Update: The work of identifying the major trees of Tompkins Square Park has already been tackled. Flickrite Lucky-Dog sent me a link to this map from The East Village Parks Concervancy. But I still intend to continue taking photos of the trees and create a web interface.

Inspired by the project described in the Youtube video below, where basically one guy made a species map of every tree in Central Park. I’m starting a slightly less insane web-based project for the much smaller Tompkins Square Park. I’ll take the photos, and you interested botanists out there can help with the identifications. I’ll continue doing this as long as I’m having fun and there seems to be interest for it in the communities, local and web.

A good map of the park’s pathways would be very helpful to me. I’ve found none online. I need to design how to best display all this information on the blog. But I have thoughts of a clickable map and guided walks through the paths, who knows maybe an app. For the moment I’ll be tagging the photos with TSPTIP and inputting approximate coordinates to the location map on Flickr. Various tree enthusiasts in Flickr and Reddit are helping me with the identifications. It is probably best that I leave the photos tagged TSPTIP on my Flickr stream until the tree is identified to avoid confusion here. I’ve been photo-documenting this neighborhood for years but I am a novice in tree identificatiion. Any help with terminology etc. is more than welcome.

I was intrigued by the unusual mixture of large and small leaf bundles. I guessed elm from the shape of the leaves but I knew the bark was smoother than photos I’ve seen of elms. Consensus now seems to be Hornbeam (Carpinus sp.) This tree is halfway between 7th and 8th streets on the east side of the park.

Shiny leaves and berries on a tree or bush just north of the Avenue A and 9th street entrance. One vote for Ilex sp.
Common name Holly.

No one has had any ideas on this one so far.

“Inspiring talk from the DICE 2011 summit by puppeteer/animator/director John Stevenson, who got his start working on the Muppet Show and is probably best known for co-directing Kung-Fu Panda. In it John discusses his career, his relationship with Jim Henson and why he believes love is the most important element in everything you do.” Puppet Vision Blog. He’s a foul-mouthed, hyper-kinetic curmugeon, and talks about being inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad at age 6, and going on to work with Jim Henson. I haven’t seen Kung-Fu Panda, but now I want to.

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Update 3/15:  Michio Kaku – If I Had the Ear of the Prime Minister, I Would Recommend the “Chernobyl Option”

• Put the Japanese Air Force on alert
• Assemble a huge fleet of helicopters. Put shielding underneath them.
• Accumulate enough sand, boric acid, and concrete to smother these reactors, to entomb them forever.
• This is what the Soviets did in 1986, calling out the Red Air Force and sandbagging the reactor with over 5,000 tons of concrete and sand.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters blogs about the weather and possible paths the radiation may take
“One case where a ground level release might get lofted to high altitudes is when the source region is located near an approaching low pressure system (extratropical cyclone), as is the case today.”
Computer model has radiation plume over the ocean for several days and then hitting Alaska. Radioactive particles are heavy and will mostly fall int0 the ocean before hitting land. But this weather system in Japan makes it more likely for the particles to reach the west coast of the United States and Canada.

No Bottom in Sight for Nuclear Disaster with Every Hour Bringing More Bad News – Michio Kaku

Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants: The No BS Info on Japan’s Disastrous Nuclear Operators – Greg Palast

Rem and millirem can be converted in a straightforward way to the SI unit, sievert:
1 rem = 0.01 Sv = 10 mSv = 10000 μSv
1 millirem = 0.00001 Sv = 0.01 mSv = 10 μSv
1 Sv = 100 rem
1 mSv = 100 mrem = 0.1 rem
1 μSv = 0.1 mrem

Speculation that the coolant Hillary Clinton mentioned was sodium polyborate, which would permanently kill the reaction and reactor.

Yes, there are no batteries so there needs to be direct sun on each of the panels. The variable being volume. More sun- more power- more volume. There was a not so bright day in September and the Boxes were on the quiet side. It was a nice variation. Subtle.

This adds a few interesting possibilities, when the clouds cover the sun the cells ether get quiet or stop all together. The first time this happen of course I was totally freaking out. I was in the desert and a huge cloud blocked the sun and everyone stop making sound. For a bout 3 minutes or so I was trying to figure out what I did wrong. Then the sun broke through and all the boxes started up simultaneously and it was glorious.

Clouds are not the only thing that do this. When a participant walks by and blocks the sun that box will stop and start up from the beginning of its cycle. So, there is a subtle interaction. People have the opportunity to alter the evolution of the composition.

What I really dig is the ambient sounds of the environment. It’s loud enough to engulf the participants but quiet enough to hear things like cars, birds, leaves people… My favorite example was last year I set it up in my backyard in the snow. It was a really quiet day and I heard the sound of a plane flying over my yard through the sounds of SB. It was pretty cool.

At the moment the Boxes are not weather proof. So when I set them up I take them in at night. But this is a bonus because if it’s multiple day showing I rearrange the footprint, making it a different experience. I do have plans to make a permanent version. As well as a 100 speaker version. I’m currently seeking funding for each. I hope to do one soon.