ChrisFreeland.com

Finnish sauna & ice hole swimming at Kuusijärvi, Vantaa

2012-02-10T15:53:00.001-08:00

Me, emerging from the freezing water at Kuusijärvi, Vantaa, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

I never expected that my job would take me to a frozen lake in Finland, surrounded by coworkers from across Europe and the former Soviet Union, the lone American bobbing in a hole cut in the ice. Intentionally. And for fun.

I came to Helsinki for a BHL-Europe partner meeting. It's February, and daily peak temperatures hover around -15C. We've had a 700m walk from the hotel to the (charming & hospitable) meeting room each day, and everyone has commented how brutally cold it is outside.

The group and I were invited by Evgeniy Meyke, a technology developer & collaborator for the Biodiversity Heritage Library who happens to live outside Helsinki, to experience a traditional Finnish sauna followed by quick swims in freezing water. My thought: Well, when in Finland... I'm unlikely to make this trip again, so might as well embrace the craziness of it all and do it - a once in a lifetime chance.

Flash forward to this afternoon and we're riding on a bus headed 30 minutes north of Helsinki to Kuusijärvi, Vantaa, now officially the furthest point North I've ever been. We had 5 guys & 1 gal participating, and the wife of one of the men who wanted to come along to take pictures & fish us out if needed. We got off the bus in the middle of a snow-encrusted country forest (read: the middle of nowhere) and met Evginey at the entrance to the outdoor recreation area. It was just past 4:30pm and the sun was making a slow descent. Lovely. And cold.

So the whole thing goes down like this: You pay your 10euro at the main house, and grab a pair of the motley assortment of waterproof shoes available. Men & women split up into separate locker rooms and change into swimsuits. In most Finnish saunas you go in without clothing, but this is a public sauna and so you wear a suit. You throw on your shoes, grab your towel, and walk out into the open air, which by this time is well below the balmy -15C we had during days in the city.

You start off by warming up in the smoke sauna. In this particular setting there are 4 cabins. Each has a little entry room where you take off your shoes and drop off your towel, then walk into the main room of the sauna. There are two rows of wood seating in an L-shape around a brick oven heaped with coals. The room fits 8-10 people. And like in every other sauna, you sit there & stew. You throw water on the coals which produces steam and releases an intense blast of heat, and so you get all toasty & sweaty. You do that as long as you can stand (usually less than 10 minutes for the non-Finns) and then you put your shoes back on & head back out into the open air.

Now this is what was amazing: It felt absolutely wonderful to be standing outside, drenched in sweat, in below freezing cold air. And then you walk down to the water (maybe 15m). And here's where it gets crazy.

There's a square hole cut in the thick ice on the lake. There are wooden steps leading down into the water. The top step and the hand rails are covered in ice. You kick off your shoes and start walking down the steps, while your hands and feet freeze to the ice on the steps and rails. And then you walk into the ice cold water and submerge yourself up to your neck.

My first trip in, I stayed in for maybe 3 seconds and then hurried back up the stairs. The Finns behind me were a little annoyed that I barely even made it into the water before jumping out, because I was in their way. It's a psychological thing - your brain is yelling "Get out of the water, you stupid American!"

In reality, the water is warmer than the air outside. But, yeah, it's COLD, and goes against everything we've ever learned about getting out on frozen lakes in the US. So then you walk up the stairs, your skin sticking to the stairs (if you'll notice on the picture with this post, I'm about to put my hand on a freezing pile of ice), jam your frozen feet into your frozen shoes, and once again marvel that you're standing outside, dripping wet, this time from cold water, and yet you feel completely comfortable. Being the manly men we were, we hooted & hollered about our achievement and stood in the snow to snap some pictures. Larissa, our female partner in the polar bear plunge, seems to have intentionally dodged the camera, but she was there, hooting & hollering along with us. By this time my hair & beard had started to ice.

And then you walk back to the sauna and do the whole bloody routine again as many times as you can tolerate. On my second attempt I cleared my mind and stayed in the water for probably 10-15 seconds, paddled a bit, and got out. 3rd time out I just walked around the outside of the cabin and didn't take a dip. 4th time out we bypassed the water & headed inside to shower and change. Normally your sauna excursion ends with warm tea or beer in the cafe the house runs, but we had a dinner back in Helsinki to attend. I felt calm, my skin felt great, and when we reached the restaurant I was starving. Luckily dinner was Nepalese - rich, warm & delicious.

Will I do it again? Probably not, unfortunately, because I doubt I'll be back in Finland again in the winter. But WOULD I do it again? Absolutely! It's a crazy, marvelous experience that makes you feel totally invigorated - your heart's pumping, your blood's circulating, and every nasty toxin your body has been storing up has been magically wicked away from your skin by the alternating heat/cold. I'm now 6 hours from my last trip to the water and I still feel great.

I don't know that there's any global truths to be learned here, or that I can wrap this up so that it all comes together in some meaningful way. I traveled out to the Finnish countryside with co-workers who have become great friends, sat in a hot room & swam in a frozen lake. Insane! But I enjoyed the heck out of it, and if you ever get the chance I would highly recommend it.

Here's a video someone posted to YouTube, showing a dip in the same spot & steps...but without 6" of ice! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcePmj3TKek

Mark Akers' Memorial Service

2012-01-28T07:22:00.001-08:00

Mark & Lewis Reed, President of the Board of Aldermen, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Mark Akers’ Memorial Service

January 28, 2012

Prelude: Closer Walk with Thee and other music

Opening Music: How Great Thou Art

Dave Brinker, Piano & Flute, Fred Isom, Vocals

Welcoming Remarks

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Mark Akers. My name is Chris Freeland, and I am a neighbor of Mark & Sharon’s. In his final weeks Mark asked that I officiate his service, and with the agreement of his family, I do so with honor.

Mark Lyn Akers was born on March 29, 1954, in Belgrade and passed away Friday, January 20, 2012, at his home in St. Louis. Mark is survived by his wife Sharon, his father Lindell, his brother Kim and Kim’s wife Sandra, his son Sean and Sean’s wife Tara, and his grandchildren Aniya and Ezra, whom Mark liked to call EZ, and his beloved dogs Roxy and Murphy.

Eulogy

The obituary that ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described Mark as an “all-around great guy.” I think that’s fitting, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who disagreed that Mark was an all-around great guy. He had a strong moral compass. He knew what was right.

That helped him in his job as a lawyer and a Prosecuting Attorney. Lawyers don’t always get a lot of respect, but Mark approached his job with a guiding sense of honor and integrity. For Mark being a lawyer wasn’t about ego or personal gain. He was driven by doing what was right for his clients, and helping people as best he could.

But there was much more to Mark than just his job. Spend an afternoon around Mark and you quickly experienced his passion for sports. He loved to be outside, playing tennis or golf, just as much as he loved watching Mizzou football or the Cards win the World Series on his enormous TV. We liked to joke with Mark that his TV was bigger than he was. You knew that if his team was on, he could be reliably found basking in its soft glow. Mark was an especially enthusiastic viewer, providing more colorful commentary than the pros on TV, and he certainly knew more than the umpires and referees who could have benefitted from Mark’s counsel. And, if the dogs were hiding, you knew Mark was sharing his opinion, loudly, with the television.

Mark’s true passion was his well-honed art of conversation. He especially liked to talk about history, politics, movies, or whatever headline was making news that day. Mark never turned down an opportunity to give you his opinion or his view on any topic. He’d start with:

Well, guys, I’ll tell you…

Ok, you see, it’s like this…

And he’d be off.

What you might not know about Mark was that he was a terrific dancer. He could really move. One of our favorite nights, one he mentioned often, was at a friend’s wedding. They had a great reception with a really good band, playing everything from Motown to disco to country. Mark and Sharon barely took a break from the dancefloor. We all had a wonderful time that night, and Mark said he danced so much his knees hurt for the next two days.

Mark had many great qualities, but the two that I most admired were his sense of humor and his courage, both of which Mark put to good use throughout the years. I met Mark after his kidney transplant, a gift of life from his brother, Kim, and I never once heard him complain about his health. His sense of humor and his courage got him through the tough times, and made everyone around him assured that it was all going to be okay. Even these past few months, when he was suffering from the effects of chemo, we’d call over to the house and ask how he was doing and he’d say “Well, I’m doing okay today.”

Mark did okay because he had a large community of people behind him. His family and friends here and abroad, his neighbors in the city who all supported him. His son Sean and daughter-in-law Tara, and his friend Charlie Williams, a true “angel of mercy” who stayed with Mark during his last weeks. And of course, his wife, Sharon. In one of our last talks Mark described their relationship as “probably unusual-looking from the outside,” but it worked. Mark was loved, and he knew it.

In Mark’s final days, he said he was ready. On Thursday, he told his family, “One day more.”

Mark was on heavy medication throughout his last day, Friday, but according to Sharon around 6pm he became alert and talkative. He said clearly, “I don’t know how to get there.” His brother Kim told him, “You get into your big Lincoln, turn on the heated seats, put on Martina McBride, and tool on down the highway.” And Mark said “Yes, that’s the way.” And that’s how he went, later that night.

Mark passed the way he wanted: at home, peacefully, without pain, surrounded by his family, with his dogs at his side, in a house that he loved in an extended community that loved him. We should all be so lucky. And we were lucky, for knowing Mark. We are all the better for having had him in our lives.

Remembrance of Mark: Clay Loomis

Moment of Reflection: Amazing Grace

Closing Reading:

In his final weeks Mark and I talked about the readings he wanted presented at this service. We talked about traditional biblical passages, but none of those felt right to Mark. There was one poem he wanted read during the service here, as it was one of his personal favorites. It is Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Closing Prayer:

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we’ve gathered together to celebrate Mark Akers and we now give him to your eternal keeping. Help his family find comfort in the days and weeks ahead. Let them know that Mark is at peace and has rejoined the family who went before him.

As a closing to this ceremony, let us now recite the words that you taught us to pray so long ago:

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Closing Music: I’ll Fly Away

Gravesite Service

Mark asked that I close here with the final passage from another of his favorite poems, Song of Myself, from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is non-traditional, like Mark, and perfectly fitting. Let’s bow our heads for a moment of personal prayer, and a reading of the passage Mark chose.

I bequeth myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop some where waiting for you.

Amen.

BHL: Assigning DOIs & Other Identifiers to Legacy Literature

2012-01-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

BHL: Assigning DOIs & Other Identifiers to Legacy Literature

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BHL and Linked Data at ALA Midwinter

2012-01-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

At the next-to-last minute I was invited on a panel at the American Library Association Midwinter meeting this weekend in Dallas, TX. Awesome, gives me an opportunity to talk about BHL's experience assigning DOIs to legacy literature, and I want to demonstrate CrossRef's Linked Data integration for DOIs:

Press Release:
http://www.crossref.org/crweblog/2011/04/crossref_and_international_doi.html

Tech info:
http://www.crossref.org/CrossTech/2011/04/content_negotiation_for_crossr.html

The DOI I'm demo'ing is associated with "The amoebae living in man; a zoological monograph" because that's a great title!
It's online at BHL at: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/10172
And its DOI is: 10.5962/bhl.title.10172

I've used Disco & Marbles and am getting nowhere fast.

The irony that I'm giving a talk on Linked Data & am a Tech Director and am asking this is not lost on me. I'm also not too proud to admit gaps in my knowledge and to reach out for assistance when needed. Basically just interested in retrieving some RDF for the DOI, grab a screenshot of the response. Anyone interested in helping out and getting mad props at ALA, on Twitter, on Slideshare, and everywhere else I blab on about?

***UPDATE 20 Jan 2012***
I found it surprising that everyone (4ppl) err'd out, so I send a support question to CrossRef. Turns out their API had a bug! They weren't returning results for DOIs assigned to books that don't have an ISBN, and much of BHL is ISBN-less. Bowker is the ISBN registration agency in the US and we pose too much of a weird case for them, have never been able to move further on assigning ISBN's to legacy content, and probably won't. Anyway, they were glad we pointed out this anomaly and they'll have a fix out early next week. Glad I asked, rather than assuming it was me & giving up. Thanks to all who provided input & assistance: @asaletourneau, @cajunjoel, @rdmpage. And my talk is online at: http://www.slideshare.net/chrisfreeland/bhl-assigning-dois-other-identifiers-to-legacy-literature

BOINCing Angry Birds for BHL: Purposeful Gaming in Digital Libraries

2011-12-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

We've been talking about the subject of crowdsourcing and gaming for the Biodiversity Heritage Library for several months now, but as it is outside any BHL project funding, no one has taken on the challenge. During last month's Life & Literature Conference I led the Technology breakout session, and the subject of gaming came up again, but this time with the caveat that it should have a purpose - as in, creating a game out of BHL content that works to enhance the data contained within BHL, like defining article boundaries, setting page types (e.g., map, illustration, text, blank), rekeying scientific names, etc.

I think the purposeful gamification of BHL would be a huge opportunity to make BHL an even richer resource. Other digital libraries are taking this approach. The National Library of Finland leads the pack with its "DigitalKoot" project, which features different Facebook apps that have players rekey suspect text in OCR via games that, in one example, builds bridges for moles to find love. I've played them. They're kind of fun. I've ended up killing a lot of lonely moles because I don't have the right characters on my US keyboard.

You could imagine BHL putting its OCR into the same games for improvement. But I actually want something else - I want offline games. DigitalKoot runs through Facebook, so I have to be connected to play. I travel internationally, so I spend a lot of down time on planes and I turn off data roaming on my iPhone whenever I reach my destination because it's incredibly expensive. Who the heck wants to spend hundreds of euros rekeying Finnish OCR? But if I had an offline game, one that didn't require me to always be connected to the Internet, I could spend LOTS of time doing this kind of purposeful gaming.

I was asked to expand on this idea a bit today while in Brussels for a BHL-Europe meeting. I was finally able to put it together in a way that made sense for people - I want a game like Angry Birds that I can play while I'm standing in a long grocery store line, or flying, or on a train...basically any time that I have some spare cycles.

And when I described this as "spare cycles" it brought me full circle to a project we did in 2005 called SciLINC ("Scientific Literature Indexing on Networked Computers", my best acronym ever, thank you very much). SciLINC was a project that used the BOINC framework, which is open-source software for volunteer computing and grid computing, to find scientific names in literature, preceeding our work with TaxonFinder. The BOINC platform grew out of the SETI@Home project, where users downloaded software that ran as a screensaver and used the spare cycles of an unused computer to crunch through radio waves looking for signs of extraterrestrial life, and then reported the results back to a main server when the computing job was done and when it had a live network connection.

In the SciLINC project we packaged up OCR text and sent it to volunteer computers along with an algorithm for finding scientific names. It was a wonderful demonstration, but we ran out of jobs in about 2 days because text indexing isn't processor intensive; the best BOINC projects take small inputs that require lots of computing resources. Lessons learned (final report here, & appendix). In doing the project I gained an understanding of how jobs are packaged for distribution to volunteers and the kinds of inputs and outputs that are successful in an asynchronous computing environment.

So to bring this all together, I want a gaming system that improves the metadata in BHL. I want it to be asynchronous and offline so that I can play the game using my own spare cycles (time & brainpower) whenever & wherever and then upload my results to the "game master" when I'm next connected. To do that requires that the system sends me packages of data that don't wreak havoc on a mobile data plan (small inputs), but that give me enough tasks to work on with all of my spare cycles on planes. The tasks have to result in improvements in BHL, not just throwing birds at pigs. And it has to be fun. And it should probably have a killer soundtrack (Tetris, anyone?).

Who's with me?

Report from Life & Literature Breakouts

2011-11-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Life & Literature Future Framing for BHL

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14-15 November, 2011, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA. http://www.lifeandliterature.org.

2011-11-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

Good coverage of my project(s) in Popular Science article "Bringing Biodiversity Data Online, One Leaf At A Time":
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/pressed-plants-are-data-too

I especially like "Freeland is a self-described open-access evangelist, encouraging other herbaria and museums to share their collections as openly as possible." Open Data #FTW!

Scribbles & Scraps: Darwin’s Library & the Online Display of Annotated Biodiversity Literature

2011-10-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

Scribbles & Scraps: Darwin’s Library & Annotated Literature

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The intersection where I didn't die in 1998

2011-10-16T00:29:00.001-07:00

The intersection where I didn't die in 1998, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

I should not be here, writing this. In 1998, at 23 years old, I was hit by a car at this intersection in New Orleans and but for the grace of God I did not die. I jumped. At the last second. And I don't know why. In the middle of the day my partner (just "boyfriend" at the time, having dated less than 6 months; it's now been more than 13 years) and I were crossing the street. We had been on vacation at his family's place in Pensacola Beach, Florida, and then finished up the week with a crazy weekend in New Orleans. I've had crazy weekends in Nola before-one in 1996 that gave me freedom in ways that aren't appropriate for mention here, one in 1997 that confirmed the relationship I was in at the time was doomed, and then this trip.

We were coming back from a day trip to the Garden District. We were walking up Peters Street to find a place for lunch, and decided to cross the street at Decatur/St. Louis to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. As we crossed the street, a drunk driver hit me. I saw it all happen in slow motion. She was driving a green Beretta (ironic, given that was what my ex from 1997 drove) and as I crossed the street, with my partner a few paces ahead, she took a left turn and hit me full on. At the very last second, I jumped. She was drunk, and she didn't stop. She drove on for more than 10 feet. If I hadn't jumped, she would have run me over and I would not be alive today. That fact was almost instantly imprinted on my mind. If I hadn't jumped, I would be dead.

But I jumped. And so I ended up on the hood of her car instead of under her tires. What I will never forget, as long as I am lucky to live, is the expression on her face when she hit me. She was not remorseful, she was not surprised-she laughed. She and her drunk friend in the passenger seat laughed as I landed on the hood of her car. How do I know she was drunk? Because it was obvious, to me. Because I saw her runny eyes through the windshield. In the instant that took an eternity, as I fell onto her car, I made eye contact and saw that there was no comprehension behind her gaze.

And since this was the middle of the day, there were dozens of people watching this all play out, including my partner, whose reaction I can only imagine with horror. I rolled off the hood of her car and limped over to the curb. By the time I made it to the sidewalk she had driven off, she sped away, she left the scene. Bystanders got her license plate, and made sure that I was ok, which unbelievably I was. We walked up a block to the Hard Rock Cafe, the first available open business (this was all before cell phones), and called the cops. The rest of the day is an adrenaline blur. At some point I remember my partner and I in our hotel room, laying on our rented bed, crying. Not out of sorrow, but out of joy. I was alive. I had a nasty bruise on my right shin, AND THAT WAS ALL! I was alive.

And so every trip back to New Orleans is a crazy mix of anticipation (because fun is just around the corner) and excitement (because fun is just around the corner) and anxiety (because sometimes that corner is dangerous). I was given a gift of unusual perspective on life at 23, and as unbelievable as it sounds, I'm glad it happened. I said this happened by the grace of God and that's truly what I believe. I did not die that day. I was spared for some reason that is unknown to me, and every moment since has been a gift. I know it sounds trite, I know it sounds simple, but it's what I believe. I try to make the most of every day because I nearly didn't have another one. I hope you can do the same.

QR Code from BHL Illustration

2011-10-05T16:46:00.001-07:00

QR Code from BHL Illustration, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Trying out more ideas with QR codes & BHL imagery, inspired by http://www.w3sh.com/2011/08/30/creatif-cinema-une-utilisation-intelligente-du-qr-code/

Remembering a victim of 9/11: My personal memorial

2011-09-11T12:00:00.001-07:00

9/11 Memorial, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

My partner & I traveled to NYC in January 2002, less than 4 months after 9/11. People were still covering fences, trees, buildings and any other available space with memorials and fliers for those who had gone missing in the WTC attacks. The Port Authority had built a viewing platform over a section of Ground Zero that winter, and we went to view the site. It was somber, standing on the street beside Trinity Church and then walking past the hundreds of signs and posters and shrines as we approached the platform. What I remember about Ground Zero that night was that it looked like a regular construction site - bulldozers, bare earth, building materials stacked around. Nothing unusual, except for the giant American flag hanging from a neighboring building and hundreds of people walking around as if at a wake, which it was.

We left the platform and walked more than a block before crossing the street to return to our hotel, passing more memorial signs, and were stopped by a traffic light. I pushed the "Walk" button on the post and stopped to look at the sign taped above it. Staring back was a smiling woman and her daughter, or maybe younger sister. The sign was weathered and torn, as if it had been posted for a long time. Many of the other homemade signs and color printouts we had seen on display were newer and labeled "In Memoriam" but this was clearly older and posted with "MISSING" in big, black letters along the top. I knew that woman's family, maybe the other younger woman in the picture, had made this in hopes of finding their sister/mother/daughter in the days after 9/11. Because the sign was old it was starting to tear away from the tape on the post, and I could see the ripped edges fluttering in the winter breeze. When we were standing in line we had overheard two women talking about how every few weeks some municipal authority (Streets or Port Authority, maybe even Refuse) gathered the signs and trinkets left at the site; some were kept for archival purposes but the vast majority were burned.

Without thinking, I reached out and tore off the piece of the sign that was freed from the tape, about to blow away on its own in the wind. A woman standing behind me gasped, as if by tearing the sign I was somehow interfering with the woman's rescue, or desecrating her memory. I stuffed the piece of paper in my pocket in spite of the disapproving looks from the woman behind me, and from my partner as well.

I didn't take the scrap of paper as a memento or a souvenir. That freed section had the image of her face, and I couldn't bear the thought of her picture becoming lost along the gutter and swept up like trash. I could only imagine that she herself, her being, had suffered far worse during the attacks and collapse of the buildings, and I thought she deserved more respect than to be cast aside in body and image. I keep that piece of paper in a special place, and I think about her every 9/11, and the other Americans who lost their lives that day. I don't know her name. And I'll never forget her face.

Plant Name Services Using Tropicos.org

2011-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Plant Name Services Using Tropicos

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BHL at IBC18 in Melbourne

2011-07-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL): A Global Resource for Open Access Scientific Literature

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DPLA Summary from Jun mtg

2011-06-14T18:29:00.001-07:00

DPLA Summary from Jun mtg, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Summary:

DPLA should "enable, provide, facilitate"
Want to aggregate existing data & create new
Need less emphasis on the front door, more on services & multiple entry points
Openness: Code (+), Metadata (+), Content (?)
- "No New Gatekeepers!"
Identify gaps/needs in current systems
- Change management service, trackback, metadata versioning
Sprint: Call for data providers, usability testing, future iterations
GeekSquad for Public Libraries
- Digitization services, shared experiences & support
A DPLA vision: contextualization, curated multimedia playlist, social interactions around objects
- Need: Unified framework & disambiguation services

QR Poster for Engelmann Project

2011-05-06T12:34:00.001-07:00

QR Poster for Engelmann Project, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Well, I've been at it again. I had a poster to prepare for the upcoming Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) meeting in San Francisco, and got this idea of using QR codes absolutely stuck in my head, to the point where I went a little crazy trying to figure out the best way of integrating an actionable barcode into a poster that describes our work on the IMLS-funded "Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy" project. I was in New York a couple of weeks ago when the lightbulb figuratively and just a little bit literally went on after viewing two publicly displayed works:

A giant QR code in Times Square, and
Urs Fischer's giant bronze teddy bear / lamp sculpture featured in an upcoming sale at Christie's

Seeing the giant QR code started me thinking of what I could do with an oversized one in my poster, and Fischer's sculpture made me consider scale and the spatial relationship between viewer and object, and viewer and others around. At first I was annoyed at how people kept getting in my way when I tried to take a picture of the sculpture, but then I realized that I needed those people in the frame to give a sense of the true size of the object; without people it's just a lovable bear, with people it's a giant metal sculpture that could happily fall over and crush you.

I decided I wanted to do a large QR code that links to the Engelmann web site as the main graphical element of the poster so that people needed to stand back a few feet to scan it with their smartphones. But there's also text that you have to be close to the poster to read, so a viewer needs to look at it up close as well as back a bit, which means that (hopefully) people will be interacting around the poster - getting in each others way, maybe apologizing for doing so, maybe talking, maybe not.

But then I decided I didn't want *just* a QR code - that would be boring. So, I went back to a poster I made last year and borrowed the same photomosaic technique to construct a graphical element that's a QR code from afar and a thousand tiny images up close. 2,025 images to be exact (45x45), taken from books we scanned as part of the project. So to pull it all together, I:

Used this web site to create a QR code that when scanned, takes the viewer to the Engelmann web site. I chose this site for creating the code because it output the code as a vector image in EPS format, which I needed to scale it up poster-size.
Used Photoshop to rasterize the QR code at 45"x45" at 300dpi in GIF format as input to the photomosaic program.
Assembled the 1"x1" square page images with MOBOT Imaging Lab superstar Mike Blomberg's help to crop & resize the images, and corrected colors to get a set of white images and a set of black images.
Used MacOSaiX to generate the QR mosaic. I used the GIF image from step 2 as the source and the 2,000+ images from step 3 as each tile. MacOSaiX did all the hard work of setting tiles in place & exporting out the results as a JPG.
I then took that JPG & dropped it into a PowerPoint document sized 36"x48" I was planning to print the poster at 48" wide, and would have then used the 45" wide mosaic without scaling, but my friendly FedEx Office outpost was running a sale on 36" posters, so I scaled the QR mosaic to fit & saved more than $50!

This took me weeks to mull over & brainstorm & figure out, and only about 4-6 hours of people effort to actually complete. Here's a link to the finished poster:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisfreeland/5693579593

I'm pleased with it, and hope you think it's cool, too! Stop by & see the poster (and me!) if you're at SPNHC in San Francisco 23-28 May.

2011-02-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

Digitized Public Domain Literature / Digital Public Library of America Workshop

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Real Life Angry Birds of St. Louis

2011-02-13T00:26:00.001-08:00

Damn pigs looking on, making me an angry bird, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Damn pigs looking on, making me an angry bird

Doggie Doesn't Like Tornado Sirens, St. Louis, 12/31/10

2010-12-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

Surgery for Morton's Neuroma & Recovery, or, "You're going to do WHAT to my foot??"

2010-12-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This is a somewhat long, rambling post. I'm writing this to help others who are facing surgery to correct Morton's Neuroma and to describe my recovery process and progress.

I'm now three weeks post-op for surgery to remove a damaged nerve in my foot. I was diagnosed with a condition called "Morton's Neuroma" that wreaked havoc on my mobility for the better part of 2010. The story goes like this...

I'm 35, 6'2", weigh 190lbs, and wear a size 13 (US) shoe. So, yeah, big feet. I've always had a hard time finding shoes that fit well, and usually made the stupid choice of style over comfort. That was never much of a problem...until this year. I work in the fields of science & technology and have had a fairly sedentary desk/office job for more than 10 years, plus I live in St. Louis, where everyone drives everywhere. Two years ago I started frequent domestic & international travel for work. One of the aspects of travel I enjoy most is being on foot much more than at home. Towards the end of 2009 I started noticing some uncomfortable tightness & pain in my right toes, foot & ankle, but just brushed it off as aches & pains associated with getting older & not being in prime physical condition.

This continued through the spring of 2010, with the pain getting worse & becoming more persistent. No longer was it just the occasional "ouch" when walking on an uneven surface - I would wake up feeling like my foot was on fire, and have sharp, shooting pain through my toes & up to my ankle every time I put my foot down. Without realizing it, I started walking on the outer edge of my foot to avoid the pain, which then started causing my ankle to hurt more & swell. Not exactly a good situation.

I finally went to my physician in late spring & was first referred to a podiatrist. He poked & pressed around on my foot & ankle in ways that made me squirm, and not in a good way, so he ordered up some xrays. The first round showed what looked like fractures in a couple of metatarsals (the bones that run from the base of your toes to your midfoot) so he sent me for an MRI. It showed that I had torn tendons on my ankle and stress fractures that had rehealed in my 2nd & 3rd phalanges & metatarsals (toes & foot). He then referred me to an orthopedic surgeon, and that's when things started getting medieval.

The orthopedist reviewed my MRI & did her own xrays, plus talked with me about all the pain I was having. Her diagnosis was that I had a neuroma, or nerve tumor, between my 2nd & 3rd toes caused by the improper healing of the broken metatarsals, as well as poor bone morphology.

Long story short (by this time it was September): the 2nd & 3rd toes on my right foot are more closely aligned than normal. I did something (don't know what, exactly) that caused those bones to fracture. They healed on their own, but not perfectly, and so those crazy cracked bones were grinding on the nerve that runs between them. That damaged nerve was causing the shooting pains, which in turn was causing me to walk in such a way as to avoid the pain, which was tearing tendons in my ankle.

Fun, huh?!

So then, to treatment. Apparently you can't do an xray or MRI & see if you have a damaged nerve, so you literally have to take a shot in the dark - a cortisone shot directly into the nerve. Now listen, I have a very high pain threshold (piercings, tattoos) but that mother HURT! But it worked. My foot was numb, like your mouth feels after getting a shot at the dentist, and for the first time in months it didn't hurt or ache or burn. Success.

I was also sent for physical therapy, which didn't do a damn thing. I got special inserts for my shoes, which helped alleviate a little bit of the pain, but not enough to make a difference in my daily activities. Frustrating & expensive.

On my followup visit with the orthopedist we talked about next steps and because the cortisone shot was so effective, she considered me a good candidate for surgery. As in, surgery to remove the damaged nerve. As in, cut open your foot, hack out the nerve, sew it back up, send you home. This freaked me out a little bit. I wasn't worried about the surgery itself, I was worried about the recovery & long term side effects. My doc talked me through this - because the nerve is removed, I'd be left with a numb spot on the top & bottom of my foot along the incision, plus the inner sides of my 2nd & 3rd toes would be numb. The numbness would not affect balance, and following recovery I'd be able to walk normally & return to activities that I'd given up because of the pain, namely going to the gym & doing yoga.

But, wow, it's irreversible, optional surgery. I mean, it's optional in that I wouldn't die if I didn't have surgery. And you know, once you cut out a nerve it's gone - it can regenerate a little bit, but it's not like it's going to magically grow back & be 100%. So I was facing a difficult decision: have the surgery & be left with a numb spot on my foot, or don't have the surgery & be left with a painful spot on my foot. Plus, I read a few web sites & forums from people who had had the surgery; some with good results, some with bad results. This post in particular & its comments scared the bejesus out of me...so much so that I got a second opinion & had a very lengthy followup with my doc to make sure I was making the right decision.

And so after a lot of consideration, I opted for surgery. And I don't regret it one bit.

The surgery itself was a snap - outpatient, in & out in 7 hours. My partner was traveling for work & couldn't change his schedule, so my best friend Tagert took me to the facility. I was admitted, did the paperwork, assigned a bay & bed, got an IV, met with my surgeon, laughed over the mark she put on my foot, waved to the camera, and then Dr. Feelgood came in to give me meds and it's all a blur after that. I sort of remember being wheeled out of the bay into the OR, and kind of remember cracking some joke as they moved me to the operating table, but seriously, I woke up in recovery & thought I'd just dozed off. I was surprised to see that my foot was all bandaged up & the surgery was over. I had no adverse reactions to the anesthesia, so I had a couple of crackers, a little bit of juice, and was sent home.

And then I spent the next 10 days like this:

Yes, really. Tagert stayed with me that night while my partner was out of town, and two neighbors came over to help get me food & get me situated. I was on heavy narcotics (Norco; LOVELY stuff) every 4 hours, along with a few other meds for inflammation & to prevent blood clots. For the first 3 days my foot was completely numb from the anesthetic block. It felt like concrete - just numb & heavy & useless. I kept my foot elevated - "toes above your nose" - with the help of pillows, and got off the couch as little as possible. When I did get up it was for short periods of time only and I had to use crutches to get around. I have to say, and I know it may sound bad, but honestly it was a really restful experience - wake up, take a pill, watch TV, fall asleep, repeat. My two dogs were with me, one of whom got to spend all her time on the couch next to me. Time had no meaning or importance. As the Italians say, "Dolce far niente" - it is sweet to do nothing.

On my 3rd day after surgery (a Thursday) I returned to work via couch & laptop & wifi. On that Friday I thought I'd be brave and start cutting back on the pain pills. Big mistake. Huge. The pain started edging in & then all of a sudden it was so intense & so present that it made me sick to my stomach. I got right back on the Norco horse & rode it through the weekend. On my 10th day after surgery I went in for a checkup & had my bandages removed & stitches out. That hurt like hell.

As of this writing I'm on my 4th week of recovery. Between that first week & now I've gotten off the pain meds, but am still taking aspirin to reduce the risk of blood clots. I am driving (something I couldn't do while stitches were in) and I've ditched the crutches. I use a cane when I'm outside the house because I still have limited flexibility in my toes & the cane helps me move around with stability. I've returned to work, and all things considered, once again am a productive member of society.

And so what everyone wants to know is: is your foot numb? The answer is yes. I have about a 2" numb spot on my foot that follows the incision, and those inner sides of my 2nd & 3rd toes are numb. I still have normal nerve supply to the other side of each toe, and the doc said that there were small fibrous nerves in the top of each toe remaining, so overall I've only lost a very small portion of feeling in my foot. I'm gaining flexibility and am able to be on my feet for longer periods of time every day.

The other thing people want to know is: would I do it again? The answer is yes, absolutely, because I'm free from pain. For the first time this year I'm able to wake up without feeling like my foot is on fire. I can walk without feeling like I'm stepping on nails every time I put my foot down. I feel like I have my life back, and that is wonderful.

If you have been diagnosed with a neuroma & are considering surgery, please read any & all of the above as the experience of one person. Overall my experience has been good, but I have heard from others who have had less successful procedures. I think for me it was finding the right surgeon & working with her to make sure this was the right procedure for me. I have had the luxury of a healthy stockpile of sick time & vacation days (as well as doing this during the holiday season) which has allowed me to be at work when I'm able to be productive & at home when I'm not. I also think I came into the surgery with realistic expectations of what I'd be able to do during recovery & afterwards, and so while my dreams of being a professional dancer may be over, I'm able to do my actual professional work without pain & suffering.

Last thing: I could not have made it through this recovery time without proper support, both physical & emotional. For physical support of my foot I got a pair of orthopedic Crocs. Now look, I'm not a fan of Crocs. I think they're ugly and I've never understood why people wear them...until I put these on. They are light, they are comfortable, they are quite possibly the smartest purchase I've made in years. This particular line has an extra wide toe box that makes for easy on & off without pain or fuss. If you're going through any kind of foot surgery I highly recommend these. As for emotional support, I've always been an independent person but there's no way I could have gotten through this without the help of my family & friends. You *have* to have someone around in your first week to be your feet & hands - to go get things for you, to run errands, to bring in the mail, that kind of boring, normal stuff - because I'm convinced that my successful recovery is due to taking it completely easy for as long as possible. So to everyone who has helped me, I give a huge THANK YOU!

I wrote this for the sake of sharing information about my experience with Morton's Neuroma surgery & recovery. If you're facing something similar, I hope you find this helpful, and I'll be glad to talk with you or answer any questions you might have.

2010 Flights

2010-12-21T22:49:00.001-08:00

2010 Flights, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

79 flights

141,174 miles

13 days 9 hours 8 minutes

9 Countries

20 Airports

5 Carriers

Distance

5.67 Times Around the World

0.591 Times to the Moon

Longest Flight: MEL↔LAX, 7927 mi, 16 hours 21 minutes

Shortest Flight: STL↔ORD, 257 mi, 1 hour

Routes

STL↔ORD 19

LHR↔ORD 6

DFW↔STL 5

BOS↔ORD 5

DCA↔STL 4

STL↔LGA 4

SFO↔STL 4

LHR↔VIE 2

STL↔JFK 2

EWR↔STL 2

Airports

Lambert St Louis Int (STL) 42

Chicago Ohare Intl (ORD) 38

Heathrow (LHR) 14

Dallas Fort Worth In (DFW) 10

La Guardia (LGA) 6

General Edward Lawre (BOS) 6

San Francisco Intl (SFO) 6

Melbourne Intl (MEL) 4

Ronald Reagan Washin (DCA) 4

Capital Intl (PEK) 4

Data compiled from OpenFlights.org

You Too Can Participate in International Botanical Congress 2011

2010-10-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am holding a symposium at next year's International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, Australia, entitled "Informatics Tools for the Semantic Enhancement of Taxonomic Literature"

The abstract for the symposium is included here:

In recent years the landscape has dramatically changed regarding the availability of digital taxonomic literature, both contemporary publications as well as legacy texts. Projects like the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Plazi, among others, have digitized and made available a wealth of scientific texts that support the online review of protologues and species descriptions. While this advent has been exceptionally useful for scholars and has undoubtedly expedited the taxonomic process, making this literature available in digital form opens the possibility for new secondary analyses that are impossible to accomplish with traditional printed texts.

Scholars working in natural language processing, semantic markup, and other efforts within biodiversity informatics are developing new tools for the use of these digitized materials beyond the traditional human-paper interaction. These new human-machine and machine-machine interactions are facilitated by emerging software tools that enhance the traditional scientific publication, turning these texts into rich, interactive datasets that can be incorporated into other analyses.

This seminar will explore the motivation behind the digitization of historic taxonomic literature as well as the contemporary publication of new treatments and texts, and how those texts can be enhanced by these new informatics tools. Panelists will review the progress made through both legacy digitization as well as contemporary publication, and special focus will be given to scholars who are currently building the informatics tools that help provide fine-grained, semantic description of traditional taxonomic texts. Using these novel algorithms and applications, presenters will detail how taxonomic publications can be enhanced through semantic description and how these enriched texts can expedite the taxonomic process and facilitate the open sharing of organismal data to a global audience of scholars and students.

Abstract submission is open through 31 October 2010 at:
http://www.ibc2011.com/Abstracts.htm

2010-07-20T19:51:00.001-07:00

BHL in the Cloud: A Pilot Project with DuraCloud

View more presentations from Chris Freeland.

Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy

2010-07-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy

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Mapping Plant Specimens that Document the Great American Frontier
ESRI Education User Conference – July 13, 2010 – San Diego, CA
http://www.tropicos.org/Project/Engelmann

BHL Technologies: Review for BHL-Australia

2010-06-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

BHL Technologies: Review for BHL-Australia

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BHL poster for AETFAT2010

2010-04-19T20:09:00.001-07:00

BHL poster for AETFAT2010, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

Due to the volcano in Iceland, I may or may not be going to Madagascar for the AETFAT conference on Thursday as planned. I'm routed through London, everything else is full, so I think I'll have to be making a go/no-go decision on Thursday morning. One of my main reasons for going to the conference was to present this poster (and another one for Tropicos) and I hope I get to display it because I think it turned out really well! Using a variety of open software and open data, I made a photomosaic of Africa and Madagascar from the title pages of books tagged with "Africa" or "Madagascar" in the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Here's how I did it:

1. Downloaded the BHL schema from http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/BHLExportSchema.pdf and the following data exports:

• Title: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/title.txt (10MB+)

• Subject: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/subject.txt (3MB+)

• Item: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/item.txt (14MB+)

2. Imported those text files into tables in a simple db app (MySQL or Access). I set up a One-to-Many relationship between the Title.TitleID field and Subject.TitleID and Item.TitleID, describing how a title ("Flore de Madagascar") has shared data in subjects ("Madagascar") and items ("Volume 25"). Note the field Item.ThumbnailPageID, which indicates the pageID of the image described as either the Title Page, or if no Title Page is selected, then a representative page of interest from the book.

3. Using a simple query editor I created a SQL statement to select the ThumbnailPageID from digitized items whose titles are tagged with the subjects "%Africa%" or "%Madagascar%." Using these wild cards included subjects like "South Africa" and "Madagascar, Central."

4. Using BHL's API documentation for images, I added "http://biodiversitylibrary.org/pagethumb/" to each of the pageIDs in 3. above. This field now contains the link to the page image for the 851 title pages.

5. I used a download manager (Speed Download for Mac OSX; there are plenty for Win/Unix) to grab those 851 JPGs. Using the default size returned, each tile was small at 200 pixels wide, averaging 8k each.

6. I used the map of Africa and Madagascar from UiO as a reference image because it didn't have the sea terrain present, which muddled my first few attempts. I blew that image up using *proprietary software alert* Adobe Photoshop. You can use other imaging software to do the same, but I like Photoshop. I made a blank image roughly 3'x4' at 300 dpi and pasted in the source image, then scaled it to the size of the poster.

7. I then used MacOSaiX to build the photomosaic. This is where all the magic happens, and where I did the least. I just told the app to use the reference image from 6 & the thumbnails from 5 to build the mosaic, and off it went. After 40 minutes or so it beeped and said it was done. Voila! A photomosaic of Africa and Madagascar made from title pages of open access science books.

8. To make the poster I pasted the JPG into *proprietary software alert* Microsoft PowerPoint, because it's surprisingly easy to use for poster layout. Dropped in some text, logo, & a URL and there you have it - a cool poster using open data and (mostly) open software.

You can download the finished poster here as a 1MB JPG.

I'm purposefully documenting how I did this to encourage others to incorporate BHL data into their visualizations & presentations. BHL is an incredibly rich dataset with open access policies and open APIs, and this is but one simple example of how I was able to filter data and extract out compelling images from the millions we have scanned.