Perl module

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html

Hehe

History repeating?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3p2shHkRrtk&fmt=18

Science and 10-100 more computing power.

Science - is it ready for more computing power?
Moore's law for computing power, was for CPUs.
Not CPUs and GPUs. I'd make that an additive effect, meaning that if both still follow Moore's Law, then the length of time for a doubling just smaller.

And we get the initial bonus boost of the first use of the technology.

So what could Science do with this extra boost in power?

Have you prepared (a grant) yet?

Edit - Would Apple put the v3 iPhone out before WWDC? 

Teaching at a Masters level

A close friend from afar once told me her view that the only way to [really] teach science is to have someone that WANTS to teach and CAN CUT IT in science.
The catch is the extra requirement - that is really ready to study and work on the psychology/ cognitive processing/ learning techniques/ and the science as well.

And I agree with here - it can all make such a difference. More anon.

Got a favorite track? How to branch out from there

Amazon - See what other people have bought
Musicplasma -
Audiobaba.com -
Musicplasma.com -
iTunes' Genius feature
Zune's (not so Genius) feature -

Dance, technology, robots and doing the robot

Dance body suit
Researchers from MIT have made a studio where movements of a person are recorded, then the student wearing the suit has a go at mimicing it: "When their movements don't match the teacher's, the suit vibrates at key locations around the joints to encourage them to make the correct ones."

I still think that the LightStage blogged about earlier has a lot more potential - Similar stuff has cropped up a fair bit before e.g. here

The concept of using part of or the whole body as an interface to control a computer (program) has been seen by various companies, including the zcam.

Conventional mocap can use reflective dots/leds/IR etc - the movements of these points are measured through cameras capturing the light from these points. Then this can be turned into a computer generated skeleton, and then to a animated character.

Adelsberger at ETH, along with researchers at MIT, and Mitsubishi have looked into cheaper mocap systems to be used outside the lab or studio. By using sensors on the bogy using both accelerometers and gyroscopes to mearue motion alongside ultrasound, together all these sensors. A computer like a laptop can then analsye all the data and make a model.

Keepon...dancing
Keepon is a cute lil yellow robot -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewGk7aKjk7k

Keepon can find the beat in music, and move to the beat. It can also detect movement and track rhythmic motion, of objects, including people.

More information from New Scientist here


For a yellow blob it can dance pretty well!


Doing the robot

Bill Gates: just at the end of the recent Seinfeld, Gate, Microsoft ad, there's a Bill Gate's robot.

About 4 minutes 10 seconds in

Salsa connection

Having a think about the 11 part series about salsa connection at salsa-challenge.com

Part I: Introduction to the Salsa Connection Blog Series LINK

The feeling of a good connection in salsa with your partner:

"the joyous fun smooth effortless salsa dancing simply cannot be done without having the skill to create with your partner the salsa connection. This is as true for girls as for guys, for follows as well as leads. I see it also as fundamental to social dancing and, I’ll be bold here, it is also a metaphor for all relationships."

This can have an effect on how you are taught and teach. The other 10 articles touch upon:
* What is the salsa connection and why don’t we get it?
* Touch and the salsa connection
* Negotiating the salsa connection
* Eye contact and the salsa connection
* Music and the salsa connection
* Teaching equally to follows and leads via the salsa connection
* Salsa connection from a relationship perspective—for men
* Salsa connection from a relationship perspective—for women
* Flow and the salsa connection
* Existential Phenomenology and the salsa connection (Yikes!)

Part II: What is the Salsa Connection and why don't we get it?

"Salsa connection is the foundational relationship between dance partners that allows them to communicate amazing amounts of information almost instantly so that they dance together smoothly and seemingly effortlessly."

Why don't we get it?
- Teachers and dancers don't understand, acknowledge, teach how foundational the salsa connection is. Through this, there is lack of emphasis and comprehension of salsa conneciton. By learning, noting the problems along the way, getting feedback from students, getting outside appraisals of student's performance, a teacher can better understand the potential pitfalls along the salsa journey. It may be that "for many teachers, as great dancers, it may come rather naturally to them and they don’t realize how foreign the salsa connection is to many who are learning to dance."

- By not integrating the salsa connection into lessons, the salsa learning doesn't work outwards from the connection. There is a difference between learning a move, and learning the lead and follow to it:

"Followers learn the patterning of the move and rely on an initiating signal that a move is called for. Then the follows simply, and often skillfully, take themselves through the move without actually being led. They are just holding the leads’ hands. What results is the appearance that women are following and men are leading, but the truth comes out on the dance floor."

For the budding salsero, the age old advice, including relax & listen to the music, try simpler moves, focus on the gentle leading and following - all are about connection in a way. Learning a move arsenal doesn't help with symptoms you could ascribe to a bad salsa connection:

Total rather than partial move failure, feeling for the lead of being dragged through a move, jerkiness & separateness between partners whist dancing, back-leading, "going through the motions" dancing.

Is there much knowledge of what moves followers enjoy also? For a leader, what use are moves learnt in class that many followers don't or can't enjoy in freestyle, as they are unleadable, or plain not fun? To be taught pretzels, when partners enjoy spins for example.
It seems that there isn't any actual defined metrics in this area - A kind of salsa survey of followers and leads. However, there is some easy enough to find anecdotal evidence.

** (Add in the threads previously seen)

Connection as a concept can incorporate "feeling out" what the follow wants from the dance (not going into the topic that what she'd most enjoy might not be what she thinks she'd enjoy...). An example would be a improver or higher dancing with a earlyish improver, who could dance just enough for the lead to do a lot of moves through speed, and the follower gets frightened by lack of control in the dance, not knowing what to do, being overwhelmed etc: as the article says,

"sometimes the follow feels like the lead has taken control and is superior to the follow and "hangs on for a dear life".
"sometimes when you let go, the moves just come to mind by themselves."

When you've got it, you've got it! When you haven't, build it!

Maybe it feels differently to others. For me, when initially learning, there were a few follows that were alive in their movement. Through the connection of the right hand on the back of the lead, you could feel all the motion of the follower, feel the level of contrabody flow, cuban motion, hip and foot action. Through the left hand, you could feel tension. And through the eyes, comprehension and usually a smile. You could feel the level of connection, even if you had your eyes and ears closed.

I think in a way there is a fear to actually open up whilst dancing, or even be proximal to someone - the close contact hold being too close for some. And it's not in the interest of salsa teachers to really put paying customers in a situation they aren't comfortable in. The comfortable minimum distance between bodies is a variable though, and depends on who you're dancing with. For women, there seems to be a tradeoff between minimising potential for sleaziness and affecting the quality of salsa connection in the dance.


Part 3: Touch and the Salsa Connection

"Remarkably the word “touch” is the longest single entry in the unabridged dictionaries of many languages. In the Oxford English Dictionary the entry runs 14 full columns. Constance Classen wrote “touch is a fundamental human medium for the expression, experience and contestation of social values and hierarchies.”"

In a society which can not condone touch, it's sad. Touch can be inappropriately abused, but withdrawing the permission of society of touch can be abusive also. Whilst sleaziness can cause inappropriate touch (the roaming right lead hand, being a bit too low on the back, touching of no-go areas of the follower within the dance), touch is essential to social dancing. The convention of no-go areas and high levels of connection with any given dancer helps this out.

Touch & salsa connection: Usually it's light. Relying in part on tactile sensation, not just sensing pressure and force direction of a lead's hand. As pointed out in the article, there are different ways - "hanging on to one another" touch isn't the same as giving tension for the purposes of a good connection. An extreme of hanging on for dear life is death grips. Again, to use a sporting analogy - a beginner who uses a racket, or holds onto a boom in windsurfing, handle in kitesurfing and waterskiing/wakeboarding, the sailor's main rope, the tennis player's racket handle etc - they can all get blisters through lack of calluses/thick skin from use, and also from death grips.

Touching can be "sensitive and interactive". Give yourself a minute. Have a think about a few examples from your life of sensitive and interactive touching, both in dancing you've had, and also outside of dancing. Smiling, blushing, or feeling fuzzy yet? Jolly good :) Point made.

Sensitive interactive touch in dance occurs "when both dancers are constantly attending to one another, connecting with one another, constantly adjusting to be fully sensitive and connected to one another through this light, but clear and active, act of touching."

And through this, a salsa connection is established. This sort of touching also requires the re-evaluation of our concepts of lead and follow. I think most believe that the lead pushes, drags, and otherwise forces the follow around to do what he wants her to do. We have grown accustomed to presenting this idea in feminist and gender-sensitive terms by saying that the lead is showing off the follow or presenting her as beautiful. A recent metaphor I heard was the man is the frame, the woman is the picture. But I think it is time to take the equality of the roles completely seriously and to show how both roles are equal, although a bit different, in importance, presence, and action.

Touch is an essential aspect of the salsa connection - the right touch requires a lot of practice and attentiveness.

Part IV: Negotiating the Salsa Connection

I disagree with the start of the article saying that "The salsa connection begins when the follow senses that a “lead” is about to occur."

The connection can be there throughout the dance., though I agree there are key points where the lead has to be listened to intently. The word lead is used in multiple meanings, which I think muddies the issue -
There is a certain overall lead for a given move, many of many "sub-leads" - the lead for each component of the lead's body. the lead for the feet, left arm, right arm etc.

"A well executed lead will very clearly make this prelude to the initiating action. Often it involves slightly raising one’s hand or hands, stopping the flow of one’s hands or body, shifting one’s weight, tensing the arm or hand muscles.

Follows are amazingly able to detect this prelude to the actual lead. This attentiveness/awareness is an essential follow skill. At this moment both lead and follow recognize (automatically in their bodies when the skill is developed) that communication regarding a change is about to occur. At this moment the dancers have the opportunity to do what I call “negotiate a connection.” In a mere nanosecond, the partners match muscle tension in preparation for the action to follow. This requires equal attention, action, and initiative by both partners. Each is equally giving to and taking from one another. Each is assessing and matching the presence of the other. They become actively and energetically connected, equal, together, one in that moment and ready for the movement that is to follow. When this occurs they have established the salsa connection. All of this takes place in a fraction of a second, yet almost every dancer I have worked with quickly recognizes when the salsa connection has been established and when it is missing. Once aware, dancers immediately recognize how essential the salsa connection is to partnering and to enjoyable smooth connected social dancing. Many dancers are now shifting their priorities from learning yet another move (likely poorly executed) to developing their skills of creating the salsa connection realizing that the results are so satisfying.

How to get and develop the skill to have the salsa connection

Drills, tennis balls in armpits, trust building exercises - there's a whole lot of things to beef up connection skills. Interestingly, the drills explained in the article "prevent follows from anticipating a move or action. Conscious focus on the establishment of the salsa connection for both lead and follow is needed. The reward is great and as the process goes on, the dancers can feel the improvements more (see the stages of learning).

Practise practise practise. Part 4 concludes: "I am convinced that most failed moves, most awkward looking dancing, stems from the dancers’ failure to understand the importance of and to develop the skills to create a salsa connection."

Part 5: Eye Contact and the Salsa Connection

Eye decorum. A social skill, a dancer skill.

"So often we observe salsa dance eye decorum where the partnering dancers never look at one another, especially eye to eye. When we dance with someone that never makes eye contact with us, we often feel that likely they didn’t even care who they are dancing with. We likely feel ignored. This isn’t always intended; indeed, likely rarely. However, many of us have developed this type of eye decorum because we are concentrating on the dance, or perhaps because we are shy or even embarrassed. We may be embarrassed that we are so close to and even touching someone we don’t know and feel a little uncomfortable."

Staring can be bad. And men can accidentally stare either directly. Then in trying to look away, the school boy error is to look down. A face full of cleavage, and a 1 way ticket to being labelled a sleaze.

It's good to have some eye contact: "As physical touch is light and not grasping, so too should be eye contact. Don’t stare or focus on one part of your partner’s body no matter what that is. Keep your head up and your eyes up so that as you move your body your eyes will come into contact with your partner’s eyes. Let your eyes smile and enjoy the connection with your partner."

By knowing the steps, a lead has less need to look down, and ever accidentally be sidetracked/sideswiped by the follower's buxom.

An exercise given - follower is asked to follow the basic salsa patterns without the lead holding their hands, watching his head, shoulders for intention for example.


Part 6 of 12: Music and the Salsa Connection

Something that takes time. From an novice - trying to pick out any beat, to someone picking out the clave, drums, solo section and flow of the song. A 4-4 beat is pretty easy in comparison, and my view is that it's a decent place to start, but a beginner should definitely be shown early on the different ways of accenting timing, and dance to a song.

From the beat to the pace to the musicality and the shifts and moods, the verses and choruses, solos and intros and outros. Dance on1, on2, syncopated. Cuban, NY, jazz, hiphop, freestyle, big shapes- however you both want to.

You've got the conventional salsa basic rhythm step pattern of 1, 2, 3, pause, 5, 6, 7, pause. There's other layers, but they're beyond me! movement in relation to the breaks and shifts in the music, interpretation f the mood and feeling of the music, using the character, feel, and rhythmic distinctness of each piece of music.

It's a joint interpretation after all - the lead has some say, the follower has both the chance to have their say so, and say no.


Part VII: "Women Get Equal Attention ... Finally!"

As the salsa connection is foundational to salsa dancing, both follower and lead have legwork to do. So the leads of the lead need to be taught to both sides - for the followers to understand what one would feel like, and the given familiar response to that lead.

It's heartwarming to hear that at SalsAmigos (www.SalsAmigos.org) and Salseritas (www.Salsa-Challenge.com), all dancers learn equally to both lead and follow.

The roles are different, but intertwined, and knowledge of both is very useful! (See Milton Cobo and Frankie dancing and interchanging role youtube video for example).

My view is that styling comes from training, from within, and isn't just a tack on extra - you have to work at it and get comfortable with what you want. It ain't all moves moves moves (though it's very easy to fall into that thinking - and it can be a real demotivator and anixety builder for leads at many stages).

"In teaching moves most follows quickly, yet largely unconsciously, learn subtle clues that tell them what move the lead is hoping to do. Then follows simply do this move pretty much on their own when they pick up the clue. In moves classes, new moves are practiced over and over again."

But that can easily lead to autopilot, where the follow actually self-leads through a whole move, bar, or even turn pattern. And so women will benefit from attention in the lead, and how to process it.

Part VIII: Listen Up Men: Relationship via the Salsa Connection

Ah, the dance trap. Dancing in close proximity to salseras can stir many things.
Among them, thoughts of attempting to dance to meet other singles, with the possibility or aim to have a successful outcome.

Be selfish, put yourself first. Work on yourself, and your dancing, rather than trying to overeach.
There is a singles scene in dance. As the article comments, "there are positive and negative aspects to salsa dancing being the means towards relationship ends"

Have fun, connect with your dance partner, and try and delineate between feelings on the dance floor with feelings off it. e a gentleman on the dancefloor - Attention, affection, fun, humour, smoothness, (moves)...

- Be courteous to the women you ask to dance.
- Do your darnest to create a salsa connection with your partner!
- Dance to their skill level (and your own)
- Save showing off the moves you have yet to master for your closet door mirror or a class setting.
- Don’t lead a move you aren’t pretty sure you can lead successfully with the lady you are dancing with.
- Never ever criticize your partner.
- Big :)
- Never ever instruct your partner on the dance floor.
- Never ever give your partner that knowing look that she just screwed up royally and yet you are kindly not going to call her on it.
- Never ever prepare a lead with that look that tells her that you are about to do something really cool and she better be ready to make it happen so you’ll look as cool as surely she thinks you are.
- Confidence in every move you do. Once you've got those basics down, just mix up your moves with those. That confidence really affects how well the dance goes, moreso than the moves.
It's difficult for a salsero and salsera - stick at it :)

An interesting potential point is that if you dance with as much attentiveness as possible to your partner, they will have the greatest opportunity to connect with you.

"You are at the level you are and just do the best you can and you’ll be fine."

Part IX: For Women: Relationship Clues in the Salsa Connection

"Dancing often edges people outside their comfort zones. Guys often feel loads of pressure just attempting to dance. " "They have to initiate lots of the action including asking women to dance ... they have to lead, they have to feel responsible for their partner’s experience, and to do so while often feeling like they can’t remember a thing they have learned or how to do the few things they happily remember. Feeling the pressure, guys may overreact by clutching your hand too tightly, by failing to ever make eye contact, by apologizing constantly, and by crunching their bodies into a little humped-over balls. None of these things is necessarily pleasant, but it doesn’t mean they are bad guys. Talk politely to them and complement them when you can. Don’t instruct them or belittle them because we have all been there at one time or another. If you really don’t enjoy dancing with them and don’t care to when they ask, refuse politely. You may say simply, “No thank you.”"

The article comments that "dancing may give you great clues about a guy." "A social dance relationship reveals loads about a person and how they will approach other social and personal relationships. This is why I think dancing is actually a pretty great place to meet and get to know people."

Read the article to find them out :)

"Flow and the Salsa Connection," Part 10 of 11

Being in the moment, enjoying the dance, it's a rather scrumptious feeling.

"Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this experience “flow” and, while this word is still used, many today may more likely call this experience “zone” or “being in the zone.” Csikszentmihalyi studied the phenomenon as experienced by rock climbers and surgeons among others. What he was interested in was to identify how flow happens and what its significance is to our lives. Csikszentmihalyi believes that the experience of “flow” corresponds with the experience of happiness."

Flow is associated with awareness whilst in action. We're in the moment, totally absorbed by it.
Important things factors for creating flow: matching of activity and our ability/skill - Goldilocks style, something that demands our concentration, but is not overwhelming, within our skill level.

3D gestures as a user Interface for a computer

Some say this is how the Stig controls his computer.

Nice to see that a major manufacturer is picking up on this -
IFA: Toshiba shows advanced image detecion prototypes

The joys of controlling by movement. We can't be too far off this, w00t!

Toshiba is using this week's IFA electronics show in Berlin to show off some of its latest image detection technology currently being worked on at its laboratories in Cambridge in the UK.

One example is a gesture control system that allows for interaction with a TVs interface through hand movements.

It watches for a person to come into its field of view and, once recognized, looks for their hand. Once the hand is identified, the user just makes a fist and can then wave it around in the air as if controlling a mouse. A cursor on the TV interface moves across the screen mirroring the user's fist movements.

The gesture control prototype is being shown a few steps away from a display showcasing Toshiba's new Qosmio laptops that are the first products to include some of the same technology. The laptops feature an earlier version of the system that allows for limited interaction through hand gestures but works in much the same way. Users make a fist to move a cursor on the screen and then raise their thumb to perform a mouse click.

"The major difference with the Qosmio is that it's just smoother and more advanced tracking technology," said Kate Knill, manager of interaction technology at the laboratory, speaking of the research prototype on show. It is also much better at picking out a single user from a crowd and keeping locked on them rather than getting confused by the hands of other people in its picture, she said.

Having developed the prototype to this stage, Toshiba is working on ensuring it will function in real-world situations and sees one possible use for the technology as a secondary interface to a TV in addition to the conventional remote control.

A second video-based system is a pattern recognition system that has a video camera mounted above a TV screen watching for a card - in this case a German or British flag --as a cue to change the language on a video that's playing on the TV.

Toshiba sees several possible applications for the technology in the future, including, for example, a children's learning game where kids have to find the correct card in response to a question or instruction on-screen.

The same system could be used to recognize TV viewers and present them with personalized information or switch to their favorite channel when they walk in the room, said Knill.

Zcam is only the start. A dancer on the computer will be better than use within 5 years, tops.
The demos out on youtube are epic, from the smaler companies that have already done video proof of concept demos.
Zcam - a poor mans webcam - It sends out Infrared, and records the intensity of what comes back, and then works out depth - the distance of objects in front of it. With detection of 3D motion down to less than half an inch, and video at normal color, 1.3Mp at 60fps, it's a decent start.


AAPL taken a bite of the DeepC chipset? Oh, if only... VIdeo of zdcam here

Intial thoughts on salsa lead

A link to the Unlikely Salsero's blog, done by Don Baarns. He has some great articles, and well worth digging through the archive. A recent post, about cross training other dances sparked off some thoughts:

I'm curious!

Usually I write articles, provide my perspective and get a couple comments. This time I'll provide a little of my perspective, but I really want your input on cross-training (or not).

When I started dancing at age 44, I had never danced once in a club. Today I cross-training in other dances and I find it extremely helpful. My balance, body control, spins and other foundational moves continue to grow over time. I feel I'm just getting started, and see the biggest pay-offs ahead of me.

I originally started taking salsa aerobics classes around 5 years ago to lose some weight and improve my fitness. I never dreamed of taking dance classes. I didn't even think about partnering until a few months into it the instructor invited me to a partnering class outside the gym. That was the start of my unlikely journey into the dance world.

Today, taking other styles give me a set of intended benefits, and I've discovered a world of unintended positive benefits. I regularly find insights that make my salsa dancing better. For example, I see the stronger salsa spinners employing techniques that are standard fare for jazz and ballet dancers (with minor modifications).

I'm learning footwork and body control that others learned dancing at high school parties, club dancing or in what I call “foundational dances” (jazz, ballet, ballroom). By the time I hit high school, I was already playing the music and watching dancers, but never dancing myself.

In my case, these cross-training dance classes provide a structured method for building up my weaknesses and providing sound foundations for growth.

I'm wondering how many others regularly take dance classes outside of partner salsa or dancing at the clubs?

For the record (since I'm asking you to answer some of the questions), here are my responses to get the ball rolling:

I'm currently taking three jazz and two hip-hop classes each week. The jazz classes are all with the same instructor, and the hip-hop is with another instructor. Two days a week the classes are back-to-back, first the jazz, then the hip-hop class (an intense workout but most of the time it's a blast!) I have dramatically improved my strength, flexibility, balance and basic body control, and I’ve lost some weight.

Most of my improvement does NOT show up today in my salsa, but I see it as a longer term foundation. I started these other dances because when I analysis the leads favored by the world class follows in know, the vast majority of their favorite leads have a jazz, hip-hop and/or traditional Cuban street salsa experience in addition to strong New York or LA style components.

On a parallel track, my favorite musicians tend to be highly cross-trained, although in any one setting they sound like they specialize in one style. Their cross-training gives them insights that are rare among single style players. I originally took it on faith that the same would apply from a dancing perspective, and I see that playing out over time.

I call this concept "back-filling," where I'm filling holes in my dance education that others filled when they were younger. Many world class follows have experience with other dances, including jazz, ballet, hip-hop, gymnastics and/or cheer leading in addition to dancing salsa. Most cross-train other dances as they grow, stealing great techniques from other dances and applying them to salsa.

Now I’m my curiosity about your other dance training. Click on the "comments" link below and add your thoughts on cross-training, including your pros and cons.

Some other questions I have (please answer one or more, as you see fit):

* What types of classes are you taking?
* What benefits do you see or hope to see?
* How often do you attend classes?
* Why did you start the other style/dance?
* How long did it take before it made a difference for you?
* Are you planning on other dances in the future and what are they?

In other words, what do you do to grow and why? Feel free to go outside my questions above, those are to prime the pump but are not intended to restrict you to a specific type of answer.

Short or longer answers welcomed!

I look forward to your comments.

Thoughts:

- The book Sam in the comments recommended: "Conditioning for Dance" from Eric Franklin. There's a decent section of it on Google Books, if you want to have a preview.
- Use of Google Docs for polls with feedback
- What lead is preferred or most enjoyed by follows, at all levels?
- How a lead can get decent feedback on their lead.
- How leads trying following can be useful - the problem otherwise of a lead not having the chance to actually feel the lead of any of our teaches, much less our peers, and our idols, and thus not have anything to even subjectively compare with comments on ours - e.g. yours is as smooth as Johns, but as light as Calvins
- What is the lead like that the top 10 follows out there in social dancing enjoy? What are your idols like?
- Making improvements of lead an explicit aim for leads - getting feedback, reviews, breaking it down for a move.
- What Don's analysis of the leads favored by the world class follows in know. was, and what were the results.
- Is there any difference between the "best" leads' leads, and the leads of the leads most preferredn by the best followers?
- Is there an increase in fun rating as the lead gets better at leading?

- Do the most preferred leads just do straight up salsa? Or do they more often blend in jazz, hip-hop, traditional cuban street salsa , NY versus LA style versus cuban...

- Do women prefer a fun novice/intermediate to a more advanced non-fun or non-spiritful lead?

I think that some classes don't actually emphasise all this, and that the style is seen as extra, rather than vital. But that zing, that personality breathing through you via your style is a big salsa turn-on for follows presumably.

I think "styling" really misses a trick here, for both men and women. As a beginner, some of this feels alien - in a way, starting from within actually helps it, and then styling help is more to channel it into something more than enthusiastic wiggling and flailing*.

- List of dance styles, for reference or another post. I think it might be informative to actually see how many there are out there. Basically to answer what types of classes/dance styles are actually out there (problems with pigeonholing aside).

- What is the actual split between preference of style? Is it geographically dynamic (does NY like boogaloo grooving, but TX prefer hiphop and SF prefer slick?)

**I have nothing against either. Much a fan :D

iPhone web app, and sharing love forward

I wonder how others get their blog to get more traffic? I guess I need to post more, and better...

Anyhow, the iPhone app - saw salsamap.com just now - it's discontinued, which needs following up as to why - and the Google cache shows some promise as to someone's go at something that would be pretty nifty potentially for a salsero who's on the move.

Google www.salsamap.com, then click on the blue hyperlink cached version button

Salsa by map, by date and location, by list of events (calendar), by name of organiser. Put down as created as an entry on Dec 08 2006

http://www.afterfive.co.uk/maps/Salsa-links.html
http://www.5minutesite.com/browse/vpui0002021.php

Edit: http://www.salsamaps.com/ - Working, but "in beta", and seemingly another stopped project. Seems the opportunity is still there...

Sharing the love to folks

On another point, i've been combing through a lot of salsa and dance blogs over the weekend (fixing a computer, backing up and transferring Gigabytes of data needs a distraction!) and came across a great blog: http://atimetodance.wordpress.com

Having got several pages back, I found the post:

By the end of the calendar year (or so), I will send a tangible, physical gift to each of the first five people to comment here. The catch? Each person must make the same offer on her/his blog. [I myself am passing this on since I responded to morganlf's meme].

The rules:

1. Anyone may respond, whether I know you or not. However, you must have a blog of your own where you can pass along the same offer.

2. No members of my immediate family are eligible ’cause you’re getting holiday presents from me anyway.

So passing it on: A tangible physical gift to 5 people who add a comment. Heck - they'd be the 1st five to comment, so why not have a gift on standby!

Twittering dancers, salseros?

On a semi related note - Are there that many on twitter, or other similar networks? Surely twitter, and Loopt would be useful applications for a dance night out?

Dance at Notting Hill Carnival

Some youtube videos:

The kimono dancer
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And some more:

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When (salsa) dancing meets tech

Jamiroquai's video called Travelling without moving - as seen below in the Lego version:



what if JayKay actually went and took a new single, and basically 1UPd Radiohead, with their LIDAR usage from their In Rainbows album single - House of Cards



"No cameras or lights were used. Instead, 3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects. The video was created entirely with visualizations of that data. "

Directed by James Frost Aaron Koblin was the technical director - he did the Flight Patterns project

Very interestingly, some of the data was captured by a Geometric Informatics camera.
And Geometric Informatics were the primary part for the facial sequence in the video - the LIDAR covers the large scale environment shots.
Real-time 3D scanning.









One of their products is GeoVideo

"GeoVideo is a high-resolution (over 600,000 triangles per frame) 3D geometry video acquisition system that provides 3D surface geometry data recording capabilities at 180 frames per second with real-time rendering for previewing geometry video data. The 3D geometry video data is immediately available for recording. Each video frame is captured with texture information that is aligned exactly point for point with 3D geometry."
"GeoVideo captures facial expressions including smiles and grimaces, such as wrinkles on a face and difficult cases such as hair, fur, fluid, and textured cloth.


Lightstage:








Pretty soon, the uncanny valley is going to be well and truly bridged. My thoughts are what dance could offer to this, as a way to demonstrate, and also teach.

Android apps show what could be good for iPhone apps

• cab4me - A $275,000 Award Recipient! You say where you are, ask for a cab via it's system.
• CompareEverywhere - Compare prices, read reviews, and connect with local stores.
• GoCart -Scan a product's barcode with your phone's camera and view all the best prices online and at nearby, local stores.
• Locale - An advanced settings manager that automatically changes your phone's settings based on conditions, such as location.
• Softrace - Had predicted this very recently, in line with what Nike could do (we're waiting on Nike to build some decent sports Apps to blow Nike Plus out of the water!) - Turn your workout into a thrilling race and challenge the world in real time.
• Wertago - A way to find parties and connect with friends and others all night long. Like the previous real estate apps - this is a great sector to get a market share of currently.
• Pocket Journey - A personal tour guide by connecting you to location-specific multimedia created by a community of the most professional tour guides and storytellers worldwide. A slice of this in iTunes - a Geographically aware version for museums etc would be great.
• ShapeWriter - is an innovative, easy, fast and fun method of entering text into touch screen mobile phones. One can write an entire word with a single gesture.

Swan Lake - 3 Takes & a slice of reggaeton

Swan Lake - Bolshoi take:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY4Y1gTO9HE&feature=related



Swan Lake - Chinese Circus take (amazing balance and dance skills)



And an old favorite, a once close friend loved: Swan Lake - Troc style:


A longer 3 parts:






And just to round it off, a Pole dance version.

And a link to a related title I enjoy
reggaeton


Others 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

For me - it's the lower back to hip strength and flexibility. Reggaeton might get an unfair wrap - it isn't easy, and there are technical parts to it. The grinding aspectimghed t be great, as it can turn into all out simulated sex, but then we have to remeber close hold salsa and bachata, merengue can have the option to get pretty hot too!

Link to a Washinton Post article about freaking.

Ubiquity's goals are to:

• Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
• Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone (not just Web developers) to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
• Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.
• Extend the browser functionality easily.

Video here
Future example - if you could have a way to use a WiFi enabled product - e.g. Kettle - you could potentially actually say - make me a brew, get that converted into Activate kettle, which sends a command to the kettle via IP and wifi. By the time you're done, the kettle is boiled. Silly example I know - but then look at the Remote app on iPhone - iControl etc is actually starting to see real usage.

Intel's $100,000 prize winner

Shivani Sud, 17, of Durham, submitted a bioinformatics and genomics project to the Intel Science Talent Search that focused on identifying stage II colon cancer patients at high risk for recurrence and the best therapeutic agents for treating their tumors. The standard method of characterizing tumors relies on visual information, including size, degree of metastasis and microscopic structure. Shivani's 50-gene model for predicting the recurrence of colon cancer instead uses gene expression profiles to link multiple genetic events that characterize various tumor types. She created her model using two public data sets containing 125 patient samples and coupled it with clinical data to plot statistically significant survival curves. She then used her model to identify drugs that may be effective in treating stage II colon cancer. The daughter of Ish and Anu Sud, Shivani is first in her class of 358 at Charles E. Jordan High School and represents the students at school board meetings. She is a Teen Court student attorney, a Durham Rescue Mission volunteer and performs classical and modern Indian dance. Shivani plans to attend Princeton or Harvard, earn an M.D./Ph.D. and have a career in research.

The March 2008 top 10 college scholarship awards for the Intel Science Talent Search (STS)
link here . 17!! I'd be really interested how she learnt how to do the model. This is the great thing about open source, open data - you can throw it out to the world, and get huge payback - A case in point is the open sourcing of gold mining data that is an example in Clay Shirky's here Comes everybody - the concept works well for a lot of the time - offer a bounty, a decent prize fund for the top 1/5/10 or so, then give them the raw data - by not constraining them, they'll probably have a much bigger view outsiede the box of how to get to the final result wanted.

There are some other great and "they can do that at their age - I need to get my scientific act together" feel:

Brian Davis McCarthy, 18, of Hillsboro, focused his research on developing new types of solar cells for his Intel Science Talent Search project in chemistry. Brian synthesized extremely thin and fragile films and verified his results using scanning electron microscopy techniques. His films consisted of interfacially polymerized combinations of porphyrins and phthalocyanines - plant-like photosynthetic materials found in nature that are photoactive and photoconducting - both properties of functioning solar cells. Brian's novel polymer films responded electrically to light indicating that they could act as solar cells and may be a less expensive option to today's silicon-based solar cell technology, and help meet increasing demands for renewable energy. A Rensselaer Medal award winner, Brian hopes to attend MIT or Harvard and one day join a research team developing new sources of energy. He is first in his class of 293 at Liberty High School and belongs to the varsity track and field team. In his spare time, Brian works with the community emergency response team and enjoys strategy games, Legos and studying aviation history. He is the son of Brian and Karen McCarthy.

A lot of them seem to have a finger in Intel's work previously, or had help, and also debate a lot - they're polymaths even as Minors.

Prediction - the first decent stab at making an iPhone app that interacts with IP enabled power switches/plugs/products etc is going to make a killing. iControl is probably the closest to it currently - but this is merely security. We're talking anything chip and net enabled that needs to plug in the wall for power.

Multiple users - 1 document. What to do?

How to share and use office files wilth multiple users: ProofHQ


"A new tool for designers (or anyone who needs client input on proofs) is premiering today. ProofHQ is a web-based application for uploading, annotating, commenting and approving proofs with controlled access for multiple clients. It's not Mac-specific, but it's worth mentioning considering the large portion of Mac users (and TUAW readers) who fit into the creative/design category. It doesn't work on the iPhone, (why would you want to upload and proof on an iPhone, really?), but it's fully Safari-compatible and Mac-friendly.
Using ProofHQ's upload page or the Java-based Uploadr, you can send PDF, PSD, GIF, TIFF, JPG, BMP, Word and Powerpoint files and have them converted into Flash-based proofs at full quality."

Thinkfree is another useful app - how to share files, update them, being updated by their servers. There is a big need to crack the multi user making alterations on 1 document. Google docs has had some work on it, but it's a tough problem. I'd imagine something this might be useful, but not probably implemented for various reasons. Defaulting back to Office, or not moving from it.

How to arrange a meeting time

Useful to be able to quickly arrange when people can do times - you plot the days you can do, see what falls out.
http://whenisgood.net/
http://www.timebridge.com/home.php
http://www.thinkfree.com
http://www.thinkfree.com/
http://www.diarised.com/
http://www.schedulewithme.com
http://www.doodle.ch
http://www.scheduleonce.com

Google polls, coding horror.

Stop sharing excel spreadsheets to make a poll, get some feedback!

See here

Stack Overflow Beta is using to create a signup spreadsheet, but this has so many applications. For one - it's an instant email is.gd within the office polling system. It negates the whole, send me back the spreadsheet, then pass it on to the next person problem that online email petitions have. Add your names, add a tally on a website page, you're done.

It's simple.

*Instant poll
*Instant mailing list
*It can be quant or qualative
*You can hide or display results
*Free

As an aside - I think we need a stackoverflow macrumors sub section.... I wonder how it'll cope out of beta - will it's singal to noise ratio deteriorate? Will it cruft up from the range of questions?
It sounds like they're wanting objective questions with non-subjective answers which is a start, and their search is being reported to be good.

Should there be tools that are early adopters only, and sod the guld leap to the other side, and forget about bringing in the late adopters?

Maybe the world of mind mapping should come to blogs - to actually throw threads as THREADS - that can be teased, moved, spun off to pardon the pun. How to visually create this is a coding horror in itself i'd imagine... Wiki style editing of answers and comments and tags, with karme related skills to do this.

Totally cool progression of the area by the sounds of it. Turning answers to questions more into "live encyclopedia" entries. For the majority of users of the service, it might be just to read the answer, from googling the question and hitting the site. Interestingly, it has the potential to do what Yahoo questinos etc fails to do in many ways.

All sorts of cool developments: https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?pg=pgWiki&command=view&ixWikiPage=24213
The reputation and badging system has had a good deal of thought from a social point of view too. And in a way, it's hands off too, it's an evolving ecosystem and creating it's own social and codified self-correcting check systems. Feedback loops etc.

"...the only way you ever get reputation is from other people voting your stuff up"

Looks good. Really should chow down into wikinomics, but Clay Shirky's Here come Everbody has a lot to live up to.

ow mature enough and ubiquitous enough and fast enough to be a viable client programming runtime and teh API libraries are there too

They ahve a site where users can actually probe the system, get meaningful information about usage, numbers of users regularly doing things etc, beyond just activity and post count of a user - to actualyl show their voting history, their badges etc.

Interesting to show they're potentially looking at both what's hot - what's most activity, r/w, but also what's most in need - kinda like the p2p tracker webste version of what's got most leechers, but no seeds. A post moving to a community post after a level of editing.

Do they need a forum break out system?

An interesting point that i'd imagine Scoble would pick up on:
"...world became Microsoft and Oracle and they were like the 30,000 person software companies and then there were a couple of half a person trying to struggle to do it in their spare time. But he wasn't noticing any of the 40 person software companies and over the years I've discovered quite a lot of 40 person software companies, it's just a huge number of them, they're all a little bit below the radar, you don't hear about them. The business press doesn't write about them because they're not public companies and so they have no interest in covering things whose stock you can't buy. But there are really like an outlandish number of software companies around our size."