Smurfmatic

Google Earth on the Nexus One

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:46:16 -0500

Since February 22nd, Google Earth is available on certain Android handsets, including the Nexus One. Just like Google Goggles, it's a neat app that you want to show all your friends without a Nexus One -- but not a terribly useful one. I wrote a review piece for Vox Asia this week, detailing my thoughts on the N1.

Nouveau plan données + streams audio CBC & Radio-Canada

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:48:59 -0500

Je viens de changer le plan de données illimité de mon téléphone pour me permettre de faire du tethering et ainsi m'alimenter en Internet chez nous. Du coup, on m'a donné le Access Point (APN) du broadband résidentiel qui s'appelle juste "Internet". Et ça me coûte que HK$50 (CA$6.50) de plus par mois, et un beau total de HK$300 (CA$40) par mois. Donc, à part que je puisse maintenant faire du tethering avec mon cell (j'aurais pu aussi avant, mais ça aurait contrevenu à mon entente), le nouvel APN me donne constamment de plus grandes vitesses de transfert de données et me permet maintenant aussi de streamer de l'audio à travers le réseau mobile. Armé de mon Nexus One (que je vais reviewer la semaine prochaine), je peux donc me promener dans la rue à Hong Kong et écouter les streams de Radio-Canada (et de CBC, de Bande à part, etc., par extension) comme si j'étais à Montréal! Le seul hic: c'est à travers le réseau 3G, alors ça va drainer de la batterie. En fouillant dans les fichiers Javascript de BAP, j'ai trouvé que le serveur des publishing points chez Abacast servait aussi une page index: http://in-1.atl.icy.abacast.com/. C'est aussi peut-être un alias/serveur géo-spécifique de http://icy1.abacast.com/ que j'ai trouvé dans les ASX de R-C. CBC et Radio-Canada sont de leurs partenaires et la liste de la page mentionnée ci-dessus comprend donc pas mal tous les mount points de ses feeds audio, servis pour appareils mobiles, applications Web, etc. Comme c'est public, on peut pointer à ces addresses directement sur son browser mobile, et si la connection est assez rapide (devrait être HSDPA, à 3Mo/s), on peut les écouter comme de la radio à travers les ondes. On va sur la page, on copie le lien M3U, et on enlève le ".m3u" de l'adresse (ou on ouvre le fichier m3u dans un éditeur de texte). Des streams taggés "128" (comme ceux de BAP) sont en fait du 192kbps. Ça tire un peu beaucoup avec ma connection sur l'île chez moi, mais quand ça marche, ça sonne mieux que la radio FM. Y'a d'autres streams comme les radio musicales qui sont aussi à haut débit. Le talk radio est à 64. Autre goody: la page nous montre le nombre d'auditeurs présentement connectés. (Bon, ça serait p-ê une bonne idée que qqu dise à Abacast d'arrêter de laisser cette page publique?)

My new lamp

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:28:20 -0500

I got a new desk lamp tonight. I really like it and I think it changes the whole atmosphere in my apartment. Now, instead of having the chandelier weakly illuminate the entire living room, I can shut down the lights in the whole flat and have my lamp focus on my desk only. Back in Canada, I used to have a weaker lamp, but which did almost the same effect of letting me dim the surroundings. It's rather soothing, and comforting at night, especially when bringing back work home.

Hong Kong, mobile broadband heaven for Nexus One

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:15:37 -0500

Android Dev Phone 2 cover. The AD2 is also known as the Google Ion, a software remix of the HTC Magic. Was handed out to Google I/O 2009 attendees and made available to other developers in November 2009. When Google's new "superphone" Nexus One was released yesterday, it was made available for online orders shipping to four places in the world: the US, the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. In Canada, I was paying CA$40/mo for high-speed (7mbps) Internet over fixed-line, on top of a mobile phone service (no data) that costs me CA$35/mo. Hong Kong is a city where you can get pay-as-you-go SIM cards for your GSM phone with a company like China Mobile HK for just HK$100 (CA$13.50) and get charge HK$0.10 (just above one cent) per local minute, and HK$0.25 (about three Canadian cents) per minute for Overseas calls to places like Canada, the US and the UK. If you sign up for a monthly postpaid plan (need a HK ID, or pay a ~HK$3000 deposit), you can get ridiculously cheap plans. My family and friends here constantly tell me about plans going for HK$50-100/mo. (CA$6-15), giving them access to stuff like 1000 minutes, up to a practically unlimited amount of minutes to call to Canada. But one of the reason -- I think -- making Hong Kong such an appealing market for Google to roll out its version of the future (in the cloud) is also the cheap price of mobile broadband. Android Dev Phone 2 with a SIM card from Bell (Canada). Back in Canada, all major phone companies offer mobile Internet, but always with some sort of limitation on the bandwidth. Bell released its new HSPA+ network in Fall 2009, with potential speeds up to 21mbps (that's 3 times as fast as the typical high-speed Internet by fixed phone line), but typical speeds going much lower, probably running at 3-7mbps (just speculating). The price? A regular 500Mb data plan for iPhone goes for CA$50. That's not a lot of data, if you consider that each video watched on YouTube can be 5-10Mb. Other Bell data plans range from CA$60-100 for bandwidths of 1-3Gb. Now in Hong Kong, I am also a personal consumer (I don't get any phone, let alone phone plan from any company that would employ me), and recently switched from a prepaid plan with China Mobile HK (the lowest of the low in HK, but a v. good short term prepaid option) to a postpaid data plan with SmarTone-Vodafone, probably the company with the next to the best (CSL/Telstra) mobile network coverage and quality in Hong Kong. Now this plan sets me back HK$250 (all fees included) and gives me unlimited data (and an insane to Canadians, but expected by Hongkongers, amount of minutes) at typical speeds of around 2-3mbps. Now, bear in mind that in this market, HK$50 monthly plans are the norm for the masses. But with a comparable cost of living to Canada (3/4 of Canada in daily expenses), this means that with tethering (using your phone as a modem for your computer) for an extra HK$50, for a total of HK$300 (or CA$40), people in Hong Kong can drop their fixed Internet line altogether, and like to paraphrase Google, merge their phone with the Web for ridiculous prices for North American wallets. Unlimited high-speed data plans are sold by 3 or 4 companies in Hong Kong, with prices varying around HK$250/mo, the price at SmarTone-Vodafone with a 18-month contract. The selling point, at least for me, was that you can break your contract at any point for just a HK$500 (CA$66) fee. Is that the sign that mobile phone contracts are starting to become a thing of the past? The plan is again very poorly advertised by SmarTone, because subsidized phones are still the way. This HK$250 monthly contract is only available if you bring your own unlocked smartphone, very common in Hong Kong... and now available directly from Google at US$530, or US$580 (HK$4500) when counting an AC adapter and international shipping to Hong Kong. If your needs don't justify such expenses, Hong Kong is probably one of the easiest places in the world to find second-hand phones of reliable quality (this is not the jungle of Mainland China). One of my friends went to Mong Kok and bought a "used" HTC Tattoo (came out just in October 2009), HTC's budget-range smartphone that is running Android 1.6 for only HK$1000-something (around CA$200 if I remember correctly). 250/mo becomes 3000/yr (CA$400), for all your Internet needs. When I'm going to read these numbers in 5 years, I'm probably going to be as amazed as what a regular laptop or desktop computer used to cost 5 years ago...

Un coin de rue, deux institutions médiatiques montréalaises

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:21:52 -0500

Mon père (un photographe émérite) a pris ces photos de moi devant le bâtiment du journal La Presse, et puis avec au loin la Maison de Radio-Canada derrière mon épaule droite. C'était à l'angle de la rue Saint-Antoine et du boulevard Saint-Laurent.

Enfin de retour à Hong Kong

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:37:26 -0500

Woaw, les deux dernières semaines. J'ai passé du franchement bon temps avec la famille et les amis à Montréal. J'ai fait de petits paquets avec ma vie montréalaise, tant au sens figuré qu'au sens propre, et j'ai dit au revoir à à peu près tout le monde en ville. On a bien mangé, et j'en ai même rapporté ici. Ici, c'est Hong Kong. Malgré un attentat déjoué dans les airs la semaine dernière, les choses sont revenues à peu près à la normale -- en tout cas pour mes vols. Pas de fouille supplémentaire, pis ça a pris à peu près le même temps pour tout passer ce que j'avais passé en septembre dernier lors de mon départ initial de Montréal. -- À peu près à la normale, vu qu'à cause d'un problème de papiers, nous disait le pilote, le vol CO99 entre Newark et Hong Kong a quand même été retardé d'au moins deux heures et demie, mais on est quand même arrivé en retard juste par 1h30. J'ai pris le Airport Express -- ce que je ne fais pas d'habitude -- et je suis arrivé à Hong Kong Station à Central vers 23h30. J'ai eu le bonheur ensuite d'assister au décompte du nouvel an en face de mon quai du traversier pour l'Île de Lamma. Ça fait du bien de savoir qu'on sera bientôt à la maison -- du moins ma seconde maison. On passe maintenant devant Aberdeen et Ap Lei Chau sur le ferry. À Montréal, je me suis débarassé de pas mal de choses. J'ai développé une certaine « haine » des choses matérielles, en particulier du papier. Pourquoi promener tant de papier, quand l'essentiel est en fait ce qui est écrit dessus? Alors pourquoi pas tout digitaliser et le traîner dans le nuage? Ma vie en ce moment est un peu comme l'état de mes choses : dans un nuage, qui virevolte, disparait, et réapparait à des endroits différents du monde. Je m'installe à Hong Kong : peut-être pour quelques mois, peut-être pour quelques années. Le reste de mes jours? Bon, on verra pour ça... Une chose est sûre, je ne m'ennuierai pas des hivers canadiens. Depuis l'adolescence, j'ai cessé d'apprécier la neige et le blizzard. Ok, peut-être qu'il y a encore un peu d'amour, mais c'est seulement pour le hockey et les soirées passées au chaud à l'intérieur avec ceux qu'on aime et qu'on aimait. Il doit faire 16-17 degrés maintenant, nuit du Nouvel An à Hong Kong. Tout à fait dans les normales saisonnières et très agréable. Bon, la cloche qui indique qu'on est presque arrivé vient de sonner! 15 minutes de marche avec mes bagages: on est capable!

How to update your Android emulator's position with an external GPS

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:38:30 -0500

Assuming that you have an Android emulator running, and listening at the default port (5554). First, you need a script called getGeo.sh that gets the GPGGA line from gpsd running at its usual port. gpspipe attaches to gpsd and we get the line we want, put it in a file:

#!/bin/bash
# get nmea from device

FOO="geo nmea `gpspipe -r -n 10 | grep "GPGGA" | tail -n 1`"
echo ${FOO}
echo ${FOO} > ${HOME}/geo.nmea

Then, second code calls telnet and sends it the contents of the file with the "geo nmea " line:

#!/bin/bash
# simulate sending gps info to android emulator

${HOME}/bin/getGeo.sh
exec telnet 127.0.0.1 5554 < ${HOME}/geo.nmea > /dev/null &> /dev/null

You could loop it to make refresh the positioning as you walk around with your GPS.

November 9th federal by-election: results maps in 2008

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:25:07 -0500

Might be at the other end of the world, but I'm not missing this election for nothin' in the world... These are links to results by poll in the October 2008 election for the four ridings in play. They're all safe to stay in the same hands (Cumberland's Bill Casey was an independent, but formerly Conservative who voted with them as well). Cumberland - Colchester - Musquodoboit Valley: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#12007 Hochelaga: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24021 Montmagney - L'Islet - Kamouraska - Rivière-du-Loup: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24058 New Westminster - Coquitlam: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#59017

city'super!

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:40:30 -0500

Let's go back to 2005, on my second stay in HK, and the longest (for about four months)...

When I miss home, I go to City Super. One time, I went home with three pieces of swordfish to cook for my "adoptive" family, which set me back for around 120HKD (20CAD). The time before, I craved for food we didn't even have at home, the U-shaped French saucisse sèche (80HKD/12CAD) (and with it, a freshly baked baguette (15-20HKD/2-3CAD)). Which is fine, because the saucisse lasted for a whole month (which never happens at home), and the baguette almost as good as the one we get in Canada.

Now, I've done it again. Tonight, went crazy at City'Super, and got myself a French saucisson (HKD$90), a baguette (HKD$20) and olive oil (HKD$80 for 250mL - Australian, no less). [The exchange rate is roughly HKD$7.5 for each Canadian dollar). I also got a small stick of Danish butter (200g) for around HKD$35, which makes it twice as expensive as it would in Canada... In photos: These are the things you can get in a truly international city (or in a city that can sustain a fancy place such as city'super). Mind you, I'm going back to forced-vegetarian menu of noodles with Chinese veggies or plain rice with soy sauce for the rest of the week... I also got pasta. So yes, no-meat, no-cheese (but yes-olive oil) garlic linguine, here I come... And in the weird packaging ploys category, low-sodium sea salt:

IKEA in Hong Kong

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:16:13 -0500

IKEA in Hong Kong is as you would expect anywhere else in the world, except that it does not have a warehouse, is more compact and completely subterranean. One of the IKEA stores in Hong Kong is located in the commercial area of Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. You find familiar items such as the IKEA food (hot dogs + cinnamon rolls), those vanilla-perfumed cartridge candles and Poang chairs.

Linux rebooting on my Continental flight to HKG

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:30:49 -0500

It can be a little unsettling when you see rows of text scrolling down the screen in front of you when sitting in an airplane. That happened twice during my flight to Hong Kong yesterday, as the captain needed to reboot the server running the touch-screen system controlling on-board entertainment and flight status. I'm not so surprised that they use Linux. It's pretty nice to see the text cascading across the screen -- I'm getting perhaps a strong sense of familiarity.

Google Earth: Canada Federal Election 2008 (by polls)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:15:04 -0500

http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/ Inspired by Stephen Taylor's post (and my own past project from Fall 2008), I set out to produce a website where people could navigate election results by riding, but also by poll. I used cartographic data from the Geogratis.gc.ca website. I imported the Shapefiles to a PostgreSQL database with Postgis. Then, I processed results by polling divisions from the 2008 election, data available on the Elections Canada website. It was put in a separate table on the same database. A custom program in Python using the very handy libkml (a code library developed and supported by Google) took the data and outputted pretty KML code. It was packed as a KMZ and uploaded to my webspace. [E-mail me, if you want to exchange ideas on the code] The webpage itself is rich in JavaScript and the code can be seen here. I use hashes to make the webpage bookmarkable and loadable with a given riding pre-loaded. For instance, the Papineau riding (24048) can be accessed through this link: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24048 The website requires the Google Earth plugin, available for Windows and Mac. It works very smoothly on my old computer (bought in 2003). You could also download the individual KMZ files (they are in fact zip files, so on Windows you would rename them with .zip and unzip them with your usual utility). They are at: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/ridings/ . However, if I post updates (which I will), you won't see them.

L'autre choix, mini marché : food lovers' choice in Westmount village

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:47:37 -0500

A new grocery store on Victoria Avenue just opened its doors last week. The half basement shop offers a variety of organic (and non-organic too) produce. It may fit the look of a Westmount upscale boutique, but the prices shown for the basic stuff (tomatoes, apples, lemons) are at market price (similar to PA's price, comparatively lower than the nearby Metro). On top of that, you also find a unique offering of Asian products (the owner Clara happens to be a food-loving Canadian Chinese) such as soy milk, bok choy and ramen noodles. They are also importing a type of pasta from Italy. 334A Avenue Victoria, Westmount Speaking of young entrepreneurs, I found out that the newest my cup of tea shop is just next door:

Il vote pour qui, le voisin ? / Who's the neighbour voting for?

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:42:55 -0500

Download the KMZ / Téléchargez le KMZ Finally finished the first phase of my data visualization project for electoral donations to political parties. The data is for individual contributions during the 2008 election in Fall. Here is the KMZ file: contrib40_2009-09-11.kmz Finalement, j'ai fini la première phase de mon projet de visualisation de données de contributions aux partis politiques. Les données sont pour les dons de particuliers lors de l'élection d'automne 2008. Voici le fichier KMZ: contrib40_2009-09-11.kmz Here are a few examples of stuff that I found while fooling around... / Voici quelques exemples que j'ai trouvé en me promenant... David Kilgour gives to the Conservative Party. We think it's _the_ David Kilgour, because wife Laura is also listed for the same postal code. For the notice, Kilgour was a former Jean Chrétien minister (originally was a Progressive Conservative). Retired as an independent in 2006 and known to be a Falun Gong sympathizer. Michael Sabia, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec CEO, formerly a Bell Canada CEO, naturally gives to the Liberals.

Electoral contributions to political parties in Canada : the sales pitch

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:04:39 -0500

Edit (2009-11-11): I completed the project a few days after describing it in this post. This link gives you an overview of what it does. Here is the web version (requires Google Earth plugin): http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/contributions/ *** Some time ago, I wrote a lot on this particular project without providing much specifics. This said project is the electoral contributions project. The idea is pretty straightforward. Once a year, Elections Canada releases data on donations to political parties, whether it's from individuals or companies, directly to candidates or the party itself. They have some database behind to power it, but none of it is open to the public. The only information available is under the form of webpages such as this one: Also, you can click on the name of a contributor and find basic info such as the address where he sent his contribution from, specifically on this popup: So, what if you got the data and tried to use the postal code to put every contribution on a map? It's been done in the States by the Huffington Post, the well-known web media outlet. How to do it? To get the 100-something pages containing the data, you write a shell script with wget on the address (check the post data with Firebug) and download all the pages. Then, do the same for the pop-ups (you find their script's URL by reading through their JavaScript code, all of which is ungarbled). Then, parse the pages with a script. I wrote mine in PHP, because I didn't know better. I'll post it if there is interest for it. Then, the same script does the INSERTs to the PostgreSQL database. You can download this following database dump: contrib40.sql I chose the columns to be of a super permissive datatype, because the data in those webpages is surprisingly not very well normalized. You also find invalid postal codes and basically no practical way to identify two different donors with, say, the same name. Then comes the interesting part that I've finished once but did not save anything useful, that is to visualize the contributions geographically with the postal code. I made a separate table called "postalcodes" which is a unique list of postal codes contained in contrib40, and the geographical point representing this postal code. I obtained the point coordinates using a script that called the Google HTTP geocoding service. It's for Postgis that I used PostgreSQL. Now it's maybe the fun part, that is to fetch the data and make it into something useful, either using MapServer + Google Maps, or libkml (to generate a file for Google Earth). Interesting, telling uses? Since we only have access to data up to the end of 2008, we could show the rise of the Liberals in the post-electoral months of November and December, when Stéphane Dion stepped down in favour of maybe-Michael Ignatieff. We can surely superimpose donation origin and actual voting patterns at the poll level. If you have more visualization ideas, feel free to drop me a line: cedricsam@gmail.com. I'd like to hear your ideas, propositions. I think that this data ought to democratized, and using graphical methods like maps is one of the best methods nowadays.