anti-social media guru

It's been a while since I've had the chance to do a full magazine cover from concept to execution, and compared to my previous tries this one actually worked out reasonably well. 

The lead article is about augmented reality, and WTF it has to do with print. So I had the idea of giving an example of how it could work for people who might not be too familiar with some of its applications. My first idea was to do a WordLens type view on a foreign city at night through an iPad.

First took a series of quick handheld shots of me holding an iPad.

...and mocked it up using an image I found of some city in Japan and a white iPad frame. But it looked kinda crappie, so I swapped it with an iPhone.

Here I was just a little curious about the scale of it.

(download)

Click here to download:

from-concept-to-photography-to-hand-modelling-to-layout-here-s-how-the-june-graphicarts-cover-came-to-be-cqeAHHlhwikHibGfaGFs.zip (1020 KB)

Armed with a tripod and an iPhone, I went for a walk down the street and took a couple dozen shots in a couple locations.

(download)

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from-concept-to-photography-to-hand-modelling-to-layout-here-s-how-the-june-graphicarts-cover-came-to-be-ewtIvxEmglepmmsEzhxy.zip (889 KB)

Once I got home a few of the images were thrown together.

(download)

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from-concept-to-photography-to-hand-modelling-to-layout-here-s-how-the-june-graphicarts-cover-came-to-be-IewHwtHIfwyFElrthiwE.zip (611 KB)

Based on group input we worked out a few more variations...

I sometimes like using Navigon for GPS on my iPhone, but at 1.8 GB for the standard installation I can't justify having it on my phone. Most of that space is taken up with maps of every street and business in North America. Since I'm not planning on driving to California or Wyoming anytime soon, there's no need to carry detailed maps of them everywhere I go.

I found a guide on removing unnecessary maps (which seems to be outdated or just doesn't work for me), and one on installing iMovie on an iPad 1, and combined the two to come up with a method that works for me. These are Mac instructions, but PC shoud be similar.

1. Copy the Navigon ipa from your ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications folder to your desktop.
2. Move the original Navigon ipa somewhere else for safe keeping
3. Delete the app from iTunes (go to the apps tab, click on Navigon and actually delete it (I think it's command-delete))
4. Go back to the Navigon ipa on the desktop and rename the ipa to zip
5. Open the zip
6. Open the new folder, inside Payload and right-click (ctrl-click) the app and show package contents
7. Go in the maps folder and delete all the maps you don't need [looks like there are a bunch of extra languages you might be able to remove too... I'm trying this now]
8. Go back to the app and drag it into the Applications tab in the iPhone Configuration Utility (more detailed info on using it is available on that Wired article about iMovie
9. Click on your iPhone/iPad and the Applications tab (the one at the top), and click on the install button
10. Done. Now you can sync in iTunes and copy it back into iTunes

For me it dropped the app from 1.8 GB down to 750MB. Awesome.

Am I completely off base, or does this back-of-the-napkin calculation make any sense?

There are about 7,000,000 cars in Ontario.

Ontario's peak capacity is maybe about 25,000 megawatts.

Our night draw is about 15,000 megawatts (same source).

This makes a difference of 10,000 megawatts.

A Nissan Leaf has a 24 kilowatt per hour battery. At 240 volts it takes about six hours to charge.

So that means 1000 Leafs would require 24 megawatts to charge.

Divide that by the six hours it takes to charge is 4 megawatts of a draw if all those 1000 Leafs are plugged in at the same time (let's call that a kiloleaf for fun).

10,000 megawatts divided by 4 megawatts is 2,500 kiloleafs, or 2.5 megaleafs.

Therefore, our current electrical system should be able to handle 2.5 million Leafs all plugged in at the same time at night. Once the number of electric cars (or plug-in hybrids) approaches 35% of all vehicles on the road in Ontario, we might start running into problems.

Of course not everybody will need to plug in every day when if car has a range of 160 km. If most people can hold off on charging every third day, then those numbers would fit together very snugly. Neato.

I'm actually surprised that it worked way better than I expected. Here's a chart of the whole session last night. It actually gives a lot of useful data.

If you're not familiar with this program and what everything in that chart means, the main metric that's tracked here is that red squiggly line, which is heart rate. In the background there are blue, green, yellow and red stripes. Those represent different heart rate training zones. The black squiggly line with the blue fill is actually altitude, which obviously doesn't apply in the pool, but as a side effect it actually pulls in some very useful data too.

I also highlighted a couple points, which are the orange ellipse and the yellow box. The orange was when we did fast 25s testing reaction times, where my heart rate peaked at (a relatively low for being so out of breath) 165 bpm. The yellow highlight is for the first three sets of 300m. It's neat to see my heart rate peak in the second set, and then level off in the third.

The other tool I've been using in the pool has been my Poolmate Pro, which gives me a whole swack more data to cross reference with it. I'm going to have to detail that device in a separate post, but it's been awesome for collecting data.

So here you can see that I was actually going faster during that second set, which would explain the higher heart rate peak. I'm a little upset that I pulled the Garmin off after the third set, because coach Ayesha got me to increase my stroke rate after the first set, and it took a while to find my groove with it. It looks like the fourth set was much quicker, and I didn't feel that much more tired. It would have been nice to have solid proof.

I ended up removing the GPS, since it felt like it was slipping off whenever I pushed off the wall. I was convinced that I wasn't going to get any useful data anyway.

A side benefit of using a GPS with a barometric altimeter (one of the cycling-focussed Edge models, as opposed to the running-focussed Forerunners) is that you can actually get a lot of detail on how many laps you've done, when you've done them, even down to each individual stroke! I've noticed this while swimming with it in my swim cap as well. When the GPS goes deeper underwater, the pressure increases, and it thinks you're dropping altitude.

During the first of the 300m sets above, it's very easy to figure out exactly where I did a turn, where I started, where I stopped, and even have a good idea of when I was stroking.

I had a quick look at the raw data that the GPS produced to try and get an idea of how often it was dropping out. The lines on the chart look fairly solid, but when it was slipping down during turns I was a little concerned that it might be missing out. It appears that it was getting my heart rate about 97% of the time. Not perfect, but that's pretty close.

Looking back at the first chart, I tried flipping the orientation of the strap/GPS the other way, and tied the second strap around my neck. I figured that it would at least keep it from sliding down after turns. It did keep it from sliding, but I didn't seem to get any useable data. I think my positioning was a little off, and the top strap was a little tight. I'll try again next time, or maybe I can figure out another way to secure it.

Either way this is really promising, if a little dorky.

It may be a little premature to do up a how-to before I've even fully tested to see if it works, but I'm a little excited to try this out. I don't feel like spending another $200 for another watch so I can track heart rate underwater, especially when I don't know if I'm going to even find it practical or useful to have that data yet. So back to the spare parts bin to try to hack together something that will work.

My first attempt was to just wear the heart rate strap in the tub, and having the GPS unit close to it. Reception was spotty. There didn't even seem to be any rhyme or reason to why it would or wouldn't pick up a signal. Sometimes it could be right next to it and not work, and sometimes if it was far away it'd get a signal. I decided that I'd probably have to keep them close to each other, or at least have no water between them. So I figured out another way to sort it out.

I started with a basic original style Garmin heart rate strap.

...and an underwater camera bag.

First I applied a thick bead of silicone around the main part of the strap.

...then just stuck the underwater bag onto the strap and let it dry.

It doesn't even look awkward at all!

Here's the GPS in action, obviously getting a reading (I was out of the water).

Next I tested it in the tub, and it definitely got a solid signal the whole time. Sorry, no pictures, but I DO have a chart showing no dropouts during the five minute impromptu bath I took!

Monday I'll be testing this, so I'll be sure to update this post. Hopefully I don't get laughed out of the swim session!

Since the end of last year when I was told I have a touch of tibialis posterior syndrome (basically a glorified form of tendinitis involving the tendon connecting the back of your shin to the bottom of your foot), I've been completely off running, and only able to handle very small amounts of cycling at a time.

I could spend hours explaining exactly why (if you've read my training blog you'll know I'm not exaggerating), but I believe that trying this midsole position will take much of the pressure off my tendon, which might actually allow me to start cycling again, and if I'm very lucky I can resume a regular training schedule. [fingers crossed]

For more info on the midsole cleat position, check out some of the archives on Joe Friel's blog (author of the Triathlete's Training Bible and the most vocal proponent of a midsole cleat). His latest midsole cleat post is about how it can improve running performance off the bike, and it also contains links to his previous articles.

This guide is based on Joe's how to post, which uses a very similar shoe to mine.

Step one: Mark a line down the centre of the shoe. I used the hole in the top with the indentation in the bottom

Step two: Measure the halfway point in the sole and...

Step three: Make a perpendicular line.

Step four: Drill the holes. This shows the mounting plate in it's position, which I used as a template to drill the holes (I'm not sure where they came from, but I had a few in my bag of parts).

Step five: Dremel out a square in the inside of the soles to give a spot for the mounting plate to be recessed into.

Step six: position the mounting plate.

Step seven: Screw a couple random bolts into it.

Step eight: Laugh at the pain from sticking your foot into the end of a randomly long bolt.

Step nine: Grab some appropriate-length machine bolts from Home Depot. Interestingly this non-metric size is a direct match, not only with thread pitch and length, but they're tapered exactly the same as the originals.

Step ten: Install new machine bolts

Step eleven: Consider dremelling a deeper recess for the plate, and possibly reinforce with epoxy if appears that any structural integrity is lost.

Step twelve: Admire your work. Oh yeah, and test it when you get home tonight. [fingers crossed again]