Smedresmania! » Data

Woodcut Maps

Gabe — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:43:55 +0000

Handcrafted wood-inlay maps, designed by you: woodcutmaps.com. A new art+crafts+tech+maps business in the making with Catherine Herdlick, Katie Mordarski, and Pagoda Arts.

Gizmodo:

Maps can be beautiful things, that bring back memories, remind you of journeys, or just make you glad you live where you do. A company called Woodcut Maps now lets you preserve a Google Maps image in solid wood—and the results look gorgeous.

Boing Boing:

I really dig creative work that turns a sense of place into art. That’s why I’m really getting a kick out of woodcutmaps.com, which uses Google Maps to create really great geometric art—some clearly map-like, others much more abstract.

It all depends on what view of the map you choose to have turned into a woodcut. You can do a tight crop, or wide pull-out. Basically, you choose the view that matters to you. They make it art. Above is what my neighborhood in Minneapolis would look like as a woodcut.

Flowing Data:

Just choose the location you want via the Google Maps interface, pick what materials you want, and Woodcut Maps puts your map through the laser cutter and assembles and packs your map by hand. Great gift idea or a nice little something to set on your desk.

And #1 on Hacker News!

Crazy Boat: Curse of the Trash Vortex

Gabe — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:21:15 +0000

It is the near future and the Pacific Trash Vortex has reached critical mass, flooding nearby seas with strange and valuable debris. A new age of sea entrepreneurship has arisen. Take your rusty rig and explore a changed Pacific Ocean…

IO9: “The Best Sci-Fi Distraction on Facebook”

NY Times Magazine: “Enormously Compelling”

Forbes: “Weird, witty and compelling”

We called upon some of the greatest mid-century American action serials to make a game that both harkens back to the adventures of yore and puts a new face on the idea of exploration, with an emphasis on the environmental impact of what reckless exploration means to the planet at large. 5% of our in-game revenues go to benefit Project Kaisei, a non-profit dedicated to cleaning up the real Pacific Trash Vortex.

Crazy Boat contains many gameplay innovations. The biggest: it uses Facebook profile data to give players in-game bonuses for their real-world skills and strengths. If you you post messages about the forest to your facebook wall, you might earn the Forest Ranger skill, and if you post about current events, you might score points as a Politician. In addition, in a first for Facebook games, players share their adventures with groups of up to four – and what happens to one affects all four.

I worked on the game with many talented people, including the consummate artist Joe Alterio, front-end guru David Kurtz, and crack iPhone developer Tom Brow.

Gatsby

Gabe — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:12:15 +0000

Meet Gatsby: a mobile service and iPhone app that introduces you to nearby people who share your interests, wherever you go. Like the host in the novel, Gatsby makes sure that you’re having a good time and getting the most out of your social setting.

Gatsby won Twilio’s SMS app contest!

Mashable: Connecting Foursquare Friends Who Like Cats and Circuses

CNet: Meet Gatsby, matchmaker for Foursquare users

PSFK: MeetGatsby Matches Strangers Through Foursquare

The Rundown: Link Foursquare to real life with Gatsby

ReadWriteWeb: Connect With Like-Minded Foursquare Users Around You

Illustration courtesy of Haan Lee.

Scenic Route

Gabe — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:04:56 +0000

Many people are too busy for organized guided tours, and others don’t want to buy and lug around a thick travel guide just for a short business or family trip. And yet, most people still want to discover and learn about the cities they visit and inhabit. Scenic Route helps these individuals get more out of travel, on their own schedule.

Scenic Route is a mobile website that builds customized routes for urban walks. Given your destination and a time allowance, Scenic Route builds a meandering walking route to that destination, filling the available time with stops along the way. Each stop reveals a hidden surprise about the city: a short message left by a user or verified guide. At the end of your walk, you’ve explored new streets and uncovered a unique set of local knowledge through a fun, spontaneous activity that fits into the available moments of your day.

Visit my partner Catherine’s website at paradeofkites.

SF Chronicle: Streets give up secrets on Scenic Route app

Pretweeting

Gabe — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:11:30 +0000

Pretweeting is a market game for twitter: you amass (virtual) riches every round by buying and selling words, which are priced based on how frequently they’re mentioned on twitter. To win, you have to predict what’s going to be hot and buy it up before it hits twitter. Once people start mentioning the words you’ve chosen, their prices will rise and your portfolio will go through the roof!

There’s a whole ecosystem of different words. The English top 100 words (“the”, “and”, “or”, etc.) are the blue chip stocks of the twittersphere. Some words, like “dinner”, “#followfriday”, and “sleep”, have very predictable cycles. But you’ll need to follow current events to really know when the best picks, topical words like “ipod” or “lakers”, will hit it big.

This game hit it big on twitter and had several international articles written about it.

@louroboros: i love this so much. #pretweeting
@bdougher I want to buy shares of ‘pretweeting’, it’s gonna be huge! #pretweeting

IndieGamesBlog Browser Game Pick: Pretweeting

Mashable: Pretweeting gets a prediction market

Technology Reviews: Pretweeting- Virtual Twitter Stock Market

OnlyGizmos: Pretweeting is the new trend

WATBlog: Enough of tweeting and retweeting: it’s time for pretweeting!

TechCrunch: Can You Predict Twitter Trends? Use Your Skills For Virtual Cash With Pretweeting

Whytech.fr: Spéculez sur la fréquence des mots avec Pretweeting pour Twitter

MyFox Tech Tips: Predicting Twitter