual atmosphere caters to an audience that wants to have at least some basic knowledge of foreign languages but without the strict framework of a classic language course. It’s like visiting a pub in a foreign city and mixing with the locals. The social component of making new friends from around the globe delivers the emotional glue that makesone want to come back to the service. Even if the user is not that much into learning a new language anymore, there are still the social connections that might bring him back to the service. The problem of early language exchange communities has always been the lack of guidance or content to work with. Language learning communities all started with basic vocabulary lessons as basis for exercises and talks. The community brings life or context to that content. Yesterday Abril Educacao and Livemocha announced a partnership that aims to bring this concept of learning to the new Brazilian middle class. With 2.2 million users, Brazil is the largest global market for Seattle-based Livemocha, and the deal with Abril is already the second major one that is targeting this growing market. In January Livemocha signed a partnership with Telefonica Brazil.

I also set up accounts on busuu and Babbel and checked them out very briefly..their beginning exercises are similar (I guess what else are you really going to do for beginning language instruction?), but their interfaces seem more polished than livemocha. Haven't get to the social aspect of those sites.

Mais música brasileira (com letras): Jorge Ben Jor - Mulher Brasileira

Second in a nascent series--although without (as of now) an English translation:

Portuguese lyrics (letras Português) via Letras.mus.br:

Mulher brasileira aonde é que está você
Mulher brasileira eu quero você prá mim
Quero sentir o seu abraço o seu beijo o seu carinho o seu amor
Sua simpatia ternura e beleza
Pois eu necessito de você
Mulher brasileira aonde é que está você
Mulher brasileira eu quero você prá mim
Pois a minha grande vitória é conseguir
Botar uma mulher brasileira na minha vida
Pois prá mim ela será sempre a primeira
A companheira nas horas fáceis e difíceis
Mulher brasileira aonde é que está você
Mulher brasileira eu quero você prá mim
Preta branca pobre ou rica
Bonita ou feia você é maravilhosa
Eu quero ser o bendito fruto de você
Mulher brasileira aonde é que está você
Mulher brasileira eu quero você prá mim
Mulher brasileira... mulher brasileira

 

NYT Interactive Map "How Manhattan’s Grid Grew"

Another NYT interactive map, this one to accompany an article highlighting the "200th Birthday for the Map That Made New York"--Manhattan's matrix:

Henry James condemned it a century ago as a “primal topographic curse.” Rem Koolhaas, the architect and urbanist, countered that its two-dimensional form created “undreamed-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy.” More recently, two historians described its map, regardless of its flaws, as “the single most important document in New York City’s development.”

Two hundred years ago on Tuesday, the city’s street commissioners certified the no-frills street matrix that heralded New York’s transformation into the City of Angles — the rigid 90-degree grid that spurred unprecedented development, gave birth to vehicular gridlock and defiant jaywalking, and spawned a new breed of entrepreneurs who would exponentially raise the value of Manhattan’s real estate.

Today, debate endures about the grid, which mapped out 11 major avenues and 155 crosstown streets along which modern Manhattan would rise. The grid was the great leveler. By shifting millions of cubic yards of earth and rock, it carved out modest but equal flat lots (mostly 25 by 100 feet) available for purchase. And if it fostered what de Tocqueville viewed as relentless monotony, its coordinates also enabled drivers and pedestrians to figure out where they stood, physically and metaphorically.

“This is the purpose of New York’s geometry,” wrote Roland Barthes, the 20th-century French philosopher. “That each individual should be poetically the owner of the capital of the world.”

via nytimes.com

 

Learning languages via subtitles: "Águas de Março"

An idea for a website I've been kicking around is a resource for learning foreign languages via movies and songs: the site would have streamable songs and movie clips in various foreign languages, and under each would be the lyrics/dialogue--both transcribed in the native language and translated into English.  Sort of a dynamic facing page format for bits of pop culture.  

It's a very simple idea--so simple that one would think it would exist.  But I haven't found it yet.

Of course, with movies on DVD one can view the subtitles in the original language or the English translation.  But key is the "or"--you can't view them onscreen at once.

I'll try to post some examples of what I mean over time, for the various languages I've been trying to pick up--Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali (for the latter two, I'd want to provide a transcription/transliteration of the original dialogue/lyrics in English).

Here's an initial example--I chose "Águas de Março" not only because it's so good--acclaimed as the best Brazilian song of all time--but also because a side-by-side translation is given on that page, from which I've pulled it in here below the song:

hi

 


Águas de Março

"É pau, é pedra,
é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho

É um caco de vidro,
é a vida, é o sol
É a noite, é a morte,
é o laço, é o anzol

É peroba do campo,
é o nó da madeira
Caingá candeia,
é o matita-pereira

É madeira de vento,
tombo da ribanceira
É o mistério profundo,
é o queira ou não queira

É o vento ventando,
é o fim da ladeira
É a viga, é o vão,
festa da cumeeira

É a chuva chovendo,
é conversa ribeira
Das águas de março,
é o fim da canseira

É o pé, é o chão,
é a marcha estradeira
Passarinho na mão,
pedra de atiradeira

É uma ave no céu,
é uma ave no chão
É um regato, é uma fonte,
é um pedaço de pão

É o fundo do poço,
é o fim do caminho
No rosto o desgosto,
é um pouco sozinho

É um estrepe, é um prego,
é uma ponta, é um ponto
É um pingo pingando,
é uma conta, é um conto

É um peixe, é um gesto,
é uma prata brilhando
É a luz da manhã,
é o tijolo chegando

É a lenha, é o dia,
é o fim da picada
É a garrafa de cana,
o estilhaço na estrada

É o projeto da casa,
é o corpo na cama
É o carro enguiçado,
é a lama, é a lama

É um passo, é uma ponte,
é um sapo, é uma rã
É um resto de mato,
na luz da manhã

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração

É uma cobra, é um pau,
é João, é José
É um espinho na mão,
é um corte no pé

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração

É pau, é pedra,
é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho

É um passo, é uma ponte,
é um sapo, é uma rã
É um belo horizonte, 
é uma febre terçã

São as águas de março
fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida
no teu coração"
Waters of March

It's stick, it's stone 
It's the end of the road 
It's a rest of stump 
It's a little alone 

It's a shard of glass 
It is life, it's the sun 
It is night, it is death 
It's the snare, it's the fishhook 

It's peroba of the field 
It’s the knot in the wood 
Lamp caingá tree 
It's the matita-pereira tree 

It's wind-resistant wood 
Falls of the ravine 
It's the profound mystery 
It's the you wish or you don’t

It's the wind blowing
It's the end of the slope 
It's the beam, it's the span
The new roof party

It's the rain raining 
It’s riverbank talk 
Of the waters of March 
It's the end of the struggle

It's the foot, it's the ground
It's the walk on the road 
Small bird in the hand 
A slingshot stone 

It’s a bird in the sky 
It’s a bird on the ground 
It's a creek, it's a fountain
It's a piece of bread 

It's the bottom of the well 
It's the end of the way
In the face the annoyance
It's a little lonely 

It's a thorn, it's a nail 
It's a point, it’s a dot
It's a drop dripping 
It's an tally, it’s a tale

It's a fish, it’s a gesture 
It's silver shining
It's the morning’s light 
It's the brick arriving 

It's the firewood, it's the day
It's the end of the trail 
It's the bottle of liquor 
Splinter in the road

It’s the house’s design
It's the body in bed 
It's the broken down car 
It's the mud, it's the mud 

It's a footstep, it's a bridge
It's a toad, it's a frog 
It's a rest of brush 
In the morning’s light 

They are the waters of March
Closing the summer 
It's the promise of life 
In your heart 

It's a snake, it’s a stick 
It's John, it's Joseph 
It's a thorn in the hand 
It's the cut on the foot 

They are the waters of March
Closing the summer 
It's the promise of life 
In your heart 

It's stick, it's stone 
It's the end of the road 
It's a rest of stump 
It's a little alone 

It's a footstep, a bridge 
It's a toad, it's a frog 
It's a beautiful horizon 
It’s a tertian fever 

They are the waters of March
Closing the summer 
It's the promise of life 
In your heart 

 

 

 

 

BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) in NYC: link roundup

Media_httpimagesnymag_cofsc
via nymag.com

Here's a collection of links to the much-awaited arrival of BRT in NYC:

Smart Parking: One Giant Step in SF, a Baby Step in NYC

I've seen 3 items about "smarter" parking in the past couple weeks (where "smart parking" generally means dynamic congestion/demand-based pricing--and the technology that makes that possible): San Francisco is about to launch SFpark, a 2-year federally funded smart parking pilot program; NYC's DOT reports on an analysis of a much more limited (and less smart!) ParkSmart program, specifically in Park Slope, Brooklyn; and economist/blogger/columnist Tyler Cowen devotes one of his Sunday NYT columns to better pricing of parking. Here are the links, some excerpts, and a video.

#1: I came across the short video introduction to SFpark via finance blogger Felix Salmon, who wrote: 

the central idea is brilliant, and should be adopted everywhere: reduce traffic congestion by pricing parking according to demand — including pricing garages lower than street parking — so that there's nearly always at least one free parking space on every block

Here is the video:

SFpark Overview from SFpark on Vimeo.

 

#2: Via Streetsblog, a post titled "Park Smart Pilot Has Cut Traffic in Park Slope, DOT Finds"; an excerpt:

In Park Slope, the only Park Smart pilot area outside Manhattan so far, meter rates went up 75 cents per hour along parts of Fifth and Seventh Avenues between noon and 4 p.m. (when curb spaces are scarce and traffic is intense), bringing the total to $1.50 per hour. The goal is to increase parking turnover, freeing up spaces sooner so motorists spend less time searching for a spot. 

The Park Slope changes took effect in April 2009, so for an apples-to-apples comparison, DOT set out this April to measure the changes on the neighborhood's main commercial corridors.

As intended, during the peak period, the average amount of time that drivers parked in the pilot area decreased significantly, according to DOT's analysis [PDF]. On Fifth Avenue, the average time that a car occupied a given spot dropped from about an hour and ten minutes to 58 minutes: a 17 percent drop. On Seventh, the drop was even larger: 23 percent. (It's worth noting, though, that you're only allowed to stay at these spaces for an hour; changes in enforcement could be a factor in addition to price.)

and a map:

Media_httpwwwstreetsb_rikmd
via streetsblog.org

Finally, #3: Tyler Cowen's column in the Aug 14 Sunday Business section, titled "Free Parking Comes at a Price":

Is this a serious economic issue? In fact, it’s a classic tale of how subsidies, use restrictions, and price controls can steer an economy in wrong directions. Car owners may not want to hear this, but we have way too much free parking.
Higher charges for parking spaces would limit our trips by car. That would cut emissions, alleviate congestion and, as a side effect, improve land use. Donald C. Shoup, professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, has made this idea a cause, as presented in his 733-page book, “The High Cost of Free Parking.”

I've seen references to Shoup and his research before, so nice that Cowen (or the NYT web editors) included a link to his UCLA page, and cited his book. See also this ppt presentation, presumably prepared by Shoup himself, which is the 2nd hit on Google for “the High Cost of Free Parking.”

Zibetto Espresso Bar - Lower (& Midtown) Manhattan

I wrote this just up now, but really meant to post to my friend Johnee's relatively new posterous, The Espresso Whisperer:

I post this for the next time you find yourself in lower Manhattan and need a quick fix of quality coffee

I went into "the city" for lunch today (an odd habit I've fallen into--those who live in NYC but in the "outer boroughs" refer to Manhattan as "the city"--leaving us in some sort of in-between ne(i)therland, neither in the city nor outside it really).

Met two fellow Cornell math grads for lunch, one of whom works in lower Manhattan and is something of an espresso conoisseur. He'd taken me after a previous lunch mtg to an espresso spot on New St (the little alley parallel to Broad and Broadway, south of Wall St), but today, after enjoying Sam's falafel in Zucotti park (the plaza SE of the WTC site), he walked us over to the Zibetto Espresso Bar, on Fulton St at William.

Media_httpwwwzibettoe_yndjz

It's literally just a bar, with no seating in the spot aside from two stools in the front window. One just walks up to the bar, is served a small glass of water (to cleanse the palate?), and places one's order. My friends had a single and double shot, respectively, whereas I went with a latte. I don't claim to be a coffee conoisseur, but I certainly enjoyed my drink.

A visit to ZibettoEspresso.com reveals that there is a location in midtown as well.

Building a Better @MTA Bus Map

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'll soon have some time to work on some projects--and as the topic of that post indicates, one or more of those projects will be transit (& tech) related. Here's a rough sketch of one quick project I'd like to knock out in the coming weeks.

The MTA's NYC bus system is incredibly extensive--but also very difficult to navigate. It's not surprising to come across longtime New Yorkers who have never (or have rarely) taken the bus. That may be in large part because of the perception that buses are inefficient--after all, they get stuck in the morass of NYC surface traffic. (I'll have to devote another post to why (a) that's a misperception in the vast majority of the city, and (b) in the situations where that is true, we need BRT.)

That misperception is part of a vicious cycle: people avoid taking the buses, and so they never learn the route map, which prevents them from taking the buses at times it might be useful to them.

A key to breaking this cycle is building a better bus map.  The MTA currently provides 5 separate pdfs for the city's bus system--one for each borough.  To demonstrate both the extensive and labyrinthine nature of the bus system, here is the current Brooklyn bus map:

via mta.info

There are a couple translations of the subway map onto an interactive (i.e., Google-style) map (e.g., http://nycsubway.eyebeamresearch.org/).  Remarkably, I have yet to find such a map for the bus system.

In searching for one, I did come across http://transitmaps.org/map.php, which is part of what I was looking for, but just for the Portland bus system: a Google Map overlay that allows you to plot individual routes.  Take a look by clicking thru:  

Media_httpmt0googleco_qucmh
via transitmaps.org

The first step of my project will be to build this for the MTA bus system.  In my next post I'll write out my notes for how I propose to go about doing that: parse MTA's General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) file, use Google's TransitFeedDistribution tools to translate from GTFS to Keynote Markup Language (KML), and use the KML to create a Google Map.

(If someone reading this knows more about all this sort of stuff than I do, please let me know if I'm on the right track here!)

@OpenPlans on May 6 @MTA Developers Unconference

I've spent some time over the past few years following transit issues and specifically the issues surrounding open transit agency data and development of 3rd party apps. But since I'll soon have some time for some projects, I've started paying closer attention over the past few weeks. I had heard about the "MTA Developers Unconference" that took place at the NYC Google offices in early May, but unfort couldn't make it (a job and a newborn at home will do that). Here is a good summary from OpenPlans' CivicHacker blog that I've been referring to a lot:

Just got home from the first MTA Developers Unconference.  I had the honor of speaking on the panel, which was moderated by Anil Dash and included some really great folks: MTA Chairman Jay Walder, Deputy US CTO for Open Government Beth Noveck, Derek Gotfrid from the NY Times, Anthony Shorris from the Rudin Center, and Bernhard Seefeld from Google Maps.  It was a fun event, and showed how far the MTA has come in building a relationship with the developer community.

Here are a few quick notes:

New data is available.
Chairman Walder made it rain, and new datasets were released as he was on stage. Check them out here: http://mta.info/developers/download.html.  I haven’t taken a close look yet, but here’s what seems to be new:

Some of these datasets will be useful immediately (service & elevator status), and some will provide the basis for interesting analysis, the way that CabSense produced something useful from historical taxi pickup/dropoff data.  It’s particularly cool and weird that B&T toll plaza data is available; I’ll be interested to see what people make of that.  Also, if you love transit turnstile data geekery (and you know you do!), check out this great post by Mike Frumin that visualizes station usage over time, dating back to 1905.

Chairman Walder said all the right stuff.
He gave a 10-min talk, describing his approach to innovation and collaboration.  We’ll update this with the link to the video once it’s posted.  Walder wants to make it easy for developers to help the MTA, and acknowledged the “culture change” required to embrace an approach that produces innovative results, but also reduces the level of the agency’s control.  Or, to phrase it more eloquently: “Ok, jay walder is actually pretty cool.”  Of course, talk is cheap and we’ll have to see how much these ideas and practices persist and expand, but I’m optimistic.

Developer outreach is citizen engagement.
The MTA dev outreach team has done a nice job nurturing this community.  In just a few short months, they’ve launched their developer program, engaged with the dev community on the Google Group, and iterated based on feedback.  I also give a lot of credit here to the MassDOT dev team for setting such an easy-to-follow model.

We talk a lot about government-citizen engagement, and, at least in the transit space, that usually means the riding public.  But I’d just like to point out that the developer outreach that has happened thus far is a great example of a government agency connecting in a meaningful way with (at least one group of) its constituents.  Their approach (and MassDOT’s) has been direct, plain-spoken and honest.  Not bureaucratic, defensive, or complicated.  If you look back through the archives on the MTA Developers Google Group, you’ll see an extended dialogue, with straightforward discussions of opportunities, issues and constraints.  Most importantly, it’s been a responsive process taking place in real-time.

And here are some ideas for what could happen next:

There’s still a big opportunity to develop tools for more seamless transportation.
Chairman Walder talked about the “national border” between NY and NJ.  Anthony Shorris discussed the change from a “mainframe model” of commuting in and out of the CBD, to a networked model where radial transportation out of the city center is not adequate.  I’m looking for the developer community to start building apps that abstract out the inconvenient distinctions between modes and jurisdictions.  I should be able to plan my mobility seamlessly across modes: subway to a PATH train to a taxi in Hoboken to a Ferry, etc. (Developers out there, if you’re into this problem, you should check out the OpenTripPlanner project.)   If we had had more time on the panel, I would have asked for a show of hands who in the audience is working on apps that cross jurisdictions and modes (here’s looking at you, RouteFriend).

The MTA should post a list of software projects they wish they could build, but don’t have the time or resources.
This “wish list” should be fodder for independent developers, and could ideally, in the long run, be the basis for open source development and collaboration among agencies.  On the panel, I asked Chairman Walder what some of those projects would be. My point being that the developer community has come up with some great ideas (ideas that would never have been developed internally at the agency), but there’s still an opportunity for the agency to try and harness some of that energy to solve some of the issues they’re struggling to solve internally.  The issues he mentioned were:

  • Weekend service visualization / explanation. The NYC Subway schedule gets crazy on the weekend, mostly due to construction and maintenance.  It’s super confusing.  This is a hard problem to visualize, though some people have already started working on it.
  • Real-time bus info. This data is not yet available everywhere (only a pilot on 34th St. so far), but it’s clearly some of the most valuable and useful information out there.  Of course, it’s up to the agency to get these data sets out there to the developer community (ahem, L and 6 trains) to make this possible.
  • Working with smart card tech.  I honestly don’t remember exactly what he said here, but the gist is that the MTA will be introducing new farebox systems that will work directly with RFID-enabled credit cards.  Please fill in the blanks from my memory here.
  • Building apps for all mobile devices. He stressed that it will be important to build apps that don’t just work on iPhones and Android phones, but are useful for anyone with any phone.  Yes.
via civichacker.openplans.org