Garden photos
Posted by Aaron in Photography on July 1st, 2009
It’s July and the garden is in full bloom. Here are some pictures. I realize now that I took a bunch of closeups so you can’t see the overall height and maturity of the plants themselves. So, instead, just enjoy the closeup details.
The cilantro is doing great. Here’s a closeup of a few of the leaves:
Flowers on black background
Posted by Aaron in Photography on July 1st, 2009
I’ve been looking to try to improve my “still life” photography. This was taken with one flash and filtered sunlight through a window. Hope you enjoy it.
How the internet changes the Smithsonian (and your business too)
Posted by Aaron in Technology on June 2nd, 2009
By Joel Garreau of the Washington Post wrote an excellent piece in January entitled “Smithsonian Click-n-Drags Itself Forward” (reposted at New America Foundation).
Imagine you’re the Smithsonian Institution. You are ”America’s attic,” comprising museums numbering in the teens,with literally millions of artifacts in each inventory. Now you want to put your entire collection online, so that everyone can can see it. How do you do it, while also adding descriptive information that makes each artifact relevant to non-experts?
Oh yeah, did I mention the Smithsonian has a lot of stuff? If you’re only counting photos, it has a whopping 13 million. As a quick calculation, if it takes just 5 minutes to tag and write explanatory text for each image (which is very optimistic –some will surely take much longer to research, verify, revise, etc.), the entire collection would 250 people working full time for over two years to complete. No wonder the Smithsonian’s initial foray on Flickr only featured 1,300 photos.
Books: Google’s Next Monopoly?
Posted by Aaron in Technology on May 26th, 2009
An editorial in the Washington Post by Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive, highlights the tricky position we now face as Google becomes more enmeshed in the workings of the internet. In particular, it appears a court settlement may allow Google to grab distribution rights for millions or even billions of books:
And under this settlement, authors who come forward to claim ownership in books scanned by Google would receive $60 per title. … But the settlement would also create a class that includes millions of people who will never come forward. For the majority of books — considered “orphan” works — no one will claim ownership.
Google would get an explicit, perpetual license to scan and sell access to these in-copyright but out-of-print orphans, which make up an estimated 50 to 70 percent of books published after 1923. No other provider of digital books would enjoy the same legal protection.
I love Google and use their search engine all the time. I think as a corporation it behaves fairly well. At the same time, I’m wary of putting too many of our technological eggs in one basket. As the author concludes:
We’ve wrestled with high-tech monopolies in the past — IBM, AT&T, Microsoft. The lesson was that such strongholds restrict innovation and competition.
“How Somali Pirates Could Take Obama Hostage”
As far as titles go, this one is pretty good. The notion of the president of the United States taken hostage by thugs on the open seas is too good to resist — how could you not want to read the article from the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)? It reminds me of the many events we hold here at the Center: we try to come up with provocative or unusual titles for what are often quite dry topics. Not necessarily boring, mind you…and sometimes very interesting. But they are often quite humorless. So I appreciate a good title when I see one.
Of course, the article is referring to how pirates can hostage Obama’s presidential agenda, not the person himself:
The notion that an American president cannot permit hostages or POWs to remain in captivity without suffering a significant political penalty is exceptionally dangerous—gravely injuring two presidencies in succession. … Otherwise, when a Somali pirate detains an American sailor and holds him captive in Mogadishu, Obama may find that his administration is also being held hostage.
Still, that title is pretty arresting.
Photography
Posted by Aaron in Photography on May 15th, 2009
I am the appointed photographer at many of our meetings at the office. Often, that means trying to take interesting pictures of what one of my colleagues calls “talking heads” (i.e., they’re just not that interesting). But sometimes I get to meet and photograph some famous and/or interesting people. Here are two from the files:
Dennis Wilder, Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs at the National Security Council
The power of a city: Mumbai an…
Posted by Aaron in Uncategorized on May 7th, 2009
The power of a city: Mumbai and suburbs account for 25% of industrial output, 40% of maritime trade and 70% of capital transactions in India
U.S.-Asia facts
Did you know:
• 93% of Arkansas’s international students come from Asia
• Mississippi’s “Asian alone” population grew 87% during 2004-07, fastest in the nation
• Louisiana has exports to Asia of $2,547 per capita, fourth in the country
These are from the new brochure for Asia Matters for America. The brochure is coming soon, but the website is available now.
Balance of trade
Posted by Aaron in Asia, Infographics on December 24th, 2008
And now a sneak peak into a project I’m working on right now. This is my first attempt at showing balance of trade between the United States and Asia.
US-Asia balance of trade (click to enlarge)
I like the concept but I think it still needs some work. The data I have is only from one month but I’d prefer to have an entire year. I also want to be able to show some change over time. I could obviously have two stacked charts, but I’m thinking of other ways to show the change.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
U.S. Exports to Asia
Posted by Aaron in Asia, Infographics on December 10th, 2008
This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters for America website:
The lines in the map above represent U.S. merchandise exports to Asia, by U.S. state and Asian country in 2007. The thinnest lines represent exports of greater than U.S.$2.5 billion; mid-thickness lines, greater than $5 billion; thickest lines, greater than $10 billion.