Taking Attendance

August 31, 2010 //

I want to make it clear in advance that the only thing I’ll really prove with this post is that I am clearly not working on a project or contract today.

OK, so, the Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally has drawn more controversy for its disputed attendance size than for its content or context. This man can’t seem to brush his teeth without someone scrutinizing his choice of toothbrush.

Estimates have been all over the board, with CBS News on one end assessing the attendance at 78,000 to 96,000 (based on aerial photography taken during the event) and Beck himself estimating the crowd at at least 500,000, presumably based on information gathered from his own camp and attending colleagues (however we cannot eliminate an upcoming claim of divine intervention).

Thankfully, for once we can analyze something Glenn Beck says or does with math and science rather than rhetoric. Using photos of the event, Google Maps’ satellite view, Photoshop and a little math, I’ve come up with my own assessment of the attendance of Beck’s rally.

I started with a large space that has a well-recorded capacity: Penn State’s Beaver Stadium. Beaver Stadium is the second largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere, and fourth largest in the world. Its official capacity is 107,282 people, but the highest attendance ever recorded at a Penn State game held at the stadium was 110,753. Given that Beaver Stadium is slightly tiered, I’ve chosen to use the official capacity as a comparison. Why does that matter? Keep reading…

Next, I went to Google Maps and brought up satellite views of both the Washington Mall and Beaver Stadium, and adjusted their views to correct corresponding altitudes. Both of Google’s measurement guides were adjusted to 500 ft., giving me two corresponding maps at equal aspects. I was then able to crop the stadium and plunk it right into the Potomac to get a sense of scale.

I then found a Beaver Stadium seating chart, which I laid over the satellite image of the stadium to represent where people are actually located when filling the stadium. The area that Nittany Lions fans occupy to fill the stadium to 107,282 was highlighted in red.

Here’s where it gets a little complicated for those who aren’t savvy to graphics design, so I’ll start with a brief explanation. Skip the following paragraph if you already understand pixels…

Pixels are tiny dots of a particular color that form the images on your computer and HDTV. Every photo, website and video you’ve ever viewed on your computer is made of them. They run both horizontally and vertically, and can be measured. So, If your computer monitor has a resolution of 1,920 X 1,080, you have 1,920 pixels running horizontally and 1,080 pixels running vertically across and up your monitor screen. Multiply them, and you will realize that your monitor is displaying 2,073,600 pixels at any given moment. Now back to crowd the analysis…

I took the populated area in red and counted the pixels. All 11,296 of them. Well, my computer helped. A little math told me that 107,282 people divided by 11,296 pixels means that 1 pixel represents 9.487 people at Beaver Stadium at its maximum capacity on my scaled map of the Washington Mall. So, we have a constant. Woot. Let’s continue.

Alright… next I started looking at aerial pictures from the rally to determine the space that the crowd occupied on the Mall, and then filled the areas with red squares to represent those areas as being as crowded as a full capacity crowd at Beaver Stadium. I then counted all of the pixels occupying those squares and got a grand total of 45,957 pixels. Using the people per pixels constant I found earlier, I multiplied 45,957 by 9.487 to arrive at a grand total of 435,994 people.

Please keep in mind that 435,994 represents the amount of people who would have been at the Washington Mall crowd if it had been as crowded as a full football stadium. Based upon the aerial photographs, it clearly was not. 435,994 best represents the maximum amount of people who could have possibly occupied the space represented by the aerial photographs if it were as crowded as Beaver Stadium when filled to capacity.

At the next step, I had to reduce the crowd based upon the sparseness of some areas indicated by the pictures. The North side of the Reflecting Pool is extremely full, so I gave it 100% capacity- meaning that I determined it just as crowded as a college stadium at maximum capacity. In other areas, such as the South side of the Pool, there were sections clearly devoid of people, as well as crowded sections and sections that are more dispersed. I determined the South side of the Reflecting Pool at 75% as crowded as the maximum capacity of a full Beaver Stadium. I continued to state the fullness of the crowd in certain areas as percentages.

Afterward, I recounted the pixels in each individual area, and then multiplied them by their percentage to achieve a more accurate number based upon the crowd photos. When reduced to account for areas of sparsity, I arrived at 32,438.15 pixels. Multiply that by 9.487 people per pixel, and you get 307,740.729 people total (well, 307,741 barring a horrific accident).

So, does that mean that roughly 308,000 people were at the event? Nope. Not at all. There are a TON of problems with my calculations. Among them, Beaver Stadium is built to seat people at elevated angles and in tiers, while the Washington Mall is flat- meaning that if you actually shoved 107,282 people into a flat, non-elevated and non-tiered space the same size as the seating area of Beaver Stadium, they would likely be crammed so tightly that suffocation would ensue. That apparently wasn’t the situation at the North side of the Reflecting Pool last Saturday.

So, I’m being EXTREMELY generous with my numbers here.

If I’m throwing my opinion into the speculation, I’d estimate that around 175,000 people were either attending or milling around the event. I happen to know D.C. residents who strolled over to the Mall to check it out, and left within a half hour. Were they in the photographed crowd? Maybe, but they probably shouldn’t be counted as “attendees.”

I guess the point of this excercise wasn’t so much as to try to figure out the exact attendance, but rather to give a better perspective on the speculation. Beck’s estimate of 500,000+ is pretty unlikely, and CBS News’ number is probably closer, but shoots under the real mark.

It doesn’t really matter how many people showed up, but it does matter that guys like Glenn Beck argue attendance numbers that can’t possibly be verified in an effort to gain clout for an agenda, be it political or otherwise. It’s a Maltese Falcon- a case where the thing itself isn’t valuable, but how it’s used fills volumes.

BTW- The image file reflecting my calculations is here.

Categories "apolitics"

Teaching LA

August 27, 2010 //

LA has spent a billion dollars building 3 public schools capable of teaching a total of 8,400 students. Conservatively amortized over the course of a single student’s education starting at Kindergarten, that’s roughly $151,722 for a high school diploma. Oh… damn… we’ve still completely forgotten annual maintenance costs. Let’s hope that these initial investments don’t require any updating or repairs until 2023. Crap. And did I mention we haven’t hired any teachers or staff?

So, where the hell is all of this money going? Cool buildings. Physical structures. In fact, it’s the only aspect of the new school that Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, really brings up when half-heartedly promoting it:

“There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail’… Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.”

In Midwest City, OK, I went to school in brick-and-mortar buildings of pretty standard fare. They seemed like prisons insomuch as I wasn’t allowed to leave until school was over. My schools were community centers because they were my schools, not because they looked like MoMA installations (and they certainly didn’t). As far as materials, I learned from a combination of books, videos and very primitive computers. And I received an unbelievable education… but it didn’t have anything to do with any of the stuff I just mentioned. My K-12 education was borne of the incredible teachers I’ve had throughout my life. Mrs. Darnell could have taught me contractions in a barn. Mrs. Murray simply needed my attention and the world around me to stimulate my fascination with the physical sciences.

When a school system generates a six figure bill per student without considering staff and maintenance amidst a state budget crisis (again, I’m being conservative: uber dismal holy crap-a-thon of insolvent proportions is more accurate), one might be inclined to understand why the crisis exists in the first place. I’m an advocate of education. In fact, I believe that in a time of economic crisis, nearly all other civic services should take cuts before educational institutions. It’s a pretty simple concept- if the present sucks, invest in a future that doesn’t. But LA County has missed the point entirely.

Education should be as far removed from materialism as possible. Humans teach other humans, not neo-contemporary architecture. Educators should be regarded as a school system’s most valuable asset. Oh, and kids don’t appreciate the artistry of their school. Buildings mean nothing. Period.

In March, LAUSD approved 5,200 layoffs, 4,700 of whom were teachers and non-maintenance staff, to deal with a $640 million budget shortfall. Yes, it’s possible that the money for the super-schools was completely disconnected from the LAUSD and it’s budget. But, you know, who f*cking cares? If the school system needed the money, who the hell decided not to tell these contractors to put down their hammers? What official didn’t do their job and hijack the “Taj Mahal” school project and push the cash into making sure that they actually have teachers to teach the kids? Oh, right- breaking deals with and failing to pay contractors isn’t an option when you’re a government institution. I totally forgot.

Half-finished buildings taking up space today are a hell of a lot better than half-educated kids staring into space tomorrow. But then again, this is LA. Aesthetics are more important than academics.

Thing is, there are tens of thousands of excellent, underpaid teachers out there- thousands more unemployed- and LA has used up it’s educational funds developing real estate. Taking inspiration from it’s Hollywood backlots, The LA county school system has built an elaborate facade with no substance beneath it.

Perhaps the people making these decisions haven’t heard the political cliche: Supporting today’s educators is important. Be it in their own education, or simply by allowing them to do their jobs without worrying about being fired at every economic turn or inheriting a classroom of 30 students that they can’t properly teach. It takes money to do that, but it’s money in the right place.

Let’s hope like hell that these palaces are filled with opportunity. Let’s hope that they are emulated, not because they’re pretty, but because they teach effectively. Let’s hope that future school designers can see the difference between function and form. And finally, let’s hope that the schmucks that thought of this idea in the first place never get to make any decisions about the minds of future generations ever again.

Categories education

Touchy Feely about Apple’s Touchy Feely

August 24, 2010 //

A while back (in fact almost exactly a year ago) I made a pre-iPad argument for an Apple tablet as a OS X-powered business machine.

Now, it seems to finally be in their deck. Kind of. It looks like Apple is going for an iMac overhaul that includes touch screen technology based on iOS.

What’s really interesting to me is that Apple appears to be behind the curve on this one. A direct parallel is the Lenovo U1, a hybrid touch screen Windows-based laptop that switches to Android OS when in tablet mode. In the all-in-one desktop market, HP has the Touchsmart, Gateway has the One and Sony’s Vaio L Series- all Windows 7-powered machines with touch interface… albeit with an OS that’s not efficiently designed for touch technology.

At first, it seemed odd to me that Apple has presumably made the decision to adopt an existing technology by baby-stepping into an intermediate market by simply mashing up two products we’ve already seen. Then I realized I overlooked a fundamental principle in Apple’s business history: advancement of the concept over the device itself.

If we take a glance back at the digital music boom, we remember that Apple wasn’t the first to the MP3 player market- and that the initial iPod was a decent competitor at best at it’s launch. Apple reinvented (or rather, invented) the MP3 marketplace with iTunes, not the iPod.

For Apple, it might be less about the device itself than the user’s relationship with that technology. Anyone can build a prototype, but Apple specializes in making a technology feasible and forward-thinking beyond it’s current form. Anything with the Apple logo on it seems like the first step in a new direction. In fact, their knack for alluding to a product’s potential has bred a whole sector of Apple fans who never buy a first generation product.

That said, I’m looking forward to their version of the high-end, touch interface machine. Not because it seems like a practical tool for us Mac users, but also because it will likely make user interface beyond the mouse and keyboard compelling in a more profound way.

And here I am once again giving Apple a lot of credit for something they haven’t done.

Categories consumer culture, tech

A Hype-Free Thought on Why Steven Slater is a Heroic Character

August 11, 2010 //

This is late to the game in terms of commentary, but in all honesty, this story didn’t appeal to me until I saw this article reporting the (apparently) flamboyant flight attendant’s Howard Beale-like tirade and dramatic escape from his own personal customer service hell.

The photo within depicts Steven Slater and his boyfriend leaving a Bronx jail wearing shorts, T-shirts and smiles that exude a sense of calm. A calm derived from a transcendence from a societal flaw that demands something- anything- made to order and delivered with courtesy by someone who doesn’t expect a tip. That smile and that calm speak volumes.

Here’s where I get on my soapbox: American society is laden with entitlement. The new Manifest Destiny has nothing to do with the U.S. being “God’s nation” or the natural inheritance of all oppressed territories under the banner of liberty. It’s much more personal now. Today’s exceptionalism is the idea that, as an American, you are individually entitled to anything within your ambitions of achieving. It was the driving force behind the housing bubble- the well-established idea that just by being an employed citizen of this country, you are automatically obliged a two bedrooom house, a car and enough disposable income to take a vacation or two to Disneyworld every year. It doesn’t matter what you have to do to get there or how real that scenario is in the grand scheme of the current economy, it’s yours because your parents said it was, and because their parents said it was theirs.

But I digress.

The situation at hand is just a derivative of the very same ideology. We as Americans can displace ourselves from reality so easily that we forget that the nature of a civilization is that you have to build and share it with other humans. Had we been so snarky as cavepeople, we’d probably be lighting fires with flint rocks instead of following the Kardashians on Twitter.

Deep down, those of us who haven’t had empathy bred out of us entirely know this to be true. Steven Slater represents that deep-seated part of our brain that gives up our seat on the metro and throws money into the paper cups of the homeless as it screams out it’s disapproval over our culture’s inherent egotism. This lack of compassion for others in favor of accepting our societal flaws as reality is intolerable, and will prevent us from moving on to the next positive phase of human civilization as long as it exists. Politicians do not always have to lie. The wealthy do not always have to be in charge. And the customer is not always right.

Perhaps I’m wrong about all this- and that my presumption of Steven and his partner’s sense of zen is nothing more than a presumption. Perhaps they know of the immediate cash and fame that this ordeal will inevitably bring in at a time of so much economic strife. Perhaps it’s a sense of security, or even vanity, rather than defiance. Maybe I’m a romantic. Regardless of how Slater uses his 15 minutes, at this moment, that’s what he as a character means to me.

Categories news media, sociology

Why Computer Science Programs Should Require Economics Courses

August 5, 2010 //

I apologize in advance if this gets a little catty or simplistic. The subject matter annoys me to no end.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the whole Google/Verizon deal is that so many people in the tech community were blindsided by it. Since when did we start trusting our international multi-billion dollar conglomerates? But more so, it begs the question: why do the start-ups think that their capitalist intentions are any more entitled than that of their mega-corporation oppressors?

Net neutrality is idealistic. It’s a pro-start up theory that completely ignores the intentions of those it’s trying to protect. Start ups want to turn a profit and dominate their market, essentially to become the very multi-billion dollar corporations that they are claiming want to treat them unfairly.

C’mon guys. Don’t play capitalist until it’s time for the bill.

By economic law, the playing field is never even in capitalism. No matter how much you believe in it, your profitable business is ultimately not for the good of mankind… it’s for the good of your wallet. When you introduce profit into the equation, you’ve begun to compete for resources- and you voluntarily enter the same jungle as the bigger, better equipped predators. They’ve been there longer, and they know their terrain well enough to control it.

I try not to criticize without a solution, so here goes: if you really want your tech start up to succeed but aren’t interested in getting rich, take it to the public sector. There will likely always be a “non-premium” version of the internet that is run by the global community rather than investors and advertisers. If you’re truly interested in social innovation and serving the greater good, that’s where you belong anyway.

Categories economics, net neutrality, tech

4 Great Urban Legends from the Gen X/Y Gap

June 21, 2010 //

There are hundreds of thousands of these types of posts all up in the internet’s grill, but I’ve decided to do one of my own. Why? Because I like this stuff, and sometimes I talk about it. So do you. There are entire books on this process.

Let’s just move on to…

No. 1: Super Mario Bros. has a “Negative World”

The moment this left the lips of a known NES-head, a flood of hush flowed through all parts of the room within earshot. I remember specifically, it was my neighbor Chris who first brought the legend to my attention in the second grade. He claimed that his cousin in San Bernadino had found the legendary negative levels and confirmed their existence. Strangely, he described them as a never-ending water world in which you could shoot fireballs. But even more extraordinary… the levels were discoverable in level 1-2. Gullible as I might have been, I wasn’t going to fall for that rubbish. Within weeks, I heard it again at school. And again at football practice. Same watery description, same inexplicably convenient access. I worked with the notes I took- the vague descriptions of simultaneous jumps and crouches and water pipes- trying for hours to find the levels myself and to become one of the prophets of the SMB negative worlds. But alas, I was never very good at Super Mario Bros. The mystery left me as I moved on to Sega, and then adolescence.

The internet, free time and a sense of nostalgia brought me up to speed on this about a decade after it first consumed me. Turns out, “Minus World” is actually just a big glitch in the original SMB game for NES. It’s essentially a replica of worlds 2-2 and 7-2 that warp you back to the beginning of the level instead of bringing you to the next. I knew that this was likely the explanation, but sorry if I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t some glorious alternate storyline hidden away in one of the pinnacles of video game history. It’s like finding out that, not only is there no Santa, but that your all toys came from the same place where your mom buys your underwear.

No. 2: The 3 Men & A Baby “Ghost Kid”

OK, so I’m seven, right? 3 Men and a Baby is a really, really big deal. I saw it in the theater with my parents, they talked about it at BBQs, their friends saw it, their kids saw it… even the freaky kids with the really religious parents somehow broke their “no movies not starring Michael Landon” rule to catch this flick. Everyone was completely in love with this movie.

So- I’m still seven. I’m at a summer day school, and I’m chatting with a teacher. She’s, I dunno, mid-20s. I bring up the diaper scene in the movie to describe it in detail in front of her, then laugh my ass off, when she says to me, “You know, there’s a ghost of a dead boy in that movie.” I stop dead in the story. I tell her she’s messing with me, expecting a teasing push and to move into a saner conversation. “No… it’s true.” She calls to her friend, “Hey [Tina or something], remember that thing about 3 Men in A Baby having a…” Tina or whatever interrupts: “Oh, are you talking about that ghost kid? My boyfriend showed me that- it’s so gnarly.” It was 1988. Things were still gnarly in Oklahoma.

She goes into detail about the ghost. It’s behind a curtain, it’s only in one scene. She adds a little gratis backstory. The kid committed suicide. They had used some of his old bedroom furniture as props. She remembers a last-minute detail, “Oh, he wanted to be a magician. That’s why his ghost is wearing a top hat.” The penny drops… my brain, still the tender age of seven years, begins to spin. I ask her if the “ghost” is about four feet tall. “Yeah.” And, it’s wearing a top hat. “That’s it.” And the scene is in Ted Danson’s character’s bedroom? “Yeah, I think so… you saw it?!” No, I say (I’m still seven when I say this), “That was a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson. It’s in another part of the movie.” Here’s where it gets interesting: she tells me I’m crazy- and that I’m being rude. Later on, she picks me last for hot potato and gives me the stink eye for a week.

Wait... no, that's just the ghost of Steve Guttenberg's career. ZING!

This one really doesn’t need an explanation- it was one of those silly little pre-digital age urban legends that we wanted to believe so badly that we made it seem plausible with the most insane excuses. I later heard someone say that the kid supposedly killed himself with a shotgun that can also be seen in the shot. In a sense, the internet and all it’s cynicism has taken the steam out of these tall tales. Sadly, this is no longer a world where precocious seven-year-olds have to pull the shades of reality down for their elder caretakers.

No. 3: Mikey Died from Pop Rocks & Pepsi

This one actually never got to me- my girlfriend told me about it and I thought it was just too goo not to include. Legend goes like this: Mikey, the finicky kid made famous by enjoying a breakfast cereal that everyone thought was delicious (I liked Vienna sausages and I couldn’t even get on the morning announcements) apparently also enjoyed the closest thing an 80s kid could get to crack cocaine…. Pop Rocks. In addition, rumor was that he liked to dabble in another illicit kid drug from that era: copious amounts of cola. Combined, it was a highball of doom… literally an explosive cocktail that could and supposedly did take lives. One Little Mikey’s in particular.

Given that I didn’t actually hear this one as a kid, I went right to the research. The whole thing was devised by the superlative “they” that now make less-reliable cars, uncomfortable airline seats and crappy television. First, they observed the gaseous nature of both Pop Rocks and Pepsi. Then, they imagined the effect of these two substances combined in a human gastrointestinal system. Afterwards, they placed the whole thing into a narrative in which some sugar-crazed or culinarily ambitious child met his demise. Why did they choose Mikey? My guess is that famous kids didn’t grow on Disney trees back then, and Mikey was as good as they could have done to punctuate the shebang with a little celebrity intrigue.

It didn’t help that, in 1983, Pop Rocks stopped advertising. To the astute conspiracy theorist, silence speaks volumes.

FOOTNOTE: The actor who played Mikey actually reprised his role as a college-aged kid in later Life cereal commercials and seems to currently be working as an ad executive in New York.

No. 4: There’s another Super Mario Bros. 2

Yes, its another Super Mario Bros. legend. Look, I said the game was influential.

Before The Wizard took our remaining (and by that time waning) NES attention sharply to Super Mario Bros. 3, there was a weird little rumor buzzing around that the SMB 2 we all knew and some of us kinda liked in a twisted way wasn’t the only one out there. There was, according to the kids with subscriptions to Nintendo Power magazine, an “evil” version that was so hard it was banned in the U.S. Minds blew at the mere suggestion that a game could be so unbeatable that our nation’s legislators took time away from improving health care (ha) and ending the energy crisis (double ha) to make sure that kids never had to experience it’s criminal difficulty.

Turns out, they were about 63% right on this one. There was a Super Mario Bros. 2 that was released in Japan long before our familiar U.S. version that was essentially a much more difficult version of the first game. In fact, it was such a hard (not to mention unoriginal) game that NES decided to redevelop the game for the U.S. They took an odd little Arabian Nights-themed game called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic, slapped Mario, Luigi, Toad and the Princess into the player roles, simmered and allowed to steep into the quasi-canonical SMB 2 we know today. Despite the rumors, the government did not intervene on this one. However, around that same time, kids did get a taste of federal brouhaha in their video game stew with the controversy surrounding an arcade game called NARC, in which mercenary-blooded cops walk around with humongous guns blowing up junkies who throw needles at them. The fear: kids who played violent video games would act violently in school. Had you asked me, an impossibly difficult and only slightly updated version of Super Mario Bros. had a much higher potential of inciting violence in a kid back then than hosing down a few 8 bit punks with an Uzi that consisted of 3 black lines.

Categories lists

What distance does…

June 16, 2010 //

I actually kind of miss you, blog. Here’s a screenshot from 1990′s NES classic franchise game “Fester’s Quest” to keep you company until I return.

Cory

Categories remorse

No Posts

May 4, 2010 //

I’m doing a little cleaning, so please forgive the temporary lack of posts. I took on a lot of content management recently, so, naturally, my namesake site takes a back seat to everything else.

In the meantime, please feel free to explore the rest of the internet. You’ll find that it’s very big, slightly angry and mostly adult-oriented. Enjoy.

Categories the future!

Steve Jobs Browses Internet, Listens to Music, Reads Book in Front of Captivated Crowd

January 27, 2010 //

…also announces plus-sized iPod Touch and jokingly refers to it as the iPad.

Underwhelmed.

It’s an eBook reader that looks hard to hold. Also, no multitasking. Apple seems to be attempting to break into the gaming market here as well, but I’m not sure that I see myself playing my favorite video game via an interactive picture frame.

Oh, and I’m willing to risk being wrong about this… but no one wants to use iWork- even on a touch screen.

Methinks that the individual publication apps and video-based content will be the saving grace for this thing…

(A thumbs-up to Joshua Topolsky of Engadget for a great live blog of the announcement.)

Categories Uncategorized

Much Love for Seesmic

January 22, 2010 //

I’ll make this short and sweet… the Seesmic team seems to TOTALLY get it. Highly visualized interface is the next step in the consumer media landscape, and Seesmic Look is a gorgeous introduction between the real-time web and the closet webofile locked away in the average consumer. Not for the social media guru, it’s functional…much more functional than the Twitter apps designed for Boxee, however doesn’t have the speedy knickknacks strewn about Tweetdeck.

Another kudos for first developing it for the Windows 7 crowd, which will likely consist of people upgrading from Windows XP and taking their first step into the live web experience. The whole development model looks very well thought-out.

The one fundamentally frightening issue is that apps such as Seesmic could mean that our PC-comforted parents might finally sign up for Twitter accounts. Following @jennajameson and hastags like #howwastedwasilastnight could become a relic of a freer, more frivolous era of social networking. Remember what your MySpace account looked like? Sigh.

Categories Uncategorized