GrokSurf's San Diego by George J. Janczyn is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Anything on this blog copied and used elsewhere online must include attribution and a link to the original on this blog, or a citation with the URL if reprinted on hard copy.
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 27, 2009
On this Black Friday I’m just shopping for waves at the cliffs. The top of Hill Street gives a nice view to the east and west, so I grabbed a few early morning shots before hitting the cliffs. There was a cold stiff offshore breeze which gave the surfers a little trouble catching waves but the wind died down after the sun came up. The swell was building; marine reports say the size should hold through Saturday.
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Click here to see the entire Friday Spot Check series.
Posted in Friday spot check, Surfing, Videos | Tagged: Sunset Cliffs | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 24, 2009
The U-T has a “Just Fix it” column you can contact if there is “a problem government hasn’t taken care of despite your complaints.” The column’s writer selects cases and follows up by contacting the appropriate agency and resolving communication issues or other impediments to the solution. Good PR for the U-T although the scope of service is by necessity limited by space and time.
I wonder why the U-T or another news organization (or the city, for that matter) doesn’t take advantage of one of the online services that let people easily request 311-type government services, facilitating the process of getting requests routed to the appropriate agency and tracking them for follow-through.
Such services allow people to report problems from their mobile devices in addition to their computers and even to include photos in their reports. People can see what else is being reported in their areas and add their “vote” to issues already submitted that they are also concerned about.
Take a look at some of these offerings.
http://www.seeclickfix.com/
A neighborhood reporting system that has been established for some time
http://www.zeemaps.com/
Another reporting system
http://geotrac.demo.topplabs.org/query
Another reporting system
http://www.fixmystreet.com/
An example from Great Britain
http://open311.org/
A website meant to facilitate an international effort to build open interoperable systems that allow citizens to more directly interact with their cities.
On the live SeeClickFix map you can hover a spot to view details
Having such a system for San Diego could lead to better service, reach new constituents, and facilitate interagency collaboration. Wouldn’t something like this be a handy resource for our community?
Apr 12, 2010: O’Reilly Radar just published this review of SeeClickFix.
Posted in Government, Internet, Newspapers, Technology | Tagged: 311 services, Crowdsourcing, SeeClickFix | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 23, 2009
Over the years, Tim O’Reilly’s publishing house has served as a definitive source for computing information. He’s commonly cited as a top leader in the Web 2.0 movement. So when O’Reilly recently warned that big corporations are jeopardizing the internet as an interactive and collaborative medium, we should take note.
O’Reilly’s comments appeared in this report from Information Week.
The report states that the web is in danger of “segmenting into a federation of closed camps led by a handful of increasingly powerful vendors” and that O’Reilly believes vendors should focus more on benefits for the user instead of enhancing their competitive position.
We can certainly hope that vendors will become enlightened enough to realize it’s not in their long-term best interest to create walled gardens out of their products and services. I’m thinking of ISPs and companies like Apple and Google. But the other side of that coin is the possibility that people will go on accepting products that restrict their freedom as if that’s the way it must be. Will we allow ourselves to be herded into pens, or will we support those vendors who promote an open system?
Posted in Internet, Technology | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 20, 2009
It was a chilly 50 degrees as the sun came up at the shores. High tide, sets mostly waist/shoulder, with a few head highs. Nearby, a crew prepared to serve lunch, refreshments, and medical assistance for participants in the Susan G. Komen for the Cure 3 Day Walk for breast cancer. They began at Del Mar and will have lunch here, ultimately will end up downtown at Petco Park.
The waves were a little larger towards Scripps Pier; that’s where I shot the video. Pics can be enlarged by clicking.
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Click here to see the entire Friday Spot Check series.
Posted in Friday spot check, Surfing, Videos | Tagged: La Jolla Shores | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 19, 2009
Posted in Regional water news roundups, Water | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 18, 2009
The San Diego County Water Authority has posted a photographic tour of the San Vicente Dam Raising Project. Click here to see it.
The November Lakeside Community Planning Group Update also has a few pictures.
I’m on the waiting list for a tour, and will post photos and more detail here afterwards.
My earlier posts on the project:
Posted in Environment, Land use, Water | Tagged: San Vicente Reservoir | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 17, 2009
Since I began using it, Twitter has proven to be increasingly useful for me to get news on subjects I’m interested in (it isn’t necessary to follow the noise, you know), and the recently developed Twitter Lists feature has enabled me to topically organize and filter relevant sources. It’s just a matter of identifying a good source to follow (and study who they follow and who follows them to identify more good sources).
When Seesmic Desktop was announced recently, I thought it might be a useful tool for using Twitter and it is. Being able to open and display several lists at once is quite nice. No need to jump around as much. With Twitter alone, I also found I sometimes missed seeing a reply that got buried in my home page timeline, but that’s no problem with Seesmic because it can gather all replies together in a column just like any other list. Below is a Seesmic page with three lists showing, navigation bar on the left.
Seesmic has a user-oriented feedback system too, one that social services like Facebook and, um, Twitter, should take note of. As you type on their feedback page, your keywords are instantly matched with previous comments and displayed, so that you can see other comments on that topic. Then, instead of entering a duplicate comment, you can enter a vote on the previously submitted comment to show how many people support that idea. If you wish, you can continue and submit your own comment. Nice touch, and clearly one that benefits the Seesmic team as well. I think more services should use this technique. In the picture below, I was going to suggest that they make their columns scroll smoothly rather than incrementally by post, and this came up after I entered “smooth scrolling”:
I’m not suggesting that Seesmic is the best tool (TweetDeck would have to be a contender although it doesn’t support Twitter lists yet)[Nov 30--it does now, update just released], as there are plenty of other Twitter apps out there. I just happened to try it and it turns out I like it.
Posted in Internet, Technology | Tagged: Seesmic, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 15, 2009
A few months ago I discovered a file sharing service at S4ve.as/. It was a free service that allowed you to upload a file of any size, receive a URL that you could share with others for 24 hours, after which time the file would be deleted. This seemed like a good idea for sharing extra large files that might not be conveniently shared through email. I tried it a few times and it worked fine.
However, about a month ago the website suddenly went out, with a message that they were working on technical difficulties but would be back soon. After repeatedly checking back in subsequent weeks with no updates posted, I decided the website was down for good.
Today I see the site is working again, but it’s now charging $.99 per file uploaded, still subject to the 24-hour limit. It might be an attractive offer if the file remained permanently accessible, but not if you can only use it for 24 hours. I doubt they’ll find many takers.
[on second thought, even permanently, for one file it wouldn't be worth it. There are too many other ways to do it for free]
Posted in Internet, Technology | Tagged: File sharing, S4ve.as | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 15, 2009
San Diego’s U-T reported today (Wind farm plan irks activists) that “a remote corner of East County is shaping up as a battleground between companies pushing wind farms as clean and cheap power generators and activists who view them as a blight on the landscape.”
East County was shaping up as a battleground over wind power quite a while ago, as reported in a well-documented three-part account from East County Magazine last February (Part I, Part II, Part III). That report thoroughly explains what’s already done, what’s in development, and what’s being proposed from a variety of perspectives.
One of those the newer projects being planned, the Invenergy Campo Project was announced June 11 with Invenergy’s press release coinciding with a U-T story on the project.
The latest U-T article mentions Iberdrola Renewables as having the plan “drawing the most attention” but doesn’t clarify if that means there are other proposals for that specific site and Iberdrola is getting the most attention, or if Iberdrola’s project is just drawing more attention in comparison to the other completed or in development projects (Iberdrola’s website has no mention of its own plans either).
I’m also curious about the possibility of alternative-style wind turbines such as those produced by Helix Wind and described in this SD Daily Transcript article (a design that greatly reduces the risk to birds). Are alternative designs such as these being considered in any of the new proposals?
Posted in Environment, Land use, Technology | Tagged: Wind power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on November 13, 2009
I have a load of pictures for you this Friday. Arrived about 7:15am. Cloudy, high tide, choppy windswell knee-to-waist high, onshore breeze from the southwest. Good for kayaking, but a couple of longboards out too. Forecast says the swell should build into tomorrow. Also grabbed a few shots from Pipes, about 1/2 mile south of Swami’s at San Elijo (starts at the picture with the ramp). About the last picture: when I parked my Jeep, I was the only car on the whole street. When I came back, I found two cars boxing me in, even though the street was still empty. The car in front even ignored the red zone for handicapped access. Maybe my GOT SURF? bumper sticker and UCSD parking permit in the windshield didn’t qualify me as a local? Coincidentally, speaking of locals, the Reader just came out with a Swami’s locals-only story. Click photos to enlarge.
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Posted in Friday spot check, Surfing | Tagged: Swami's | 1 Comment »
