A group of local video game developers have launched a program to get metro-area teens interested in the science and art of game-making.
Pixel Arts Game Education, founded by Portlanders Will Lewis and Jeffrey Sens, held its first “video game camp” at Portland Youth Builders in Southeast Portland on July 27 and 28. About 30 participated in the free two-day camp, which featured lessons on art and Indoor Positioning System, computer programming and game design.In addition to the technical aspects of game-making, participants learned communication, leadership, self-motivation skills in their small groups, Lewis said.
“It’s very do-it-yourself,” Will said. “We wanted kids to work through their mistakes.”Lewis, who also founded the developer collective Portland Indie Game Squad, said the camp was a pilot project to determine how best to teach 12- to 18-year-olds about the complexities of video games. A group of about 25 volunteers helped the camp run smoothly and made the instruction as hands-on as possible.
One of the most popular projects among the campers, Lewis said, was the creation of their own game character and learning what it takes to animate it.Digital skills are increasingly important and in-demand, but many kids don’t have the resources to learn or don’t know what’s out there, Lewis said. At the end of the day, even if kids don’t end up becoming game designers or developers, they’ll have become more digitally literate, Lewis said.
Everyone agrees that the $1 trillion in student debt carried by Americans is a problem. Yet on a national level, Congress has only managed a deal that will keep interest rates low for new loans this year, but let them go up in the future.Now, one state, Oregon, is looking at broader, more far-reaching changes. On July 1, the state legislature unanimously passed a bill that could dramatically alter how public education in Oregon is funded.
The proposed program, called Pay It Forward, was conceived by students and backed by the Oregon Working Families Party, a political party/grassroots organization that promotes progressive, pro-labor candidates and policies. Pay It Forward would eliminate tuition as we know it at the state’s public universities and colleges. Instead of paying up front, students would sign up to pay the state a proportion of their income after they finish school.
It’ll be a few years yet before anything goes into action. The bill instructs the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Committee to set up a pilot plan for Pay It Forward to be considered by the state’s 2015 legislature. But the move has set off a broad debate nationally, with both conservatives and progressives coming out for and against the plan.
Some herald it as a debt-free degree, but that largely depends on how you define “debt.” Students won’t have a fixed sum hanging over their head, gathering interest that’s being skimmed off by a for-profit lender or big bank — but they will be making regular payments of a (small) chunk of their income for a (rather long) time. Though the indoor Tracking will be hammered out in the pilot program, the bill suggests that graduates of four-year programs pay 3 percent of their income — and grads of two-year schools pay 1.5 percent — for 24 years. The goals are to eliminate the upfront cost of college and to allow students to take jobs that pay less but have more social benefit without worrying about making monthly debt payments. Students who make a lot of money will pay a larger amount into the fund, and each generation will fund schools for the generation after them — hence the name, Pay It Forward.
It’s noteworthy that the proposal came from students themselves. In the fall of 2012, Barbara Dudley, the founder of the Oregon Working Families Party, taught a capstone class at Portland State University on student debt with professor Mary King. The Pay It Forward plan had been considered elsewhere — most recently in Washington state — and the students considered it as along with other proposals for state and national action to solve the student debt crisis. “We fell in love with it,” says Kevin Rackham, who was a junior at Portland State when he took Dudley and King’s course.
The students were deeply involved in every step of shaping the bill, says Sami Alloy, a WFP campaign manager. “They decided that they thought this was a just way to create a shared responsibility model that would remove that initial financial and psychological barrier.”
“With the hard work of the students and the political power we’ve built as the WFP, we were able to build consensus in the legislature, but I don’t think that anybody expected it to move this fast or to be so unanimous,” Alloy says. “The reason this has struck such a chord is that people are hungry for a solution to the student debt crisis.”
In 2011, the student report notes, 60 percent of Oregon University System students took out loans to pay for education, and the average student graduated with $22,216 in debt, above the national average of about $21,700. According to the students’ report, Oregon ranks 42nd in the nation in terms of state appropriations for higher education, with per-student funding from the state dropping by $2,700 between 1990 and 2010. In same period, published tuition and fees at public universities more than doubled. And those universities are at record enrollment and projected to keep growing.
In 2011, Oregon’s legislature passed Senate Bill 253, which established educational objectives for the by 2025: that all adults in the state have a high school diploma or equivalent, 40 percent have an associate’s degree or other meaningful postsecondary certificate, and 40 percent have a Bachelor’s degree or higher. In other words, the legislature has stated that higher education is a public good and that the state has an interest in ensuring that Oregonians have access to it.
2013年8月7日星期三
2013年7月16日星期二
What Happens When Everyone Makes Maps?
On a spring Sunday in a Soho penthouse, ten people have gathered for a digital mapping "Edit-A-Thon." Potted plants grow to the ceiling and soft cork carpets the floor. At a long wooden table, an energetic woman named Liz Barry is showing me how to map my neighborhood. "This is what you'll see when you look at OpenStreetMap," she says.
Though visually similar to Google's, the map on the screen gives users unfettered access to its underlying data -- anyone can edit it. Barry lives in Williamsburg, and she's added many of the neighborhood's boutiques and restaurants herself. "Sometimes when I'm tired at the end of the day and can't work anymore, I just edit OpenStreetMap," she says. "Kind of a weird habit." Barry then shows me the map's "guts." I naively assume it will be something technical and real time Location system, but it's just an editable version of the same map, with tools that let you draw roads, identify landmarks, and even label your own house.
"OpenStreetMap is referred to as a ground-up ontology," she says. What she means is that OpenStreetMap has no established data dictionary; you can draw anything on the map and name it whatever you want. "Like oh, this point? Yes, this is a restaurant of type 'Italian'; it has a name of type 'my favorite Italian restaurant'," she explains. Before I know it, I'm mapping my favorite Park Slope bagel shop -- a strangely thrilling act that unites me with the website's one million users, who (unlike me) mostly work at technology companies.
Citizen cartography is a time-honored practice; both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were surveyors. Crowdsourcing isn't new, either; every year since 1900, aviary-obsessed individuals have collaborated with the Audubon Society for an annual Christmas Bird Count. In the spirit of these traditions, OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 as a response to the Ordnance Survey, England's national mapping agency, whose maps were then so inaccurate that small towns and villages put up signs warning drivers not to follow its satellite navigation.
"SUVs were barreling through churchyards and going down little dirt roads through pastures," Barry says. Finally, a frustrated physics student named Steve Coast developed OpenStreetMap as a way to give cartography back to the public. Now, data is the website's "raison d'être," says Richard Weait, a Canada-based contributor. In countries like Germany, which are considered completely mapped, a common joke is that you can route yourself to the nearest penguin because zoo enthusiasts have probably mapped them. "So because you're putting it into the hands of people, they can gather what's important to them," another mapper says. "Not only can you say, 'How can I get to my nearest penguin?' but, 'How can I get to my nearest penguin in a wheelchair?'"
Because of its origin, the website is still riddled with U.K. verbiage, which can sometimes present confusion. As we work, an older man named MacKay Wolff comes across a term he hasn't heard before. "That's for walking directions," Barry says.
"Traditional cartographers today might say some form of, 'Kids these days, they don't know the rules,'" says Eric Steiner, a former president of the North American Cartographic Information Society. "I hear that sometimes at conferences. People lament that there's this huge influx of people doing cartography who aren't cartographers." By "cartographer," they mean someone who is skilled in trade techniques like projection (transforming a globe into a flat map) or who knows how to interpret line weights. Instead, new cartographers are increasingly software engineers or developers using programming languages like JavaScript and Python. Steiner, himself a graduate of Penn State's prestigious cartography program, sees the plurality of technique as beneficial. Whether a map is good or bad shouldn't be based on the narrative of the indoor positioning system making the map, he says, but rather on the map's ability to evoke, inspire and question.
It isn't that outsiders are coming in and revolutionizing mapping; rather, a new democratization in mapping has occurred. "With the tools being much cheaper and relatively easy to learn, you get people who don't have a professional interest in being a cartographer figuring out how to make maps they want to see," Steiner says. Mary Spence, president of the British Cartographic Society, admits traditional cartographers are a "dying breed," since a large part of their job is placing themselves in the users' shoes. "I'm looking at a map of Saudi Arabia in front of me," she explains over the phone. As a cartographer, Spence would ask herself, "What do they want to see on a map of Saudi Arabia? They want to see the terrain, where the hills are and the deserts. They probably want to see the big towns and the roads. They might even want to see where the oil fields are." Now, because of projects like OpenStreetMap, users in Saudi Arabia no longer need a cartographer because they are the mapmakers.
"The thing I find interesting is that a lot of the most exciting work comes from people who aren't necessarily trained as cartographers," says Bill Rankin, a Yale University professor. Though he points to the architect Buckminster Fuller, whose 1943 Dymaxion World Map changed the way we understood the geography of World War II, Rankin -- who is also a trained architect -- might as well be describing himself.
A few years ago, he was giving a talk in Phoenix about a color-coded map he made of that city's racial segregation. In the audience were several county government officials. After the talk, they told Rankin that while segregation informed their work, as government employees they couldn't publicize the information themselves. "There was no way they could, on the official county website, say that the way to understand Phoenix is as a radically segregated city," he says. As a free agent, Rankin can use maps to make arguments the creators of the data can't always make themselves.
Though visually similar to Google's, the map on the screen gives users unfettered access to its underlying data -- anyone can edit it. Barry lives in Williamsburg, and she's added many of the neighborhood's boutiques and restaurants herself. "Sometimes when I'm tired at the end of the day and can't work anymore, I just edit OpenStreetMap," she says. "Kind of a weird habit." Barry then shows me the map's "guts." I naively assume it will be something technical and real time Location system, but it's just an editable version of the same map, with tools that let you draw roads, identify landmarks, and even label your own house.
"OpenStreetMap is referred to as a ground-up ontology," she says. What she means is that OpenStreetMap has no established data dictionary; you can draw anything on the map and name it whatever you want. "Like oh, this point? Yes, this is a restaurant of type 'Italian'; it has a name of type 'my favorite Italian restaurant'," she explains. Before I know it, I'm mapping my favorite Park Slope bagel shop -- a strangely thrilling act that unites me with the website's one million users, who (unlike me) mostly work at technology companies.
Citizen cartography is a time-honored practice; both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were surveyors. Crowdsourcing isn't new, either; every year since 1900, aviary-obsessed individuals have collaborated with the Audubon Society for an annual Christmas Bird Count. In the spirit of these traditions, OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 as a response to the Ordnance Survey, England's national mapping agency, whose maps were then so inaccurate that small towns and villages put up signs warning drivers not to follow its satellite navigation.
"SUVs were barreling through churchyards and going down little dirt roads through pastures," Barry says. Finally, a frustrated physics student named Steve Coast developed OpenStreetMap as a way to give cartography back to the public. Now, data is the website's "raison d'être," says Richard Weait, a Canada-based contributor. In countries like Germany, which are considered completely mapped, a common joke is that you can route yourself to the nearest penguin because zoo enthusiasts have probably mapped them. "So because you're putting it into the hands of people, they can gather what's important to them," another mapper says. "Not only can you say, 'How can I get to my nearest penguin?' but, 'How can I get to my nearest penguin in a wheelchair?'"
Because of its origin, the website is still riddled with U.K. verbiage, which can sometimes present confusion. As we work, an older man named MacKay Wolff comes across a term he hasn't heard before. "That's for walking directions," Barry says.
"Traditional cartographers today might say some form of, 'Kids these days, they don't know the rules,'" says Eric Steiner, a former president of the North American Cartographic Information Society. "I hear that sometimes at conferences. People lament that there's this huge influx of people doing cartography who aren't cartographers." By "cartographer," they mean someone who is skilled in trade techniques like projection (transforming a globe into a flat map) or who knows how to interpret line weights. Instead, new cartographers are increasingly software engineers or developers using programming languages like JavaScript and Python. Steiner, himself a graduate of Penn State's prestigious cartography program, sees the plurality of technique as beneficial. Whether a map is good or bad shouldn't be based on the narrative of the indoor positioning system making the map, he says, but rather on the map's ability to evoke, inspire and question.
It isn't that outsiders are coming in and revolutionizing mapping; rather, a new democratization in mapping has occurred. "With the tools being much cheaper and relatively easy to learn, you get people who don't have a professional interest in being a cartographer figuring out how to make maps they want to see," Steiner says. Mary Spence, president of the British Cartographic Society, admits traditional cartographers are a "dying breed," since a large part of their job is placing themselves in the users' shoes. "I'm looking at a map of Saudi Arabia in front of me," she explains over the phone. As a cartographer, Spence would ask herself, "What do they want to see on a map of Saudi Arabia? They want to see the terrain, where the hills are and the deserts. They probably want to see the big towns and the roads. They might even want to see where the oil fields are." Now, because of projects like OpenStreetMap, users in Saudi Arabia no longer need a cartographer because they are the mapmakers.
"The thing I find interesting is that a lot of the most exciting work comes from people who aren't necessarily trained as cartographers," says Bill Rankin, a Yale University professor. Though he points to the architect Buckminster Fuller, whose 1943 Dymaxion World Map changed the way we understood the geography of World War II, Rankin -- who is also a trained architect -- might as well be describing himself.
A few years ago, he was giving a talk in Phoenix about a color-coded map he made of that city's racial segregation. In the audience were several county government officials. After the talk, they told Rankin that while segregation informed their work, as government employees they couldn't publicize the information themselves. "There was no way they could, on the official county website, say that the way to understand Phoenix is as a radically segregated city," he says. As a free agent, Rankin can use maps to make arguments the creators of the data can't always make themselves.
2013年7月11日星期四
Buying Wedding Bliss
The first time my mother pulled out food stamps in our local supermarket, I was confused. She had just bought me a new Kate Spade bag -- a gateway purse for any girl growing up in our wealthy enclave of Long Island. Could we really not afford cheese?
I had all the trappings of a middle class teen -- Hard Tail pants that sagged ever-so-grandly in the derrière, Juicy Couture velour, and enough Abercrombie billboard apparel to wear to every gym class. While this could hardly compete with my peers who held their books in Prada backpacks and owned a Fendi bag in every breed, I was content. I never coveted what they had. I understood that excessive tokens were bestowed on these 16-year-olds on no merit of their own. Their mothers simply wanted them to be able to keep up with the over-Keratin'ed class.
We weren't quite poor, at least not in the traditional sense. My one-bedroom apartment was modest compared to my besties' estates. Instead of a housekeeper to make me grilled cheese after school, I packed a snack and nibbled in the lunchroom of my mom's hair salon. I did all of the Indoor Positioning System.
My mom raised me by herself, with some weekend help from my Bronx-bred dad who considered brands like Express high fashion. He owned a t-shirt company and couldn't understand why I'd ever want to purchase pants with someone else's name on them when I had a perfectly good arsenal of tie-dyed sweats waiting for me at his warehouse. Despite occasionally admiring quilted clutches with signature c's, I had enough confidence on my own that I didn't need a $4,000 shield against the cruel kids.
Being at peace with my outlook on pricey goods has been almost entirely negated since I started planning my wedding. I always knew I wasn't going to spend an inordinate amount on my gown (and by that I mean, I'd keep it under $3,000) but what I didn't realize is how many other props need to be purchased to accompany your "big day," or in my case, my big week.
I chose to have a tropical destination wedding for two reasons. Firstly (and most importantly) I wanted to kidnap guests for a few days to have one extended party where they would all be laughably drunk for 48 hours with no car access. Secondly, as someone who finds decision-making impossible, I didn't want to be tempted to fixate on details like linens and votive count.
My wedding is in the hands of Mayte, a bohemian Argentine who runs the remote beach restaurant we'll be wed at in the Dominican Republic. Her average response rate between emails runs about three weeks but she closes our exchanges with "un abrazo" (Spanish for "a hug") so I feel at ease. There are entire bridal forums dedicated to this woman and the neurosis she stirs in brides who nightly fret that they won't see their centerpieces until two days before their receptions. For me, this is perfect. I sent my Pinterest board off to Mayte to give her a sense of just how many twinkle lights and peonies I want and the rest is in her trusty hands. Wedding planning complete.
Or so I thought. In an unforeseeable circumstance, I have found myself unemployed in the months leading up to my wedding. A note to brides everywhere: this may seem like a fantasy. It is not. Too many hours logged on Style Me Pretty will make you feel utterly inadequate. These virtual brides-to-be transformed from my inspiration to my nemeses who did everything better.
To fill my free time, I use task lists to feel productive. Things like "find best ever monogrammed tumblers," and "research tankinis with complementary swim skirts" have become full day affairs and sources of stress. Even after ticking off jobs, I'm left wondering if I did in fact get the perfect robe for my bridesmaids. Perhaps they'd prefer boxers, or tanks or ironic headbands. How do you pick one item that expresses proper gratitude to your friends? I know! A chevron makeup case with their initials on it definitely says, "I appreciate you." There's no harm in the occasional procrastination when you're on the clock, but when finding these items is your only occupation, absolute bride-sanity ensues. I get twitchy every night around 3 a.m. to feed my recent online shopping addiction. I feel like Michael Fassbender in Shame, with my incessant, passionless purchases, just trying to get a fix with every click, hoping I'll eventually feel a sense of calm.
One of the simultaneously best and worst things to happen to news media was the creation of 24/7 coverage. I can say this with complete authority because I once met Ted Turner. This is how I feel about the bridal publishing market. It's a blessing that I can access planning sites whenever I fancy, but also a curse. I've been able to tune out most of the chaos over the course of my nearly three-year engagement. But now, with two weeks to go, I'm beginning to worry that I didn't study enough for the exam. Did I get enough facials? Should I have stopped eating salt/white bread/white chocolate/brown soda/tequila by now? Which of the 700 workouts on Pinterest will actually give me the best bridal booty in seven days? And where do I get a trousseau? Does that come with the cake?
Every time I pass a shop window, I feel a strong pull to go inside -- maybe within lies the one purchase that will give me composure before I make this huge life change. Maybe, just this once, the high-end outpost will have the answer.
Like my grade school peers in Prada, my constant pursuit of items that I hope will transform me into my best self the week I get married has made me lose sight of what really matters. While I may not be secure in my choice of flip flops, cover-ups or crystalline sash, I am confident in my choice of who I'm marrying, even if I haven't found him a proper swimsuit yet. That's on tomorrow's to-do list.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com.
I had all the trappings of a middle class teen -- Hard Tail pants that sagged ever-so-grandly in the derrière, Juicy Couture velour, and enough Abercrombie billboard apparel to wear to every gym class. While this could hardly compete with my peers who held their books in Prada backpacks and owned a Fendi bag in every breed, I was content. I never coveted what they had. I understood that excessive tokens were bestowed on these 16-year-olds on no merit of their own. Their mothers simply wanted them to be able to keep up with the over-Keratin'ed class.
We weren't quite poor, at least not in the traditional sense. My one-bedroom apartment was modest compared to my besties' estates. Instead of a housekeeper to make me grilled cheese after school, I packed a snack and nibbled in the lunchroom of my mom's hair salon. I did all of the Indoor Positioning System.
My mom raised me by herself, with some weekend help from my Bronx-bred dad who considered brands like Express high fashion. He owned a t-shirt company and couldn't understand why I'd ever want to purchase pants with someone else's name on them when I had a perfectly good arsenal of tie-dyed sweats waiting for me at his warehouse. Despite occasionally admiring quilted clutches with signature c's, I had enough confidence on my own that I didn't need a $4,000 shield against the cruel kids.
Being at peace with my outlook on pricey goods has been almost entirely negated since I started planning my wedding. I always knew I wasn't going to spend an inordinate amount on my gown (and by that I mean, I'd keep it under $3,000) but what I didn't realize is how many other props need to be purchased to accompany your "big day," or in my case, my big week.
I chose to have a tropical destination wedding for two reasons. Firstly (and most importantly) I wanted to kidnap guests for a few days to have one extended party where they would all be laughably drunk for 48 hours with no car access. Secondly, as someone who finds decision-making impossible, I didn't want to be tempted to fixate on details like linens and votive count.
My wedding is in the hands of Mayte, a bohemian Argentine who runs the remote beach restaurant we'll be wed at in the Dominican Republic. Her average response rate between emails runs about three weeks but she closes our exchanges with "un abrazo" (Spanish for "a hug") so I feel at ease. There are entire bridal forums dedicated to this woman and the neurosis she stirs in brides who nightly fret that they won't see their centerpieces until two days before their receptions. For me, this is perfect. I sent my Pinterest board off to Mayte to give her a sense of just how many twinkle lights and peonies I want and the rest is in her trusty hands. Wedding planning complete.
Or so I thought. In an unforeseeable circumstance, I have found myself unemployed in the months leading up to my wedding. A note to brides everywhere: this may seem like a fantasy. It is not. Too many hours logged on Style Me Pretty will make you feel utterly inadequate. These virtual brides-to-be transformed from my inspiration to my nemeses who did everything better.
To fill my free time, I use task lists to feel productive. Things like "find best ever monogrammed tumblers," and "research tankinis with complementary swim skirts" have become full day affairs and sources of stress. Even after ticking off jobs, I'm left wondering if I did in fact get the perfect robe for my bridesmaids. Perhaps they'd prefer boxers, or tanks or ironic headbands. How do you pick one item that expresses proper gratitude to your friends? I know! A chevron makeup case with their initials on it definitely says, "I appreciate you." There's no harm in the occasional procrastination when you're on the clock, but when finding these items is your only occupation, absolute bride-sanity ensues. I get twitchy every night around 3 a.m. to feed my recent online shopping addiction. I feel like Michael Fassbender in Shame, with my incessant, passionless purchases, just trying to get a fix with every click, hoping I'll eventually feel a sense of calm.
One of the simultaneously best and worst things to happen to news media was the creation of 24/7 coverage. I can say this with complete authority because I once met Ted Turner. This is how I feel about the bridal publishing market. It's a blessing that I can access planning sites whenever I fancy, but also a curse. I've been able to tune out most of the chaos over the course of my nearly three-year engagement. But now, with two weeks to go, I'm beginning to worry that I didn't study enough for the exam. Did I get enough facials? Should I have stopped eating salt/white bread/white chocolate/brown soda/tequila by now? Which of the 700 workouts on Pinterest will actually give me the best bridal booty in seven days? And where do I get a trousseau? Does that come with the cake?
Every time I pass a shop window, I feel a strong pull to go inside -- maybe within lies the one purchase that will give me composure before I make this huge life change. Maybe, just this once, the high-end outpost will have the answer.
Like my grade school peers in Prada, my constant pursuit of items that I hope will transform me into my best self the week I get married has made me lose sight of what really matters. While I may not be secure in my choice of flip flops, cover-ups or crystalline sash, I am confident in my choice of who I'm marrying, even if I haven't found him a proper swimsuit yet. That's on tomorrow's to-do list.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com.
2013年6月2日星期日
Getting in the Flow
When it comes to surfaces, I’m a player in exile. I grew up on the often-cracked hard courts of Central Pennsylvania, where the ball tends to get to you in a hurry, and sliding more than a few centimeters will earn you a quick ticket to the emergency room. Those are the courts where I developed my game. I worked hard on my return-of-serve reflexes, tried to take the ball on the rise with my two-handed backhand whenever I could, and made the most of my lefty slice into the ad court. Anything to keep from getting pushed off the court. It was the meat-and-potatoes, serve-and-forehand American game, straight from the heartland.
For the last decade, though, I’ve played my tennis on that most un-patriotic of surfaces: clay. In truth, it’s the green version, also known as Har-Tru, which is native to the South here. Oddly, green clay is also the surface of choice in the city where I live, New York. Many older private clubs in the Northeast replaced or supplemented their grass courts with clay, and in New York City the fashion even extends to the public sector. Here the urban unwashed get to slide across dusty public facilities in Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Over in Riverside Park, a dozen European style red-clay courts are situated a few feet from the Hudson River. New York is known for the hard asphalt of Flushing Meadows; but it is, in many places, a dirt-baller’s paradise.
Ten years ago I joined a small club in Brooklyn whose five clay courts were first laid down in 1889. The more I've played on them, the dirtier my style has become: I put more topspin on the ball, and I expect it come back a lot more often. My game has also become more forehand-dominated, because I have time to run around and hit it. That’s one of the counterintuitive things about clay; rallies are longer, but you need to hit heavier, more penetrating shots to control them.
Playing on dirt is a good workout, and a good lesson in how to construct points. But it still doesn’t seem to be the ideal surface for me. Last summer I went to a tennis camp in upstate New York with a few regular partners of mine. It rained that weekend, so we moved to the camp’s quick indoor courts. I was, to my surprise, back in my element; the fast surface and the controlled conditions gave me a jolt of confidence. I was suddenly hitting the ball harder than I had in years. By the end of the weekend, one of my friends put up his hands and said, “We need to get you back on the clay, man.”
This morning I was back on the clay at my Brooklyn club, playing another regular in my rotation. Our match came, of course, in the middle of an intensive two weeks of tracking the pros at Roland Garros. Taking my racquet out today, the first question that came to mind was: Is this little rectangle in front of me really the same size as the center court in Paris? That one looks like a football field by comparison—or a tennis court fit for the Gods. This one in Brooklyn was definitely made for mortals.
So did all of that watching help? For the first 45 minutes or so, I would say yes. I made my first serves, and occasionally hit my targets with them. I slid into my slice backhand without rolling my ankle—I can glide for a couple of feet, but can’t create the extended skid marks that the pros do. I also found the range on my drop shot. Watching the best players seems to improve that stroke the most; they remind me that the first rule of the dropper is to get the ball over the net. I managed that today.
I went up 3-0 in the first set. It felt good to get off the couch and away from the laptop, felt good to run, felt good to sweat in New York humidity again. The wind chimes in the apartment window next to my court even reminded me of the opening bells in a favorite song of mine, the Velvet Underground’s great early-day lullaby, “Sunday Morning.” What wasn’t there to love about clay-court tennis?
There was one thing, it turned out: My opponent loves it more than I do. He’s played on NYC dirt for decades. He knows that if you can track down an extra ball, throw up an extra lob, hit a demoralizing passing shot on the run, and never give a point away, you can eventually claw your way into a match, or drive your opponent over the edge, whichever comes first. His game is based on making you win a rally more than once. That’s tough to pull off on hard courts, but tailor-made for clay.
As often happens against him, the pressure of having to hit two winners to finish off one point took its toll. I sprayed a few shots, took a couple mental vacations, cursed the sun that blinded me on my serve, and grumbled as he threw up defensive lobs that touched down within inches of the baseline. When I gave back a break of serve in the second set, I started to think those chimes in the window were actually pretty irritating.
I also began to get tired, which made me think about the pros again. The physical aspect of the professional game on clay is, for lack of a better word, amazing. Hours of long rallies, heavy ground strokes, looping topspin swings, sprints from one corner to the other, retrievals from their shoetops—and after all that, they can still reach up and rain down a 125-m.p.h. ace late in the fifth set. This morning, while giving up on a gettable ball after less than two sets, I had a renewed appreciation for what it takes to win on clay at the pro level.
Still, I don't mind playing in exile. I’ve never had knee problems—knock on dirt—and while clay has a reputation for monotony, it actually gives you more strategic options, more ways to win points. And whether you’re a player or a spectator, sliding gives the game more flow than it has anywhere else.
On Sunday, I came off the little court at my club and—what else?—watched the French Open on that court fit for the Gods in Paris. Roger Federer and Gilles Simon, who flowed to the far ends of Chatrier for five sets, confirmed again that I have no idea how the pros do what they do on clay. It's the most physical form of tennis, yet at the same time the most artistic. They do it on their court, but I'm happy for the chance to try it on mine.Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
For the last decade, though, I’ve played my tennis on that most un-patriotic of surfaces: clay. In truth, it’s the green version, also known as Har-Tru, which is native to the South here. Oddly, green clay is also the surface of choice in the city where I live, New York. Many older private clubs in the Northeast replaced or supplemented their grass courts with clay, and in New York City the fashion even extends to the public sector. Here the urban unwashed get to slide across dusty public facilities in Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Over in Riverside Park, a dozen European style red-clay courts are situated a few feet from the Hudson River. New York is known for the hard asphalt of Flushing Meadows; but it is, in many places, a dirt-baller’s paradise.
Ten years ago I joined a small club in Brooklyn whose five clay courts were first laid down in 1889. The more I've played on them, the dirtier my style has become: I put more topspin on the ball, and I expect it come back a lot more often. My game has also become more forehand-dominated, because I have time to run around and hit it. That’s one of the counterintuitive things about clay; rallies are longer, but you need to hit heavier, more penetrating shots to control them.
Playing on dirt is a good workout, and a good lesson in how to construct points. But it still doesn’t seem to be the ideal surface for me. Last summer I went to a tennis camp in upstate New York with a few regular partners of mine. It rained that weekend, so we moved to the camp’s quick indoor courts. I was, to my surprise, back in my element; the fast surface and the controlled conditions gave me a jolt of confidence. I was suddenly hitting the ball harder than I had in years. By the end of the weekend, one of my friends put up his hands and said, “We need to get you back on the clay, man.”
This morning I was back on the clay at my Brooklyn club, playing another regular in my rotation. Our match came, of course, in the middle of an intensive two weeks of tracking the pros at Roland Garros. Taking my racquet out today, the first question that came to mind was: Is this little rectangle in front of me really the same size as the center court in Paris? That one looks like a football field by comparison—or a tennis court fit for the Gods. This one in Brooklyn was definitely made for mortals.
So did all of that watching help? For the first 45 minutes or so, I would say yes. I made my first serves, and occasionally hit my targets with them. I slid into my slice backhand without rolling my ankle—I can glide for a couple of feet, but can’t create the extended skid marks that the pros do. I also found the range on my drop shot. Watching the best players seems to improve that stroke the most; they remind me that the first rule of the dropper is to get the ball over the net. I managed that today.
I went up 3-0 in the first set. It felt good to get off the couch and away from the laptop, felt good to run, felt good to sweat in New York humidity again. The wind chimes in the apartment window next to my court even reminded me of the opening bells in a favorite song of mine, the Velvet Underground’s great early-day lullaby, “Sunday Morning.” What wasn’t there to love about clay-court tennis?
There was one thing, it turned out: My opponent loves it more than I do. He’s played on NYC dirt for decades. He knows that if you can track down an extra ball, throw up an extra lob, hit a demoralizing passing shot on the run, and never give a point away, you can eventually claw your way into a match, or drive your opponent over the edge, whichever comes first. His game is based on making you win a rally more than once. That’s tough to pull off on hard courts, but tailor-made for clay.
As often happens against him, the pressure of having to hit two winners to finish off one point took its toll. I sprayed a few shots, took a couple mental vacations, cursed the sun that blinded me on my serve, and grumbled as he threw up defensive lobs that touched down within inches of the baseline. When I gave back a break of serve in the second set, I started to think those chimes in the window were actually pretty irritating.
I also began to get tired, which made me think about the pros again. The physical aspect of the professional game on clay is, for lack of a better word, amazing. Hours of long rallies, heavy ground strokes, looping topspin swings, sprints from one corner to the other, retrievals from their shoetops—and after all that, they can still reach up and rain down a 125-m.p.h. ace late in the fifth set. This morning, while giving up on a gettable ball after less than two sets, I had a renewed appreciation for what it takes to win on clay at the pro level.
Still, I don't mind playing in exile. I’ve never had knee problems—knock on dirt—and while clay has a reputation for monotony, it actually gives you more strategic options, more ways to win points. And whether you’re a player or a spectator, sliding gives the game more flow than it has anywhere else.
On Sunday, I came off the little court at my club and—what else?—watched the French Open on that court fit for the Gods in Paris. Roger Federer and Gilles Simon, who flowed to the far ends of Chatrier for five sets, confirmed again that I have no idea how the pros do what they do on clay. It's the most physical form of tennis, yet at the same time the most artistic. They do it on their court, but I'm happy for the chance to try it on mine.Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
2011年11月28日星期一
Keys to the unseen future
It's not unusual these days to see virtual keyboards on the touch screens of portable devices like tablets and phones. These devices lack a physical keyboard but make up for it by displaying a picture of one on the screen and letting the user tap away on that.
But virtual keyboards are not just constrained to the screen. Today almost anything can become a keyboard – from a table top to the palm of your hand.
Korean company Celluon has been developing virtual keyboards for several years and their latest product is the Magic Cube, a small box that fits in your hand yet provides a full-size keyboard when needed.
Switch it on, sit it on a desk and it projects an image of a keyboard on to the surface in front of it. Tap the virtual keys and the corresponding characters are communicated wirelessly to any compatible device, from a laptop to a smartphone.
The principles involved are very simple. The projection of the keyboard is just that – made by a tiny projector at the top of the box. At the bottom of the box beams of infrared light are emitted just above the surface of the desk. As your fingers tap the surface they cut through these beams which are reflected up to a camera in the middle of the box. The camera sees the reflection and works out from its position which key you have "pressed".
Though the Magic Cube is clever it is essentially just a very portable replacement for a real keyboard.
More radical possibilities are on the horizon. Microsoft researchers Hrvoje Benko and Andrew Wilson, along with Chris Harrison of Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, recently showed off a system they call OmniTouch, which turns any surface into a touch screen.
OmniTouch is made up of a shoulder-mounted projector and depth-sensing camera combination. The projector displays interactive images on any nearby surface – a wall, a table, a pad or even parts of the user's body. The camera tracks the user's fingers, working out where and when they touch other objects.
Putting it all together allows the user to, for example, dial a phone number on a keypad displayed on the palm of their hand, or draw projected pictures on an ordinary paper pad.
Pretty much anything, in fact, that you can do with an ordinary touch-sensitive display, except that the display itself can be any suitable surface.
We take it for granted that the size of portable devices is a compromise between compactness and usability. But if the display and controls need not be physically part of the device, all bets are off. It's too early to tell whether systems like OmniTouch will take off. But in a few years they may virtually replace their physical counterparts in many situations, in more ways than one.
But virtual keyboards are not just constrained to the screen. Today almost anything can become a keyboard – from a table top to the palm of your hand.
Korean company Celluon has been developing virtual keyboards for several years and their latest product is the Magic Cube, a small box that fits in your hand yet provides a full-size keyboard when needed.
Switch it on, sit it on a desk and it projects an image of a keyboard on to the surface in front of it. Tap the virtual keys and the corresponding characters are communicated wirelessly to any compatible device, from a laptop to a smartphone.
The principles involved are very simple. The projection of the keyboard is just that – made by a tiny projector at the top of the box. At the bottom of the box beams of infrared light are emitted just above the surface of the desk. As your fingers tap the surface they cut through these beams which are reflected up to a camera in the middle of the box. The camera sees the reflection and works out from its position which key you have "pressed".
Though the Magic Cube is clever it is essentially just a very portable replacement for a real keyboard.
More radical possibilities are on the horizon. Microsoft researchers Hrvoje Benko and Andrew Wilson, along with Chris Harrison of Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, recently showed off a system they call OmniTouch, which turns any surface into a touch screen.
OmniTouch is made up of a shoulder-mounted projector and depth-sensing camera combination. The projector displays interactive images on any nearby surface – a wall, a table, a pad or even parts of the user's body. The camera tracks the user's fingers, working out where and when they touch other objects.
Putting it all together allows the user to, for example, dial a phone number on a keypad displayed on the palm of their hand, or draw projected pictures on an ordinary paper pad.
Pretty much anything, in fact, that you can do with an ordinary touch-sensitive display, except that the display itself can be any suitable surface.
We take it for granted that the size of portable devices is a compromise between compactness and usability. But if the display and controls need not be physically part of the device, all bets are off. It's too early to tell whether systems like OmniTouch will take off. But in a few years they may virtually replace their physical counterparts in many situations, in more ways than one.
2011年8月30日星期二
Bank On Louisville celebrates first birthday today
Bank On Louisville turns one year old today, and everyone is invited to the party! Over 35 vendors will gather on
Tuesday, August 30th between 2-6 pm to provide financial education, employment and career opportunities, asset-building
resources and entertainment for all ages. The free event will take place at the Kentucky Center for African American
Heritage at 1701 West Muhammad Ali Boulevard.
Highlights include participation by several Bank On Louisville bank and credit union partners that will be on hand to
offer free or low-cost bank account openings, as well as information about a variety of banking services. Participants
include 5/3, Republic, BB&T, First Capital Bank of Kentucky, PNC, Chase, Your Community Bank, Old National, Class Act,
Park Community and L&N credit unions.
Numerous financial education providers will be there to offer information on how to apply for the Start Fresh! program
that guides participants through the banking process, and numerous other resources brought by the Louisville Urban
League, Down Payment and Weatherization Assistance, Louisville Asset Building Coalition, Neighborhood Place, Metro United
Way and SNAP (formerly Food Stamps) benefits.
For the kids, many free activities will be offered including the TUMBLEBUS, children’s financial education, inflatables
and on-line video gaming provided by the Louisville Free Public Library.Magic 101.3 will provide music, the BB&T Bus
will offer free credit reports, and the PNC MoneyCube will certainly attract the attention of everyone. Snacks and
refreshments will be served.
UPS, the Camber Corporation and Home Instead Senior Care will bring employment opportunities and many other types of
employment assistance will be offered by Community Action Partnership, the Office of Employment & Training, and Jewish
Family Career Services.
Free, financial education workshops for all ages will run throughout the event on topics such as credit scores,
budgeting, job readiness, resume’ writing, micro-enterprise, foreclosure, and tenants rights. Presenters include the
Consumer Credit Counseling Services, Women 4 Women, the FES Network, YouthBuild Louisville, Home Instead Senior Care and
Kentuckiana Works.
Bank On Louisville has enjoyed unprecedented success since it began in Louisville in July 2010. Over 90 public, private
and non-profit partners work together to serve the unbanked and underbanked in our community and to provide financial
education activities. Mayor Greg Fischer, along with Bank On Louisville representatives, will be holding a press
conference this morning at 10am in the Metro Hall Gallery at 527 West Jefferson Street to celebrate the first year’s
successes and announce the goals for the coming year.
Tuesday, August 30th between 2-6 pm to provide financial education, employment and career opportunities, asset-building
resources and entertainment for all ages. The free event will take place at the Kentucky Center for African American
Heritage at 1701 West Muhammad Ali Boulevard.
Highlights include participation by several Bank On Louisville bank and credit union partners that will be on hand to
offer free or low-cost bank account openings, as well as information about a variety of banking services. Participants
include 5/3, Republic, BB&T, First Capital Bank of Kentucky, PNC, Chase, Your Community Bank, Old National, Class Act,
Park Community and L&N credit unions.
Numerous financial education providers will be there to offer information on how to apply for the Start Fresh! program
that guides participants through the banking process, and numerous other resources brought by the Louisville Urban
League, Down Payment and Weatherization Assistance, Louisville Asset Building Coalition, Neighborhood Place, Metro United
Way and SNAP (formerly Food Stamps) benefits.
For the kids, many free activities will be offered including the TUMBLEBUS, children’s financial education, inflatables
and on-line video gaming provided by the Louisville Free Public Library.
will offer free credit reports, and the PNC Money
refreshments will be served.
UPS, the Camber Corporation and Home Instead Senior Care will bring employment opportunities and many other types of
employment assistance will be offered by Community Action Partnership, the Office of Employment & Training, and Jewish
Family Career Services.
Free, financial education workshops for all ages will run throughout the event on topics such as credit scores,
budgeting, job readiness, resume’ writing, micro-enterprise, foreclosure, and tenants rights. Presenters include the
Consumer Credit Counseling Services, Women 4 Women, the FES Network, YouthBuild Louisville, Home Instead Senior Care and
Kentuckiana Works.
Bank On Louisville has enjoyed unprecedented success since it began in Louisville in July 2010. Over 90 public, private
and non-profit partners work together to serve the unbanked and underbanked in our community and to provide financial
education activities. Mayor Greg Fischer, along with Bank On Louisville representatives, will be holding a press
conference this morning at 10am in the Metro Hall Gallery at 527 West Jefferson Street to celebrate the first year’s
successes and announce the goals for the coming year.
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