Alien invasion in Bogliasco

There was an outer space invasion in Bogliasco ITALY that got no news in the international press. The few that I saw assembled with their ray guns and swords ready to battle the local extras held back by a director's assistant.

I just discovered this curious draft (Saturday, March 31, 2012) and thought it was worthy enough to be included now.
- Steve, 2014-03-31, hmmmm 2 years later to the day.

NASA space photo of my farmland

Satellite Shows High Productivity from U.S. Corn Belt
and my dryland farm is much smaller than a pixel.

"Data from satellite sensors show that during the Northern Hemisphere's growing season, the Midwest region of the United States boasts more photosynthetic activity than any other spot on Earth, according to NASA and university scientists.

Healthy plants convert light to energy via photosynthesis, but chlorophyll also emits a fraction of absorbed light as a fluorescent glow that is invisible to the naked eye. The magnitude of the glow is an excellent indicator of the amount of photosynthesis, or gross productivity, of plants in a given region." more . . . I subscribe to NASA.

NEWS: I spoke to Brandon earlier today and he says the wheat survived the winter and he is planting the field peas now. My next call is to Scott to ask about my small grass-fed herd.

It's my birthday

It's my birthday

and family, so many friends, new acquaintances and Google send well wishes.

. . . more . . .greetings from Occidental College


Thank you.

Nebraska Cornhuskers win on January 1, 2014

I joined my father-in-law Frank Svoboda at the "Nebraska Society of New York" viewing the Nebraska Cornhuskers win against Georgia at the Hudson Station Bar & Grill. Frank is visiting NYC from Ogallala NE.

Natural Beef for sale November 7, 2013

Part of my income comes from a personal exploration of sustainable agriculture. I made this iPad video of our herd of 40 heifers in August 2013. Located in western Nebraska, the cattle have now gained more weight eating organic crop stubble, native grass buffer strips and clover.

On Thursday November 7, 2013 at the Ogallala Sale Barn I am selling most of the 650+ lb herd. Our supporting website is Ogallala Natural Beef. My brand is the 'lazy S backward B.' A link watch a real time video of the auction is found via cattleusa.com. You need to register with the sale barn to buy cattle online. I need to sell these beauties per the stipulations of my loan with Pinnacle Bank.

Depending on a favorable outcome at auction, next year I want to pursue a two year all natural organic grass fed cattle practice from birth to slaughter. These calves will be chipped to validate their genetic source that is a requirement for organic certification.

Suitcase farmer,
Steve

[HELP] How to tightly crop live video to VGA output

I am in Montreal providing video support for musician Terri Hron for her performance in 2 days, Friday 8pm. I want to take a live component video and crop out most of the moving image to present only a narrow horizontal rectangle of video for output VGA for the projector like the stand-in image above.

I've got an old MacBook and an old MacBookPro with VGA dongles out but they seem useless as I have no way to get the video in. I've got the loan of two nice Sony PMW EX1 cameras that I am just learning to use.

I think I am looking for a VJ switcher. If yes, then what are a few model names of those units I might find this evening in Montreal?

SCOUT, robot boat passes Mid-Atlantic 1000 mile mark

"Scout is a twelve foot long autonomous robotic boat designed to cross the Atlantic Ocean, relying only on prr-programmed commands and information that it can collect about its environment through sensors. It is built to deal with anything the ocean can throw at it, and its status will be reported live online." - http://gotransat.com/

Read a thoughtful article on Spectrum.IEEE.org site.
Live tracking
And following good DIY practice, the trolling motor was purchased at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Last Day #HTB2013 of Hot Ephemerates

Today is the last day of my Hot Ephemerates at Hack The Barbican London residency #HTB2013. While I couldn't attend personally, the project gave me some insight and inspiration for new code work. Hey, launching an unlimited number of code sculptures in the Barbican is exposure!

Below are two views of No. 1, one of the six sculptures that visitors to the public hallway near the Curve exit have discovered. I modified my iPad settings so as I work in Greenport NY, the iPad thinks it's located in London.


The neighbor's house across the intersection in Greenport shows a corner of sculpture No. 1.


To the right of the sculpture is the top of sculpture No. 2.

I'm paying for comments and documentation images by visitors taking screenshots of the sculptures.

In the spirit of hacking and sharing, I'm publishing the code for Hot Ephemerates here. The other five sculptures in this location use the same code with different variable names so all the sculptural elements will show at the same time.

Seventy-three separate elements (35 .zip model files, 35 .jpg images, 3 .mov movies) were used to build these Hot Ephemerates. I wrote 533 lines of code which includes commenting. My tool set are SketchUp Pro to build the models, Adobe Photoshop CS4 to edit the images, Final Cut Pro v.7 to edit the movies, Junaio to provide AR specifications and free browser, SubEthaEdit to edit the PHP files, and Fetch to load the files to the internet server. 1and1 is the hosting company.

Image of two sculptures Flaneur Barbican

Screen shot today from iPad in Greenport NY of two sculptures from Flaneur Babican - Hot Ephemerates. This is hack, I put the local latitude and longitude coordinates of the #HTB2013 Barbican in London into my iPad to relocate the sculptures in the USA.
Hack The Barbican website: http://hackthebarbican.org
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/hackthebarbican
Twitter feed: @hackthebarbican
Flickr pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hackthebarbican/pool
Event page on Barbican website: http://barbican.org.uk/hack
Schedule on Lanyrd

Flaneur Barbican - Hot Ephemerates moves to London

"Flaneur Barbican - Hot Ephemerates" is public and live at the Hack The Barbican. Effectively, this means the installation is in technical trials until its opening on Monday, August 26th. More details available at installation page where visitors can download this Junaio channel by QR code method.


The installation begins in the Curve Exit Gallery 5B arcs around the crescent of the venue to give a pleasing perspective to the 3D sculptural elements. Additionally, three Doric columns are aligned along Beech Street. Each 3D column launches a different short video when the visitor touches the object on the screen.

I renamed the AR channel "Flaneur Barbican - Hot Ephemerates" - - my partner Terese Svoboda proposed the catchy Hot Ephemerates moniker. Here's the channel description,
"You, a wanderer at Hack The Barbican discover Hot Ephemerates automatically rendered 3D code sculpture.
- Walk into any sculpture.
- Share a screenshot with icon found on lower left hand corner of screen.
- Touch a street side column to see a short video."


For the curious in today's development, note in this screen grab of taken from the Junaio iPad-view browser interface, I was launching the channel from my studio in Greenport NY see the blue dot within the blue circle on the left. I will continue to tweak the installation in London until Sunday. Zooming in on the venue by the two finger iPad method produced the image at the top of this posting.

Monday 3D model for Hack The Barbican

- two of the six 3D multi-element ephemeral objects visible, getting close to the final model

Comment on Ambrose Deepwater Port

Since I took some time this morning on the federal .gov site http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=USCG-2013-0363-0181 asking for comments on the development of the Ambrose Deepwater Port, I thought I would share them again below:
[comment]

While I am in favor of national and international commerce and the creation of new infrastructure that will bring jobs to local citizens, I am NOT in favor of the proposal to create the Ambrose Deepwater Port and grant a license to Liberty Natural Gas, LLC.
Here are my several reasons:


1. The deepwater port will be located in the middle of a proposed offshore wind area, and among several fishing areas and wildlife migration routes. The offshore wind area should be permitted to go forward, the fishing areas remain and the wildlife migration routes undisturbed by the development of a deepwater port.

2. Liberty Natural Gas, LLC. is a semi-transparent company with unknown stakeholders. Here is what I have read, "Liberty Natural Gas is a foreign energy interest -- the corporation may be licensed in Delaware with an office in New York City, but it is managed by an investment group in Toronto, Canada, and entirely owned by a bank account in the Cayman Islands." The LLC distances the individual investors from any liability in development, maintenance, operation and eventual decommission of the deepwater port. Simply put, for a small risk Liberty Natural Gas, LLC. gets easy profits and NYC, NYS and the community get too small a return on this investment. I would prefer an applicant of a completely transparent company and this should be a requirement in all future applications.

3. This deepwater port indirectly promotes hydrofracking for shale gas using an undisputed short term method for extracting natural gas BUT an unknown long term damage to aquifers. The deepwater port is an obvious high profit money making scheme that will benefit the few investors while directly and indirectly doing tremendous harm to the aquifers and local environment.

Therefore, I propose this application be suspended for at least 5 years to better understand the overall impact of the deepwater port on NYS, NYC and the local region.

However, I would be in favor of a less ambitious proposal integrating a smaller port with smaller shipping vessels as a part of a broader plan that includes development of offshore wind power electric generation, and of course, promotes sensible acknowledgement and preservation of the local environment.

Thank you,
Stephen Medaris Bull

Progress 13.08.10 Flaneur Barbican ARt

On a Greenport NY intersection I am experimenting with another direction to create 3D objects for the Flanuer Barbican installation at Hack The Barbican.


Within the red cylinder a blue transparent rod appears. In the background beyond the red cylinder a DNA taro leaf spiral appears. In the upper right hand corner of the screen/image three objects are shown captured in this view.



From a position outside the perimeter of the red cylinder the blue cylinder does not appear. Apparently[pun], a transparent 3D object can not be seen within another transparent 3D object. An unrelated second large blue cylinder appears alongside the red cylinder.

c1 model test for Hack The Barbican:

c1 model test created in attic studio in Greenport NY

Check out the nine photos Flickr in order with captions beginning "c1-test" for some how-to on how I made the 3D object.

Here is the code of the two object files exported by SketchUp Pro.

FILE: 8x8x8_ceiling_2walls_c1.mtl (materials file)

#
## Alias OBJ Material File
# Exported from SketchUp, (c) 2000-2012 Trimble Navigation Limited

newmtl sky_256x256
Ka 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Kd 0.501961 0.501961 0.501961
Ks 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
map_Kd sky_256x256.png

newmtl M_13_256x256
Ka 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Kd 0.501961 0.501961 0.501961
Ks 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
map_Kd M_13_256x256.png

FILE: 8x8x8_ceiling_2walls_c1.obj (the 3D oject file exported from SketchUp Pro

# Alias OBJ Model File
# Exported from SketchUp, (c) 2000-2012 Trimble Navigation Limited
# File units = feet

mtllib 8x8x8_ceiling_2walls_c1.mtl

g Mesh1 Model

usemtl sky_256x256
v 4.13539 8 4.84642
vt 0 0
vn 0 -0.0833333 -0
v -3.86461 8 4.84642
vt 1 0
v -3.86461 8 -3.15358
vt 1 1
v 4.13539 8 -3.15358
vt 0 1
f 1/1/1 2/2/1 3/3/1 4/4/1 

vn -0 0.0833333 0
f 1/1/2 4/4/2 3/3/2 2/2/2 

usemtl M_13_256x256
v 4.13539 0 -3.15358
vn -0.0833333 0 -0
v 4.13539 0 4.84642
f 5/1/3 6/2/3 1/3/3 4/4/3 

vn 0.0833333 -0 0
f 5/1/4 4/4/4 1/3/4 6/2/4 

v -3.86461 0 -3.15358
vn 0 0 0.0833333
f 7/1/5 5/2/5 4/3/5 3/4/5 

vn -0 -0 -0.0833333
f 7/1/6 3/4/6 4/3/6 5/2/6 

bARbican 3D object sketch

view from within a 3D cube
I am in Ogallala Nebraska as a suitcase farmer while also preparing 3D objects for the Flaneur Barbican AR installation scheduled in London at the end of August. I am working with rendered object variables on 3 surfaces of a common cube form, surface textures/colors and manipulations of voids and how these objects and their placement coordinate with the download of these assets.

Perkins County corn feld report

Today at latitude 40.7168 and longitude -101.959, I discovered 100 acres of four foot tall corn with two ears per stalk. This crop, and my other farming interests, I share with Terese Svoboda. Her dad, Frank Svoboda, introduced me to farming in Western Nebraska. This crop has successfully weathered earlier stress from lack of rain and now appears better with recent moisture. More moisture is expected this week. I hope without hail.

"Flaneur Barbican" in Hack the Barbican

Location: Curve Exit, Barbican, London UK
Dates: August 26-31, 2013

"Flaneur Barbican" is a site specific augmented reality installation for the Hack the Barbican residency, August 2013. Fortuitously I just ended the 150th Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (ACA) leaving with a greater clarity of this installation. In part, I plan to put a room within a room by AR method. The interior of Roberson Dance Studio of ACA will be placed into the Curve Exit interior space of the Barbican.



Using their smart phone or tablet, each visitor to the "Flaneur Barbican" AR installation will look for floating sleeping faces. Touching a face wakes a short performance video.

> > > TOUCH THE CAMEO ABOVE < < <

I have a working prototype now. I plan to share a work-in-progress link to the AR channel soon. The installation AR is coded for the Junaio browser, a FREE download found in Android and Apple iPad/iPhone stores, use "junaio" in your search string. The installation code will become publicly available.

I would like to include more performances from the Barbican locale or wherever. The current AR performers are either movers (dancers) or musicians of the 150th Residency. Interested in adding your's? Please email/DropBox me your performance video, .mov, 10 to 30 seconds; your performance video length, thus file size, is limited by the download bandwidth to the mobile device. It would be really awesome if a submitter(s) made their video in or around the Barbican so later the installation visitor will try to discover the performance location and possibly create her own own mobile phone performance video response. I will review all videos submissions and the engaging ones will get my further formatting and preparation for the AR installation. HINT: I prefer steady video shots using a tripod - - it's only ~15 seconds! IMHO: The zoom lens is only useful to frame a shot, then leave the zoom untouched. OKAY: Challenge me and break the earlier directives. SAMPLE: To give you a taste of what I am looking for touch the floating AR face above. TECHNICAL: The linked movie was shot in the Roberson Dance Studio using a Flip camera and finished with FCP + a QuickTime conversion for AR mobile browser display.

Production code: R112

Cattle Report, June 2013

The Svoboda/Bull Cattle Company now has a herd of 40 heifers.
(click for larger image)
"The cattle have been grazing hard grass pastures for the last few weeks. We have been moving them everyday to new grass within a pasture. They have been doing well." - Scott

Oyster Report - June 2013

Yesterday I performed some maintenance on my oysters that I over wintered at the SPAT facility at Cedar Beach.

I left Greenport at 9am and culled 4x hanging lanterns of oysters into 5x 4-tier lanterns with 20 oysters per tier. Result: 80+80+80+80+50(smaller oysters in final lantern). There were 24 empty shells. There were two floating cages with 50 oysters/cage - - I just scrubbed the marine growth off the outside of those cages. I took 50 oysters home for eating. I returned to Greenport at noon.

Total 2012 oysters living into 2013 season: 520. (Expected 2013 oysters spats: 1000)

2 hours of labor + 2x :30 minutes travel time = 3 hours.

If I value my labor at $20/hr, then $60/520 = ~$0.12/oyster invested in this maintenance cycle.

Removing my travel time, 4.33 oysters received one minute of my attention (=520/120).

Assuming no improvement in my work flow, 50,000 oysters would require 11,547 minutes (=50000/4.33) of maintenance that equals ~192 hours aka 2.5 weeks of service. This an on-the-cuff reality check of my thoughts to nurture a large number of the bivalves.

"x twelve v.1" is latest AR on Junaio

"x twelve v.1" is my latest ARt attempt, channel No. 171744 on Junaio. This 12x loop 3D cylinder object built around a common axis is cast forth by the user in front of where ever (s)he is standing. Like my AZZA series, this 3D object is created in code using a multi-part random number sequence, thus ephemeral, never to be repeated, only a view of the result can be recorded by the mobile device still camera.
x twelve v.1 recorded on iPad2
Using a simple hack of closing the iPad I was able to drag this object created on East 63rd Street into the "F" line subway tunnel, a portion under renovation, many feet below. I like the painterly quality of the higher resolution image. Click on the image and if you agree, or not, let me know.