While walking through the neighborhood today, I noticed this crazy car at the corner of Page and Masonic. It looks like something I’d see at either Burning Man or Maker Faire.

Anyone know more about it?

I’m here in Austin, TX for a few days for our gdgt live event at SXSW. Since such a large contingent of the San Francisco tech crowd is here, a group of San Franciscan folks are handing out SF Embassy cards.

On March 11, 2010,
the San Francisco diplomatic mission to Austin commenced
with the establishment of
the SF EMBASSY on 6th Street.

San Francisco residents traveling to Austin for SXSW 2010
are advised to stay in close contact
with SF EMBASSY
for the duration of their visit.

Especially around brunch.

Hah, pretty awesome!

Watch out for South-by-SARS though, that’ll get you.

I picked up a new bike this weekend from someone on Craigslist! A ~1995 Schwinn Passage in perfect condition. It’s a great little touring bike and I’ve already put 25 miles on it.

Went out shooting some photos today, for the first time in what feels like ages. This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken in a long time. The sculpture is Ecstasy by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito and was installed at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley last week. It’s on display until June 18, 2010.

More information is available on the Black Rock Arts Foundation blog.

First displayed at the Burning Man festival in Nevada in 2008, Ecstasy is one of the eight monumental metal figures of the artists’ masterpiece, Crude Awakening. In Crude Awakening, these eight figures surrounded a 99-foot tall wooden oil derrick in gestures of prostration, worship and exaltation. Alone, Ecstasy embarks on a hopeful journey. Instead of throwing her head back in reverie to the oil derrick, she gazes wistfully into the open sky as she steps forward into an optimistic future, free of dependency on fossil fuel.

Footage from the front of a cable car, traveling down Market Street, circa 1906. Fantastic. I absolutely adore these old videos of San Francisco!

Originally, this video was thought to have been recorded sometime in 1905. Recently, someone analyzed the weather, vehicles, and shadows from people / objects and concluded it was filmed four days before the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906!

This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered (he even knows who owned them and when the plates were issued!). It was filmed only four days before the quake and shipped by train to NY for processing.

[Via Long Now Foundation and Flixxy]

Seriously! The sky above San Francisco just decided to open up. My Twitter timeline was, let’s say “flooded”, with thoughts about the storm.

A new year, and a new decade are upon us! Here is my annual photographic review of the year. More travels, moving, a new job. So sit down and come along for the ride.

You can also see my past year in reviews for 2008 and 2007.

(more…)

Where Do You Go is an interesting mashup that shows the areas you most frequent in a city, using a heat map layed on top of Google Maps. The data is derived from your Foursquare checkins.

The above image represents the areas of San Francisco I most frequent, based on nearly 400 checkins with Foursquare over the last year. Red / white are areas visited the most, while blue / green (and grey) are areas I visit the least or not at all.

This is a pretty fantastic use of one’s geo-location data and it’s something I’ve always been curious about. Just where exactly do I go all the time, and what areas do I frequent. This sort of thing might help plan further adventures to parts of the city that I neglect. I just might have to reinstall Foursquare on my iPhone after all!

Of course, when I do finally reinstall Foursquare, what happens?

Go figure.

I’m releasing a new augmented reality application for San Francisco’s Muni system soon. How does it work? Basically, you just point it at your stop to see the latest arrival times. Here is a preview screenshot!

Seriously though, everyone is getting on the bandwagon with augmented reality applications lately! A local developer just released a new augmented reality application for the iPhone, called acrossair.

(N Judah fail image courtesy of N-Judah Chronicles)

Last weekend, Kerry and I saw the latest Cirque du Soleil show, Ovo, which is currently playing in San Francisco. It was stunning! This was the second time I’ve seen a Cirque du Soleil show and it was every bit as impressive as the first time I saw it! I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open the entire time.

Here’s the trailer for the current show.

One of the coolest parts of the show was towards the end, when a number of actors started using a series of trampolines and running up and down a wall. It looks incredibly fun! (Unfortunately, an awesome video showing the Cirque crew practicing this routine was pulled from YouTube)