Scraping web forums for image urls

March 7, 2014 by rememberlenny

Breakdown of posts by user

Goals

Im applying my graffiti interests toward my programming ability. Today I put together a brief python script to scrape a reputable graffiti writers forum. The scraper was designed to build a database of user names and images uploaded. My goal is two fold: learn about computer vision through analyzing graffiti pictures, develop insight into people’s usage of the internet for distributing graffiti images. Beyond analysis, I would love to create a graffiti recomendation engine for aspiring graffiti artists. This engine would look at a person’s ‘style’ and give suggestions of other artists they may benefit from studying.

Scraping process

I focused my first group of images scraped on New York city. I found the New York city forum thread in 12ozprophet.com. From here, I catered the scraper to tag posts and the images contained in the post. I created a unique ID for the images and the posts. Now that this has been completed, I may need to create a unique ID for the user names. As of now, this is not necessary.

The scraper pulled from over 440,000 posts within the New York graffiti thread. From those posts, over 275,000 images were gathered. In a brief overview, I can tell that not all images are graffiti. Similarly, not all images are of paintings. There are tags, throw ups, pieces, and sketches. The images vary in quality and size. The dataset pulled from forum posts between 2009 to 2014. I’m surprised to see how much camera quality and digital photography has changed in those few years.

Considering analysis

In the past few weeks, I have spent time understanding the application of statistical analysis on large data sets. Because I was working with small sets, I was able to use Microsoft Excel’s functions. Beyond 100 data points, excel becomes noticeably sluggish in processing simple PivotTable tasks. I will use R and python libraries to process future analysis.

I am reading various books I purchased in the past from Oreilly. The books topics are mainly around R, data analysis in Python, OpenCV, and machine learning. None of these topics are failiar to my background, or me so I have also picked up a basic book on linear algebra. I would like to finish the preliminary results from the first dataset by next week and move ahead with scraping the rest of 12ozprophet.

Breakdown of all posts by date

Code

The code used to scrape is pasted below. The dataset will be made available in the near future. Note, while scraping 12ozprophet, the images are hosted on a large variety of websites. Different users primarily uploaded the images, so the image analysis should not create a large load on the forums. I do not believe I need to download the images for analysis, but if I do, I will likely use some a virtual machine cloud instance.

Also, I am unfamiliar with the Python-way to write programs. I am primarily working with JavaScript and PHP. I have dove into Ruby on Rails, but am still dependent on the Gems and generators. As a result, much of my Python code is written with a JavaScript mentality.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import scraperwiki
import requests
import lxml.html    

# Constants
numberofposts = 7844
post_iteration = 0
user_iteration = 0
image_iteration = 0

# One-time use
global savedusername, date_published, post_image

savedusername = 'null'
dateremovetitle = """N   E   W      Y   O   R   K      C   I   T   Y - """
dateremovere = """Re:"""
ignoredimages = ['images/12oz/statusicon/post_old.gif','images/12oz/buttons/collapse_thead.gif','images/12oz/statusicon/post_new.gif','images/12oz/reputation/reputation_pos.gif','images/12oz/reputation/reputation_highpos.gif','images/icons/icon1.gif','images/12oz/buttons/quote.gif','clear.gif', 'images/12oz/attach/jpg.gif','images/12oz/reputation/reputation_neg.gif','images/12oz/reputation/reputation_highneg.gif','images/12oz/statusicon/post_new.gif']
for i in range(1, numberofposts):

html = requests.get("http://www.12ozprophet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128783&page="+ str(i)).content
dom = lxml.html.fromstring(html)

print 'Page: ' + str(i)
for posts in dom.cssselect('#posts'):
    for table in posts.cssselect('table'):

        try:
            username = table.cssselect('a.bigusername')[0].text_content()

            if username != savedusername:
                if username != 'null':
                    savedusername = username
        except IndexError:
            username = 'null'

        try:
            post_iteration = post_iteration + 1 #my unique post id
            postdate = table.cssselect('td.alt1 div.smallfont')[0].text_content()
            postdate = postdate.replace(dateremovetitle, '')
            postdate = postdate.replace(dateremovere, '')
            postdate = postdate.strip()
            date_published = postdate
            # print '---'
            # print savedusername +' '+ postdate + ', ID: ' + str(iteration)
        except IndexError:
            postdate = 'null'

        for img in table.cssselect('img'):
            imagesrc = img.get('src')
            imagematch = 'false'

            for image in ignoredimages:
                if image == imagesrc:
                    imagematch = 'true'

            if imagematch != 'true':
                image_iteration = image_iteration + 1
                post_image = imagesrc            


                post = {
                    'image_id': image_iteration,
                    'image_url': post_image,
                    'post_id': post_iteration,
                    'user': savedusername,
                    'date_published': date_published,
                }
                print post

                scraperwiki.sql.save(['image_id'], post)

NYC OpenData on graffiti

February 20, 2014 by rememberlenny

Graffiti data visualized in a line chart

Data from https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/DSNY-Grafitti-Information/gpwd-npar

NYC OpenData

New York is one of the United States leading proponent for open data and government transparency. The city has stood by the Open Data movement from the beginning, initially gaining public acclaim during President Obama’s first term. The movement surrounds the practice of publicizing data collected by citizen funded departments. Data varies in content and form, from financial balance sheets to statistical records. In the past year, emphasis has been made to release information into machine-readable formats: sans-PDF, pro-JSON.

CivicHacking

Yesterday I received an email promoting the Code for America brigade supporting the “Code Across NYC” civic hackathon. The email, from Chris Whong, promoted the spirit to getting involved with local communities through any means. Following Chris, Noel Hidalgo shared a recently released NYC OpenData blog post on new real time datasets on New York city.

The data set topics ranged from medical history, farmer’s market records, and graffiti reports. All the sets were deemed “real time” and machine-readable. These data sets provide public access to rich repositories of information. Based on the availability, these will be the beginning of fresh new software applications based on consuming these datasets. Imagine the next farmer’s market notification mobile app or graffiti report location tool.

Individually, the data makes available the well-organized datasets. Even more exciting are the cross-reference opportunities. An interested party doesn’t need to know how to program. Simply grab the CSV export copy of a preferred data set and get to some analysis. Immediately a PivotTable reference between data and category can provide interesting high-level comparisons. Looking at graffiti creation by date across boroughs shows the uneven reporting of graffiti incidents.

Graffiti

To start, I love graffiti. I love the notion of people finding and accessing places that have been deemed ‘dead’. I love the raw-ness of spray-paint. I love the culture, the people, even the drudgery associated to the painters. Most of all, I love how it represents a community of people who desire to express themselves publicly.

I am not one to argue that graffiti is not vandalism.mi strongly disagree with the painting of private property. I instead believe graffiti is the effect of a greater social culture associated with stemming the voice of individuals. I believe that large amounts of graffiti in an area are public signs for improvements.

There is a person doing the painting and that person is trying to say something. Maybe they have poor handwriting and a poor value system, but they are people to understand. Why do they get pleasure out of scrawling their moniker in public places? Why do they write on things that don’t belong to them? These questions make me interested in drilling into the available graffiti dataset.

I have a hypothesis that areas that are not central urban sectors with high amounts of graffiti could be improved by providing public art programs. I think most of the periphery communities with large amounts of graffiti are the result of youth between the ages of 12-18. I also believe these students have poor grades in school, are high risk for dropping out, and are likely exposed to drug use.

These assumptions aside, the graffiti is an expression of a societal problem. It’s not a graffiti problem. It’s. Community issue. It’s an education issue. Graffiti is the signal, but the cause is larger.

Action

I have never been able to pinpoint or analyze graffiti from a statistical front. I have never seen a dataset like the one that NYC has made publicly available. I’m sure these sets have been stringently analyzed and reviewed by police and sanitation departments, I believe the information was most likely viewed from a cost-arrest standpoint. I believe the individuals who, like myself, love graffiti and see the value in its messaging will make great use of this information.

I will be looking at this information to seek out insight for potential public programs to stem these issues. Imagine, graffiti declines because citizens feel alternative ways to express themselves. Imagine, communities coming together to take responsibility for the visual composition of their neighborhood. Imagine, children and teenagers out on the street with a spray can, because they feel they are being heard.

WhoWroteForSESRP.com reflection

February 17, 2014 by rememberlenny

Chart: Articles vs Years

Algebra for designing layouts

I have been reading about machine learning and linear algebraic analysis. In college, I failed two calculus courses. In high school, I repeatedly failed higher-level algebra courses. In an academic setting, pumping away at math worksheets was never a convincing use of my time. I much rather play video games at the time. I didn’t realize at the time, but I was using complex equations to calculate the optimal strategy to win.

Although I never caught on to academic mathematics, I find myself regularly using algebraic equations at work. I use complex algebraic equations everyday while design. While visual design is driven by aesthetic choices, the execution of interactive layouts requires thought out calculations. To get a navigation item to “stick” on a webpage when scrolling, or “unstick” after scrolling a certain distance, calculations are necessary.

After recognizing how something pleasantly interactive requires mathematically complex planning, I decided to explore other pursuits. I love math when its applied to something practical. I thrive in solving animation related math problems. Through reading about machine learning, I found a new topic that seemed interesting.

I attended the Soka Education Student Research Project conference this weekend. In preparation, I compiled the past 10 years of published articles. The compilation was made for WhoWroteForSESRP.¹ The process resulted in a simple JavaScript table for users to search published authors, titles, and issues.

Presenting data

The context in which you view Data (with a capital D) determines what you can understand. Edward Tufte emphasizes this point. I tried to understand the past 10 years of SESRP published papers. First, I organized the information in a flat context with simple attributes. Second, I viewed the relations between the attributes in aggregate. Lastly, I created charts and tables to make the results clear. This process shows that there are still many interesting relationships among SESRP papers that have not been clearly identified.

The first step required me to review the past 10 years of published journals. I selected the individual published paper titles, associated authors, and published issue year. The attributes chosen could have been expanded to full article texts, human-defined tags or categories, and article bibliography. Initially, I wanted to create a basic repository for easily browsing the past-published articles. ²

Second, I isolated the individual attributes to view them in relative increasing or decreasing order. Through collecting the data, I saw a distinct increase in published papers during the year 2011. Similarly, viewing the authors in aggregate clearly displayed the writers who published the large number of articles over the past 10 years. ³

Lastly, I charted the data to further understand the relationships between the authors, years published, and quantity of articles. In the future, I will add attributes to compare against. Mainly, I am interested in charting network relationships between cited articles, cited authors, and unrecognized topic driven clusters. ⁴

Insights from analysis

Filtering the quantity of articles published by year showed a unusual spike of submissions and a potentially changing overall trend. In 2011, the number of articles submitted more than doubled from previous year. In 2010 nine (9) articles were submitted, followed by 22 articles submitted in 2011. In the years following 2011, the average number of articles submitted increased by over 20%.

The quantity of articles published by author shows a familiar trend in participatory communities. Out of 85 total authors published in the yearly booklets, 64 authors had one paper published, 13 authors had two papers published, 3 authors had three papers published, 3 authors had four papers published, and 2 authors had five papers published. These numbers show that in the past 10 years from 2005 to 2014, approximately 75% of writers only publish one article.

The two authors who published the most are Gonzalo Obelleiro and Ryan Hayashi. Obelleiro’s first article appeared in 2006 and Hayashi’s first article appeared in 2011. While Hayashi and Obelleiro have the same number of articles published, Obelleiro has presented articles that have not been published, therefore technically he has written more than any other author. Regardless, Hayashi has been writing for less than half the number of years, so his rate of appearance is impressive.

Chart: Authors vs Articles

Suggestions

The past 10 years of conference organization has been completely led by students. The proposal request process for SESRP papers is distributed through current student body, the alumni network, and individual requests. In the interest of revitalizing previously interested attendees, past SESRP paper submitters should be personally requested to submit new papers. Future student tasked with organizing the SESRP conference should seek to mobilize the 75% of one-time publishing authors to propose a new paper topic. Most past authors are alumni of Soka University of America, so the alumni network may be useful in gathering contact information.

As the 10-year anniversary booklet is being prepared, organizers should seriously consider the 25% of authors who published more than one paper. The eight authors who published more than 3 articles each should be consulted for advice. While quantity of published papers does not reflect a priori for understanding Soka Education, their insight should be considered. These authors have shown personal interest through their multi-year commitment. These authors, from most published to least, are:

Gonzalo Obelleiro (5)
Ryan Hayashi (5)
Maria Sanchez (4)
Jean Marcus Silva (4)
Michael Strand (4)
Masahiro Kaleo Louis (3)
Menelik Tafari (3)
Nozomi Inukai (3)

Future expectations

The three attributes listing of the SESRP papers from 2005 to 2014 have raised positive results. This method of organizing information and finding relationships will be further applied to understand the relationships between sources cited in submitted papers. The goal will be to find the unseen relationships between the submitted papers. The cited resource’s author and publications will help create rich network maps displaying relationships between SESRP authors. Similarly, this relational mapping may display under recognized clusters or categories. This will prove to be useful in the 10-year anniversary booklet’s drafting.

Website mentioned above is located here: WhoWroteForSESRP.com ↩︎
Raw excel 2005-2014 title-author-issue data ↩︎
↩︎
↩︎

The opposite of poverty is justice

February 13, 2014 by rememberlenny

What is the opposite of poverty?

My roommate and I had dinner tonight. We don’t normally eat together and in the past we haven’t spent time together. I feel a distance between the two of us that stems from my personal subconscious judgement. I allow these personal options form, because they help me understand what I believe. Without reflecting on them, I wouldn’t be able to recognize where I am and where I want to be.

Our discussion began with cultural observations about the future. I observe that global cultural shifts are different from the past. The urbanized and rural communities are growing further apart. Urban centers are culturally similar around the world. Rural communities are the cultural unique reminiscence of the world.

I spent last year in China, Japan, Germany, Ecuador, and Peru. I traveled around the USA. I made stops in California, New Mexico, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia. My short trips helped reinforce my opinions about global economic differences. The time in China and Ecuador were most influential.

Although I lived in China for a year, the disparity in wealth was not uncomfortable. I’d see the occasional an expensive car. Soon after, I would see a group of elder woman picking up recycling materials. The dichotomy of capital was obvious. I lived there, so I didn’t take it to heart. By the end of my time, I felt at home. I found the places I liked to eat, the friends I spent time with, and the tasks to occupy my time. The tasks were value creative. The comfort I experienced was my blindfold.

Going to Ecuador

I visited Ecuador as an outsider. I attempted to reconvene with seven friends living in around the US. The trip was spontaneous and successfully executed. With little planning and no language competency, I spent two weeks Ecuador and Peru. I got sick while traveling. The cold was the result of less than optimal sleeping conditions. The diet and deprived sleeping habits did not help.

Poverty was unavoidable in Ecuador. The country’s infrastructure struggles as a whole. Primary gross domestic exports were fruits, flowers, and oil. The majority of the country exchanged labor for small payment. People’s monthly salary was close to 300 dollars a month. A good monthly salary was 600 for a young man. 600 dollars for 30 days. 300 dollars.

The quality of life was good, but low. People were full of agency. Commerce was busy, even budding. People ran small businesses. Chain establishments existed in full force in Quito. Churches, museums, entertainment opportunities, and youth culture were well developed.

Meals were bland. Small piece of chicken, a bowl of soup, and rice was lunch. It’s called Almuerzo. It’s delicious, but its also the only thing you can find. Food choices were small. No condiments, little to no meat, and few vegetables. Just got rice.

Breakfast was simple. Eggs or a tortilla. Coffee was always instant. Leche de cafe. Morning coffee was a cup of warm milk with instant coffee powder. For a country that produces the worlds supply, Ecuador has horrible coffee.

Buses would stop to let on traveling salesmen and woman. Bus rides included opportunities to buy incense, fried pork loins, small meals, and bags of fruit. Looking back, the choice of foods was like rural China. Ecuador’s distinguishing factor was the approach to selling. Sales persons would get on a moving bus and make an announcement in the front area. Based on their pitch, some riders would show interest, while most would not.

Returning to the US

Ecuador affected me most when I returned to the US. Upon arriving in the Newark airport and taking the metro into New York, I recovered from my cold. Once arriving into the city, I was immediately approached by many homeless persons asking for money. No more than 12 hours before, I was in a country where even the poorest people sought honest ways to earn a living. In New York, I felt like the poorest of the rich did not seek an equal means.

The opposite of poverty is justice. Daisaku Ikeda states on many occasions within his speeches and dialogues with world leaders. Justice in economic opportunity. Justice in opportunity to experience the world. Justice in personal judgement.

I stress that the people I met in China and Ecuador had agency. Especially those from less affluent communities. Reflecting, I may even say that those from wealthier countries were less aware of their own agency to make change in the world as a whole. They instead frequented the thoughts of what they could not do. This was not something I saw in the youth of other places. Perhaps this is a negative consequence provided so much opportunity.

My interest in the startup space or the industries revolving around educating people is justice. How can I better identify the root of my local and global communities issues. What injustice can I recognize and take action against? I must stress that this will not happen with intellectual masturbation. I do not seek fame, wealth, or power. I desire to create value.

I returned my Google Glass after 30 days

January 6, 2014 by rememberlenny

I returned Google Glass

At the end of November, I was one of the thousands of people who receive the next round of invitations for Google Glass. After the v2 explorer edition was announced, I responded to an email from the Google Developers Group meetup in New York City. The email offered a Google Glass invitation code to anyone interested in acquiring the device.

Initially, I was completely sure I would want the device. I immediately responded to the email and excitedly told my roommate. Based on the timing of the invitation code request, I had to wait over the Thanksgiving holiday period before hearing a reply. During the time, I went home and spent an extended period researching the Google Glass status.

Many of the blogs online weren’t very diverse in opinion. There were the two camps of: “Its not where it could be, but I love the potential” and “This thing is way too expensive for what it can do”. Through reading state of Google Glass, I found that the battery life was poor, there was no integration with iOS (since December, this changed), the app eco-system was not extensive, and you couldn’t use it with perscription glasses. While I ocilated on my perspective toward buying Glass, I decided to go ahead with it.

Upon receiving confirmation of an invitation code, I setup my pick up date. Suprisingly, after I told my roommate, he applied for a Glass invite and was able to get a pair. After seeing his pair, I was reinvigorated to experiement with the new technology. In fact, because he had a pair, I started to imagine a number of possibilities involving multiple Glass users.

Wearing Glass

Wearing Glass in New York isnt too obscure. My roommate says it make you a “C class celebrity”. People look at you in the subway. Glass becomes a easy point to start a conversation. I even feel like you get special treatment at resturants. Regardless, it also becomes an impediment for feeling comfortable around people. Its an expensive piece of technology that draws attention.

I found that initially I was very interested in the different applications offered on Glass. The most interesting application is called Field Trips. Field Trips uses your current location to feed you relevant information about places around you. For example, Field Trips pulls in historic information about the landmarks around you. When you pass the area, you get a “card” that tells you the areas significance. There was a building in my community that I really admired, but never knew its historic significance. After walking by the building while wearing Glass, I got a “card” about the building. This blew my mind.

In most of December, Glass didnt have an iOS app. As a result, there was very limited functionality. There were no maps, very little SMS integration, and quickly drained phone battery. Even with these limitations, wearing Glass was awesome.

In mid-December, Glass updated itself overnight and introduced new features. This was impressive. The coolest was a “Wink” recognition feature that was not previously accessible. This feature allowed you to take pictures by winking with your right eye. Although the wink detection would occasionally lose calibration, the feature was very impressive.

Around the same time, the iOS application was released. This gave the Glass the ability to integrate with the iPhone. With the iOS app, Glass users could get directions without an Android device. This was very useful, but still not as impressive as I hoped. Even in the cold December weather, I found it easier to pull out my iPhone and look on Google Maps. When I needed to go to obscure addresses, it became impossible to “speak” the appropriate address.

My biggest struggle was the limited user interface on the Glass. While the device itself is best fit for voice activation, you can also use a number of gestures. I found the current interface too one-dimensional. When trying to set a Timer or procede through a list of application options, finding and selecting the prefered choice was difficult. Im sure this will be improved and no longer be an issue in the future.

Personal impressions

The reason Im returning Glass is less to do with the technology and more to do with the social implications. I had some great use cases, such as ease of recording personal interviews, as well as some bad acusations from stragners. Overall, the response from people was more positive than anything. People wanted to know about the “cool looking glasses”. Most lay people don’t follow tech news, so they have no idea what the Glass is. I found that there was a higher population of young men who responded to Glass positively. Oppositely, I found the largest group of negative responses to come from middle-aged woman.

My biggest issue with Glass was the disruptive quality when looking at or talking with people. Glass doesn’t disrupt your field of view, but it does feel like a barrier when interacting with other people. Once talking to someone, the Glass can be easily ignored, but I always felt a sense of discomfort.

My greatest joy with Glass was letting other people wear it. I found that younger people were very adept and using the voice activated commands. Oppositely, people in the twentys would wear the Glass and passively wait for something to happen. Adults who I had wear the Glass were often impressed by the device, but not as interested in trying it on.

After the honeymoon phase, I found myself using the Glass as a glorified watch. It because very easy to look at the time. I can imagine that great applications would be able to provide very valuable snippets of information with ease. For the time being, the information that is being served is not personally convincing for the need to have Glass. For the time being, even the best Glass apps are accessible via mobile devices. The moment Glass will shine is when apps are exclusively avaliable for Glass.

Reason for returning

I am returning Glass because I feel guilty about how much it costs. Buying the Glass was not a financial burden. As a software developer, I can justify expensive technology purchases because if they benefit my quality of life. Even if I dont use the device frequently, I would justify the value if it was useful when needed. I found this to be the case with buying a nice moniter for use at home and a high quality light laptop.

Still, the notion that I paid $1500 for the Glass felt obscure. Between the number of people who work low-paying hourly jobs, my mother included, I felt it was ridiculous to have such an expensive luxury item. The Glass would require more than a months worth of paychecks for most people to buy. Knowing that I was wearing the thing around without having much utilitive value kept reminding me how I was wasting the financial capital invested into the piece of technology.

If the device was a third of the cost, I could begin to justify the cost. For the time being, I am embarrased to be paying two months rent to feel apart of an exclusive group. While I think its amazing, I dont feel comfortable participating.

Overall thoughts

Considering my grievances about the user experience, I know these will be worked out. I have no question that the team working on Glass (officially and unofficially) are building amazing software. The potential for having a freely accessible camera and screen is brilliant. I can imagine security guards with Glass networks. Having a network of other “eyes” that you could access at the command of a voice seems useful in a number of professional use cases. I can see great social implications where people can see digital geo-fence activated messages based on their social networks. The Glass-like technologies have only jsut begun. I will be waiting with excitement to see the continued maturation of the Glass platform and users.

On 2013

December 31, 2013 by rememberlenny

Between ending the year with well wishes to friends and family, I reflect.

*-2013

This is the beginning of a yearly tradition. At 24, I took many steps this year. Since living in China last year and actively painting the streets of Shanghai, I have settled down in New York City. Looking over the year is necessary for reflect on the progress made so far. I didn’t do this for 2012, but there are so many people I am deeply appreciative to. Mainly the BMC artists, Franck’s bistro staff, StageBack Gallery, KenasHome, Wealthy Sources, Flying Turtle Coffee, iTalki team, Techyizu volunteers, XinCheJian members, Converse co-workers, the diaspora of SGI members, and Ariel. The roughness of getting settled and the surreality of being in China made it one of the best memories of my life. I will never forget skateboarding around town while holding the backs of electric scooters.

After having returned to the US in December, I arrived at my parents home with horrible jet-lag, dwindling savings, and the single goal of finishing college. After returning home for two weeks, I purchased a bike, thinking I would stay in Southern California, but soon decided to make my next move. I preface the year with a brief tour of my friends in the US. Simultaneously, I decided to lay the groundwork for finding a job by identifying my value in the job market.

January

I started January with a road-trip from Orange County, California to Ryan’s house in New Mexico. We drove through Sedona Arizona, where we took a pit stop and hiked around. I clearly remember trying to pet a cute dog that ran by, and being bit. The jeans I wore still have the teeth marks in the left leg.

After a few days on Ryan’s couch, I flew from El Paso, Texas to Oakland, California. I crashed at Caitlin and Kyle’s apartment near Clement street in San Francisco. I attended the MediaX conference at Stanford, where I saw a number of speakers, one being Larry Lessig. The ideas on learning analytics, crowd-powered systems, and social media analysis reinforced my perspective on the academic paper I would later present in February. I was fortunate to spend time with Whitney, Raimi, and Juju. Later that week, I was scheduled to fly to Detroit, but I decided to cancel that leg to attend the SLC education hackathon in Palo Alto. At the SLC, I met Joshua and Gary, whom I would later discuss developing “Lesson Overflow”. My time in San Francisco ended with meeting old friends from preschool.

From San Francisco, I flew to New York city, where I would later be moving. Unbeknownst to me, I was familiarizing myself with the community I would be living in a year later. I stayed with Jihii and Carley for a few days and interviewed a principle of a local KIPP school. After spending time at cafes and progressing on my review of Soka Education, I took a bus to Boston and visited Elaine. The Boston trip was brief, but productive in that I met with Eric for dinner.

In leaving Boston on the bus, I coincidentally sat next to an SGI member I had met years earlier. From Boston, I went DC to visit more friends and see Obama’s inauguration. In DC, I vetted my understanding of the growing MOOC popularity and prepared for my return back to California. After spending a few days with Heidi and Corey, I received a last minute acceptance to a educational tech venture capital conference in New York. I changed my travel plans to head home to California and returned back to New York again.

After the conference, I made my way back to California. Believing I would be staying in California, I sought out a job opportunity with GOOD magazine and attended a hackathon at Google. I led a group project on Glassrooms, which won our team a number of prizes. Although I didn’t qualify for the job, I met a number of friends, whom I would later meet again in New York. A few months later, I would reach out to these friends and teach a class with Ada and Ryan.

In returning to California, I believed I would live at my parents home while going to community colleges to finish my last semester of Chinese requirements. Instead, upon the week school was set to start, I realized I had enrolled in classes beneath my grade level and needed to make an executive decision: Would I wait one more semester before finishing my class or would I do what was necessary to finalize my credits. I decided that Monday, I would move to New York and proceed with the college I had previously decided was too expensive. I bought my ticket to New York for the next day and packed what I needed into a small backpack. I found a place to sleep on AirBNB, where I eventually stayed for over a month.

I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to make the move without the help of my mother. In the beginning of January, I believed I was staying in Orange County, so I expended my savings through traveling. After deciding to move to New York, I had much less money than I would need to find an apartment. My mother leant me approximately four thousand dollars of her personal savings so I could enroll in school. As a result of her financial support, everything that followed was made possible.

February

February was the first full month I was in New York. The apartment I found on AirBNB was in Brooklyn and my school was in Queens. Initially, I didn’t realized how difficult it was to get between the two, but later I would realize it is one of the worst commutes in the city. From the day I arrived, I bussed to Queens college everyday to sort out my class registration and student enrollment. Coincidentally and fortunately, I was able to enroll in classes that took place only on the weekends. As a result, I would have the whole week open to working a regular job.

I got settled with work as soon as possible. I started looking for full-time jobs through recruiters and quickly found myself contract over Craigslist. Ironically, I worked with the city of Anaheim and Oceanside, which were both from the county I had left in California. I also started contracts in the local area with Metamorphis Day Spa.

I flex back and forth to California a few times during February. For one, I spoke at the Soka Education Conference. The process for writing a paper was excruciating and significantly delayed. Having been able to present will be one of my golden memories. In the midst of getting settled in New York and having returned back to the US, I was able to synthesize a presentation on educational technologies and distributed classrooms.

Once returning back to NY, the second recruiter I spoke with was promising. Aquent’s staff was incredibly helpful and supportive of my job search. I had a strict condition of 50$ an hour and full-time work, which the previous recruiter did not think was possible. Brad found me a great position with Acquinity Interactive. For the period while I was in school, Acquinity was exactly what I needed, but the company was very odd from the beginning.

March

February was a rush of settling at school and work. By March, I realized my classes were above my level. The topics of class were for Chinese national Chinese majors in the United States. I was the only caucasian english speaker. I knew I wouldn’t pass unless I had some help. Taking Jihii’s recommendation, I found a tutor. The classes I took were almost completely full of native Chinese speakers. I checked craigslist and asked classmates until for a Chinese tutor, until I decided on Fei. He was a mid-40’s Chinese project manger who lived in Queens. I ended up seeing Fei every other night for nearly three months. We met at Starbucks or Pret after we both got out of work. The routine was work-tutor on Monday through Friday and school-school on the weekends.

In March, Aquent asked me to teach a class on web development. They offered to pay be $250, so I decided to do the class alongside some other people. I asked Ada and Ryan to join me. The session had approximately 20 students. I prepared a Mindnode graphic that we used for referential material. Ada talked about UX, Ryan talked about his experience, and I gave a broad overview.

I kept in touch with LessonOverflow folks. I moved into Flo’s old apartment. Heidi and Jean came to visit in New York. It was the beginning of my friendship with Marc.

April

By April, I was restless with routine. I felt work was pretty straight forward and school was on track. I began researching Meetups and organizations I could join. My search resulted in the CodeForAmerica civic movement. I met Chris at a data visualization meetup and later started working on what was his idea: govSee. govSee was my first exposure to open projects that leverage public data to increase transparency of government.

I started solving harder problems at work, but I was also meeting people from Govlab. I connected with Joel and Nathan at the Experiment, the NYU hackathon. The event which was made possible through Chris’s introduction gave me a foot in the door with various civic heads. I met with Claudia and Cosmo, as well as other regulars at civic tech events.

In April I also met Wayne in a bar and started discussions about Pace.

May

The final stretch for classes emerged. In the same month, Marc and I found a new apartment and moved into our current place. I started connecting with Nate and began my Soka Group activities.

I continued participating with the civic tech folk in the facebook hackathon. Aiden, Christopher and Aaron. Good people. Around this time, I also shared my first taxi with a stranger and made a good friend.

Finishing school was my priority. During this time, I became closer with Queens classmates, but largely focused on getting what I needed to get done. Between moving, work and school, I was relieved to have finally settled.

I attended many meetups at Pivotal. I met folks like Mark and started to pursue interest in Ruby. Until then, I declared myself a front-end specialist with ability in PHP. From that point, I started to become much more engaged in becoming well rounded in multiple languages.

June

School was finished and began personal pursuits. I enrolled in the ITP camp and experimented with hardware hacking. I got hooked up with Arduino’s, Raspberry pis, 3d printing, multicopters, projection mapping, and other physical multimedia projects. I met Amy as well as decided to attend Games for Change. I taught a class on Git while there.

My contract at Acquinity expired and I decided on going to Ecuador and Peru with Ryan, Jenn, Leia to meet Miles and Devan. Within the SGI, we had the “family fun festival” as well as finished the academy battle. By the end of June, I was starting back in to the rhythm I would finish off the year.

I started working with AdsYolo. AdsYolo felt like an off spent contract for the company. The contract was exemplary of lack of communication and structure. The “blue skies” project that was their website resulted in what I assume to be a dissatisfied outcome for the C-level folk. Looking back now, the only work that stood was the logo I made. Good show.

I also officially incorporated A Triangle Corporation as a Delaware based entity. This was paper work filed, but also a big step in regards to official operations.

July

I flew to Ecuador and spent two weeks in utter amazement. I started the trip with feeling kidnapped. I was invited to paint a mural that got on national news. We went on volcano hikes, pouring rain walks, and random strolls through Quito. We eventually rented a car and drove through the Andes mountains to Peru. Between the border, mechanical issues, driving all day, and occasional pitstops, we finally made it into Peru. Meeting Miles and Devan in Peru was the icing on the cake. Guiayusa, roof top “alarm systems”, the scratched up car paint…

While in Ecuador, I also put together the NYU govlab prototype. Attended some distance lunch-ins. Upon getting back, I continued to freelance and closed up work with AdsYolo. I moved onto the clients with Imagio and Bullett. I busy on a weekly basis. I didn’t have one week that I wasn’t booked for my full week rate, but I began to feel the sense of insecurity.

I had scheduled a trip to Germany with Ariel, but I decided to cancel it. I was asked to attend the North American Study Conference in August and decided to attend instead. I forfeited a number of plane tickets. When Mike asked me about attending, I knew the dates overlapped, but I decided to attend.

August

I decided to find full-time employment. Between the contracts with Julian, I felt the lack of control that came with finding contracts. You are at the will of other people’s payment schedule. Unless you instill strong requirements and structure, it is easy to get taken advantage of. I can proudly say that I never had an issue.

I attended the North American Study Conference in Santa Monica. My birthday was celebrated on the first day at the conference. I clearly remember doing gongyo on the main stage. I felt this was my greatest pride. I saw my parents briefly that Sunday and a number of SUA alumni.

Steven, Marc, and Brian, received their gohonzons. Marc’s life has been a total inspiration to me. Eventually, he would help Sharon start her own practice.

By August, I was working with Bullett. The relationship with Ryan from GOOD came full circle. He connected me to Busra and everything else is good news. Bullett contracted me to redo their store and eventually their agency site. The project was a pleasure to work with Jack, Ben, Idil, Ayhan, and everyone else. Bullett taught me the importance of customer service above all. Its SO important to clear up any mistakes.

By mid month, I was offered two jobs. One with the UN consulting firm CSF, through Adriana and the Conde Nast job I decided to take. I had strict salary expectations and resulted in being extremely satisfied with the receiving result. Having taken on contracts with Bullett, I decided to accept the job, but begin in September.

I also met my Cousin, Louis, for the first time.

September

I finished up with Bullett and I went to Germany on a whim to attend JSConf and CSSConf EU. Im indebted to the free ticket I received from I met brilliant people whom I feel fortunate to know. It is my honor to be able to see the development of the bleeding edge industry of web technologies.

I also started a contract with the Long Island cable company, CableVision. The contract later fizzled out. The job was an example of too few hours devoted to great of a project. This was the first project that I was assigned but couldn’t fulfill to the desired outcome of a client. The communication was horrible and the final product wasn’t anywhere needed. The outcome was the result of too much paper work and a looming deadline. The outcome put the Cablevision people in a bad position. In best wishes, I was able to find another developer, who I believe to have accepted the project.

I made a quick stop in San Francisco. I saw Raimi, Whitney, and Juju. I also had dinner with Kenzo. This was the first time I decided to stay in AirBNB places instead of with friends. I attended Twiliocon, which was great, but not my personal interest. I decided my time was better spent visiting with friends. Coincidentally, I ran into a Twilio employee who was the person who interviewed me at a Voxy. That didn’t work out, but for the better.

In the last week, I started my first job at Conde Nast.

October

The job was exactly what I wanted. The company is amazing, the people working their are brilliant, and the corporation is well recognized. I feel incredibly proud to have the opportunity to grow and develop here. While I am contacted by a number of recruiters, it is my pride to be confident that I have no desire to go anywhere else. I expect to be at Conde for a number of years. I hope to develop alongside my coworkers and see difficult problems to solve.

October was my first full month of employment. I started deepening my understanding of the Conde Nast brand operations. I also began tightening my belt to understand what my role would be. I found the problems to be difficult, but not overwhelming. I found the challenges to be new, but not out of reach. I found my coworkers to be pleasant, but serious. This job is my fortune.

I spent Saturdays at an NYU continuation class. The topic was Advanced Javascript by Aiden.

November

The campaign for 3000 youth ended its first part with a huge victory. I met a number of new people through doing shakabuku. I felt pride to support the Harlem Heights region activities.

Marc and I attended FNCC together. Having gone through the challenges up to that point, this didn’t feel monumental. Looking back now, this was a golden memory. Immediately after November 8th, the challenge was to reconnect with SGI members. After the excitement, it was important to reflect on the victories and “turn the ship”.

In the end of the month, I visited my parents. I spent my mothers birthday with her this year. The ability to spend time with my parents is something that I continue to enjoy.

December

The month was a series of deadlines at work. The challenges seem small compared to the overwhelming number of challenges in other parts of my life. I look forward to the challenges to come.

I reconnected with the Citymission people from the Govlab events. I decided to finish the project under a kickstart copy.

My father came to visit in New York. We spent time together and then went to visit my grand mother in North Carolina. The trip was the first time I saw GJ in years. The time I spent there was largely oriented around working, but she was incredibly happy to have my father and I visit.

With the year coming to an end, I feel absolutely victorious. This next year will be start of many projects, books, and endeavors.