As usual, this week I continued working on my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project. As I've been doing for a while now, I continued to expand my coverage for Ireland, finishing the decennial censuses for 1901 and 1911, as well as those for the Irish Free State in 1926 and 1936 and Northern Ireland for 1926 and 1937. This week I also did some reading into the history of lawns as they are such a large component of the society I live in and rarely do I stop to think about why they exist. 

Recently I've also thought about the possibility of eventually creating a database for every place name, both urban and rural, in what I define as the DESW but that expansion would be so many magnitudes greater than the expansion that I'm currently working on. It would be something that I might be able to do within years of research and aggregation. Currently, it is best to finish the expansion I've been working on, as it has been months since I've publicly released a proper update regarding my data aggregation as I've been waiting until I've completed this expansion and have a finished product to release. The DESW part one article, where all of the data will eventually be released to, can be found here on my website.

Some interesting things that I could observe in aggregating data for every place in the DESW, both those that are urban and rural, is that I could analyze what occurred to rural places as well as the urban places that I've already been aggregating for. I can also compare an even greater collection of place names which would be interesting to observe if I can find any patterns among the names. 

As I've been working on aggregating for Ireland, some issues arose. Since most of the island was ceded from the United Kingdom in 1922, this created some interruptions in the decennial census schedule. From this point onward, the island is now comprised of two political entities. Northern Ireland, which remained as part of the United Kingdom, and the Irish Free State which later became the Republic of Ireland. Due to the interruption that this cession from the United Kingdom caused, both in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland there was no 1921 decennial census as would have been regularly scheduled. In Northern Ireland, the next decennial census following the 1911 decennial census was taken in 1926. This also happened to be the same date that the Irish Free State also took its first census following the 1911 one before its cession. The figures from these two 1926 decennial censuses are used in my data for the 1920 column. The decennial censuses following these two was taken in 1937 for Northern Ireland and 1936 for the Irish Free State. Figures from these censuses are used for my 1930 column. Over the next week I will work on the 1946 census for the Republic of Ireland and the subsequent censuses that I can find. I will also work on trying to find data for Northern Ireland, but due to some UK census laws, this data might be difficult to come by. 

The number of places analyzed in my data has risen from 8,879 to 8,882, up by 3 places since last week at this time. The small increase is likely due to the potato famine, which had a long term effect of causing many places to lose population, meaning that there's less of a chance of a new place passing my 1,000 inhabitant threshold for the first time during the 19th century, and also my incrementally higher thresholds throughout the 20th.

The screenshot included in this posting is of a small section of my data for Ireland. It shows how I now have up to the 1930 column now filled and how I've been adding notes based on what information is included in each decennial census. 

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially!

This week was a little bit different from the other weeks although I still got a great deal done on my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project. The thing that made this week a bit different from the others is that I decided to purchase a nice new bicycle since my previous one was very worn out and needed many repairs. Since rediscovering bicycling recently, I've been enjoying the freedom it allows me. I no longer have to rely on public transportation to get around and since I also had a cargo rack installed on the bike and purchased pannier bags, I'm able to do grocery shopping or take things with me on trips. 

I was so excited about my new bike that I put nearly 100 km onto it within the first 24 hours of owning it. Since purchasing it six days ago, I've used the bike every single day, going to the grocery store, dentist, and to the hospital. I've also done three longer trips, their routes can be seen on the map included in this post. The first trip was up north to Goulais River, the ride was 67.1 km in length. The second trip was down south to Sugar Island in the United States with the ride being 73.6 km in length. The third trip was only yesterday evening when I went out to Gros Cap to the west, the journey was 58.5 km in length. Out of these three longer trips alone, I've put 199.2 km onto the new bike. 

Regarding my population data research project, I was happy to find that the Irish Free State and subsequently, the Republic of Ireland, provided comprehensive lists of all of the urban areas in their decennial census reports. Compared to what I had to do regarding the decennial Irish census reports of the 19th century while the entire island was under British administration, this greatly sped up my aggregation process and I was able to finish all of the 20th and early 21st century reports within the past week. I think it took me more than a month to get through the 19th century reports. 

One thing I dealt with regarding the 20th and 21st century decennial census reports for Ireland is that since they quote both urban and suburban populations for their centres, I made sure to record both numbers for reference. I used the combined population in my table and added the urban population proper to the notes I add on my table. This extra work was minor compared to having to go through the entirety of the decennial census reports while Ireland was under British administration. 

The number of places analyzed in my data has risen from 8,882 to 8,883, up by 1 place since last week at this time. The small increase is likely due to the potato famine and a subsequent prolonged period of emigration, which had the long term effect of causing many places to lose population, meaning that there's less of a chance of a new place passing my 1,000 inhabitant threshold for the first time during the 19th century, and also my incrementally higher thresholds throughout the 20th.

As usual, concerning my population data research project, I haven't publicly released any of these updates yet, unless otherwise specified. I'm waiting until I've completed all of these expansions that I've been working on and have a finished product to release. The DESW part one article, where all of the data will eventually be released to, can be found here on my website. 

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially!

This week, like last week, was again a bit different than the preceding weeks. This week I decided to start a new project for a change from my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project, which I will return to eventually. Since purchasing a new bicycling and feeling the freedom it allows me, my interest in my local area has been rekindled. When I was a child and up into my teenage years, I had an intense interest in my area. I collected any maps and data that I could get a hold of and I loved exploring and documenting my adventures. It was actually this exploration that got me into photography in the first place. Over the past several years these interests have diminished as I've focused on different projects, but now they've been rekindled.

The project that I've started working on examines the features that are present in the District of Algoma, which is the administrative entity within Ontario that I live in. In Ontario, districts are administrative areas that are significantly larger than the familiar county administrative unit and are used in place of county units in areas that are sparsely populated. Although I live in a decent sized city of 75,000 inhabitants, the area comprising Algoma is extremely sparsely populated. If Algoma was a country, it would rank as the second least densely populated country (2.4 people/km2) in the world ahead of only Mongolia (1.9 people/km2). Needless to say, the city I live in, Sault Ste. Marie, is by far the most populated urban centre in the district, not to mention one of the only urban centres of any size (only around 4 places with more than 1,000 inhabitants). This means that the majority of the territory comprising this district is uninhabited. It is mostly wilderness. Wilderness spotted with logging, mining, a handful of cottages, and a fishing lodge or two. It is a place where the local residents long for the services of more densely populated areas and where visitors excitedly embark on their adventures.

The area has fascinating topography. It is defined by ancient mountains that have been weathered down over billions of years by glaciation and other processes. It is a rugged and dynamic landscape that has inspired impressionistic painters like the Group of Seven. It is dotted with lakes and beaver ponds, with many of the ones within the Great Lakes drainage basin containing sought after brook trout and lake trout.

With the district containing 48,810.68 km2 of land, it is daunting to collect every piece of data imaginable for such a massive territory. To make things more reasonable, so far I'm only aiming on collecting data for areas within the district that are also within the Great Lakes drainage basin. It is this area that I'm most familiar with and have the most data for. With the district being so large, it basically feels like another world when looking at the Hudson Bay drainage basin, which is over the drainage divide. 

At the moment, within this project I've mostly been collecting lake data. Lakes are a principal feature of Algoma's Great Lakes drainage basin. I haven't finished listing all of the named and numbered lakes yet, but so far I have 2,012 lakes plotted on the map that is included in the screenshot of this post. One of the many things I collected when I was younger were depth contour maps of lakes, so I have a great source of information to work with. I've also been able to find some websites produced by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources which contain a great deal of information related to these lakes. One of the issues I face in collecting data for these lakes is that with there being so many spread out across so much area, some of them being so remote, many of them aren't named or numbered let alone surveyed regarding what species inhabit them or how deep they are. Nonetheless, despite not being able to be completely exhaustive regarding these attributes in my data, I'm still aggregating for them. It is interesting to make observations with at least some data. I can still observe lake depths relative to lake trout populations within particular sample areas.

All of the attributes that I'm currently aggregating for regarding these lakes are as follows: 

• Name:
• Township:
• District: Some river drainage basins overlap districts.
• Drained By: The stream the lake is drained by.
• Intermediate(s): Intermediate streams between the stream that drains the lake and the stream that enters one of the Great Lakes if there are any.
• Drainage Basin: The name of the stream that enters the Great Lakes.
• Maximum Depth in Feet:
• Maximum Depth in Metres: 
• Lake Trout: Indication if they are present in the waterbody. 
• Brook Trout: Indication if they are present in the waterbody.
• Splake: Indication if they are present in the waterbody. These are artificially bred and stocked trout which are a cross between lake trout and brook trout. 
• Rainbow Trout: Indication if they are present in the waterbody.
• Brown Trout: Indication if they are present in the waterbody.

Beyond lakes, I've also thought of putting together an entire gazetteer of everything in the area surveyed in my new project. On a smaller scale though, I've thought of at least aggregating all of the populated place names, including those of railway stations, outposts, first nations communities, as well as urban centres.

So far I haven't publicly released any of this recent work. I still have a long ways to go to finish it and it has been an exciting and refreshing change for me from my usual DESW population data research project.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially! 

This week I continued working on the new research project that I started last week where I'm analyzing the waterbodies and drainage systems of the District of Algoma's Great Lakes drainage basin. This change from my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project has been refreshing and my psychologist believes that it is good that I'm working on more than one project since it will help me not burn out.

Over the past week I've expanded my data and added more attributes that I'm aggregating for. Last week at this time my total waterbody count stood at 2,012, this week it is at 2,589, up by 577 waterbodies. A screenshot of my main data table is included in this post. Of the attributes that I've added and expanded upon, most notably I've created more columns to help describe drainage systems. In doing this, I've been coming up with my own theoretical framework to try to explain streams and their tributaries. I hope to have it more developed by this time next week.

Another attribute that I've been keen on aggregating for is what class of lake trout waterbody a lake trout waterbody is. During my childhood I collected many booklets from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources which is the governmental body that deals with these kinds of things. These booklets offer a wealth of information, including a classification system that designates lake trout waterbodies and distinguishes them largely by quality. An issue has risen in how these booklets present their data though. They don't tend to specify longitude and latitude coordinates or even what township a particular waterbody is situated in. They do however specify the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources administrative district that the waterbody is situated in. This has led me to adding a column in my data titled "OMNR District" to help reduce the name ambiguity. Despite this provision, it is still not possible to positively identify many waterbodies using the paucity of information provided. This is especially true for waterbodies that do not possess an official gazetteer name, but are instead identified by township and number. Since the data provided excludes townships, I can end up in situations where I know that there are a number of lake trout waterbodies within a particular administrative district all with the same unofficial name but have absolutely no clue as to where each one is actually situated.

Due to this paucity of information and the fact that many sizable lakes are unnamed, I've thought of creating my own identification and nomenclature system for all of the waterbodies analyzed in my data. This would be very time consuming though.

While this week was full of aggregating, I plan on this coming week to be taken up by writing the body of the article that this data will be published in.

Other than continuing work on this project this week, I also continued to utilize my new bicycle. I took a few nice long rides, one of them being more than 100 km in length. I posted a shot of my new bicycle on Google+ which was taken during my 100+ km trip.

So far I haven't publicly released any of this recent work. I still have a long ways to go to finish it and it has been an exciting and refreshing change for me from my usual DESW population data research project.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially!

Hey Patrons!  Ahh - I'm so stoked to share this video with you!  It's one of the first RUNAGROUND productions I've done wholly at the YouTube space on the historical CBGB set all they way from new york!  

I hope you guys enjoy my take on this old public domain classic made famous by the Animals!  If you like it enough to download it on iTunes that would mean a lot!

Buy here: http://smarturl.it/Rising_Sun

Love you guys!  Let me know what you think!  Thanks for your support!!

This week I completed and published the new research project that I started a couple of weeks ago where I was analyzing the waterbodies and drainage systems of the District of Algoma's Great Lakes drainage basin. Now that it is published, I'm looking at either adding a little more to it, returning to my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project, or starting a new small project. One of the smaller projects that I've been considering is one that would analyze the architecture within the city that I live in. It is easy to habituate to your everyday surroundings and oftentimes people overlook things that can be quite interesting.

During the past week I wrote the body of the article, produced some illustrative maps for it, made comparison tables, and added 200 more waterbodies to the data, taking the total from last week, 2,589, and raising it to, 2,789.

The screenshot included in this posting is of the published article that you can find up on my website here. In the screenshot you can see an example of how I illustrated some satellite imagery from Google Earth to help identify the area that is being analyzed in my article.

Other than this project, I've also continued to regularly ride my new bicycle. I completed a 136 km trip during an afternoon this past week. I've also been taking some snapshots during my rides. I've posted some over on Panoramio, not on my usual Flickr which I use for more serious images. You can find my Panoramio here.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially! 

This week I mostly aggregated data from local sources for my research projects. I went to my city's public library to record and digitize material. At first I was aiming at aggregating more information for my project that analyzes the waterbodies and drainage systems of the District of Algoma's Great Lakes drainage basin, but I came across a lot of different material that I also chose to digitize for my other projects.

The image included in this post is of a screenshot I took of Lightroom that shows one of the images I've digitized from the library's collections. This particular digitized image is from one of the many historical county atlases the library possesses for Southern Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. From these county atlases I've been able to aggregate a wealth of data and images that help me better understand how life was in the late 1870's. In total, I have digitized nearly 1,000 items and pages.

A great deal of time has been spent on correcting these images as I had to utilize my DSLR sans tripod in order to capture them (part of the agreement with the library). This means that there is some perspective distortion and straightening that has had to be done and still needs to be completed. A great deal of time has also been spent on tagging and organizing the images so I can better sort through them.

Within these county atlases I largely focused on capturing text pages (they contain info about life and populations), view illustrations (they visually depict life as seen in the image included in this post), and maps.

Regarding my local waterbody research project, I've been able to find a number of historical sources at the library that have allowed me to add the former names of many streams and waterbodies. This information has been added to my article's data tables which have been publicly updated. You can find the updated project here. 

Another thing I worked on this week was combining my favourite places lists into a single spreadsheet. I've identified more than 500 places around the world as places that I find to be of interest largely for architectural reasons and I believe that this is a wealth of interesting information that is a byproduct of having done so much work for so many years regarding population data and my other related endeavours. I've been contemplating publishing this information as a book. 

Other than my research, I've been continuing to ride my bicycle, go on adventures with it, and take and post pictures from these adventures. This week I adventured out to a little hidden lake and I also decided to cycle out to a beach. You can see a photo of my bike by the beach here and some photos of the hidden lake here. 

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially!

Hey guys! 

Here's my latest effort for you! I totally dig both of these songs and seem to play them all the time for friends, busking, at parties, random open mic and the like, so I figures it was about time to share them with you! That said, I figured I'd put in a little extra effort and try to jam together!!

I really hope you dig my take! :D

Hope you're liking your postcards! Should all be arriving any day now if they haven't already!

Love Tom x

This week I worked on a number of projects. I worked a bit on straightening and correcting the distortion in the material that I digitized the other week from my local public library. I also read some of the text pages that I digitized and added a few new bits of data to the spreadsheets for my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project.

Another aspect I've been working on regarding my DESW research project is making sense of my favourite places list which currently contains more than 500 places around the world. This is very challenging since liking something is quite subjective and it is difficult to rationalize why a place ought to be noted. One of the many issues I've run into is trying to figure out how I ought to go about comparing places that are markedly different from each other. For instance, I like both Boston, Massachusetts and New Castle, Delaware, but they are very different from each other. Boston is a large and internationally significant city with a much more well known history compared to New Castle, Delaware. Despite this, they both have many charming historical streets and great urban atmospheres. They are both remarkable in their own ways. A similar issue arises when comparing American urban centres to British urban centres. They can both have charm and a lovely urban atmosphere, but they can be quite stark in their differences. Typically the British urban centres are much denser.

Throughout the past week I've attempted to develop a ranking system for my favourites, but this process has been quite slow. I've tried to tally points by different categories since many places can be remarkable for a variety of different reasons. I've tried to look at things such as condition; architectural interest; urban aesthetics; natural landscape; and the urban area's cultural influence. For instance, some places can be architecturally significant, but be horrible regarding their condition containing things like urban decay, poor urban planning, and high levels of social inequality.

Since the process of trying to organize my favourites proved to be so difficult, later in the week I went back to aggregating data for the main table of my DESW research project. I finished aggregating for Scotland for the 1921 and 1931 census, the most recent publicly available censuses I know of for the United Kingdom. Regarding my main data table, I'm relatively close to completing my update data-wise. I just need to find data for the United Kingdom post WWII (if that information is legally available), finish aggregating for the southern portion of Africa, and for all of Australia and New Zealand. After this data has been aggregated, I would just need to work on my secondary tables and updating the body of my DESW part one article before I would be able to release a new edition of the article. You can find the currently published edition of the article here on my website.

Cycling has continued to be an important part of my life over the past week. I went on two fairly long rides. One up north to the Stokely Creek trails and another out to a beach (photo taken at the beach included in this posting). You can find photos from my rides on both Google+ (photos of my bicycle in different places) and on Panoramio (more scenic photos).

I also purchased a trip computer for my bicycle this week. It lets me know things like how fast I'm going and how far I have traveled. Since I got it installed in the middle of the week I've rode 166.1 km.

I've also been doing some reading and video watching to learn how to better utilize my bicycle. This has also been taking up some time, but I've found that my bicycle has greatly added to the quality of my life in providing me with exercise, transportation, and recreation. I've also been attempting to use it to go to bicycle related social events as a way to help me socially interact more in the physical world. 

Another thing I did this week was attempt to piece together a bicycle from parts of other old bicycles. I think it is a good way to become more comfortable with maintenance and how to work on mechanical things.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially! 

This week I continued to work on and better define the favourite ranking system that I've been working on for the past while for my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project. I also continued to frequently cycle and went on two significant trips. One to Michigan and another where I went north of where I live to a place called Chippewa Falls. Altogether, including my daily riding, I've rode 430 km since last week at this time bringing the total number of kilometres since the installation of my new cycling trip computer to 596 km.

The ranking system has been difficult to work on since I tend to feel inundated when I try to make solid judgments on something so subjective as beauty and other traits that are difficult to objectively define. This has caused me to move back on forth on how much framework I ought to incorporate into this decision making process. I've been thinking that I ought to not include too much framework since it only further complicates things as trying to make something innately subjective, objective, is a seemingly futile goal. So what I've been aiming on doing is making this measurement simply based on what I like relative to what I know. I'm highlighting places that stand out to me and prioritizing them relative to each other and other places that I know of. All of the other attributes of this project differ from this one in that they aren't as personal and subjective, but I'm including this attribute as I feel that it adds value. Not only does it add value, but the entirety of this project has been fueled by my passionate curiosity and to me this project would feel empty without this subjective attribute. 

The screenshot included in this post is of the data table that I'm using for my favourites which is being floated next to a window displaying one of the places that I've highly ranked in my favourites. This place is Corfe Castle, England. It is a picturesque stone village with a ruined castle, part of which can be seen in the background. The data table has a number of different columns for different attributes. Over the past week I added a column for what I refer to as "type/feel" of a place. So far I designate a place as "village", "small town", "town", "city", or "large city". These have nothing to do with their formal designation, but again with how I subjectively perceive them. This classification came about due to the issues I came across when trying to compare large cities to villages. They can both be wonderful in their own way, and I may perceive them both as two of my absolute favourite places, but they differ in so many ways. This classification system allows me to rank villages relative to villages, towns relative to towns, and so on. This way it doesn't feel absurd to rank a 40 building village at the same level as a large city like Boston. 

Concerning my cycling, I've been reading into how to better cycle and I've searching for more opportunities to participate in my community and meet other people. Physical world interaction is one of the areas that I experience difficultly in. I've also been continuing to upload new photos taken from my trips to Panoramio. You can find the latest ones there. So far I haven't put up anything from the Chippewa Falls trip. As before, I've also been sharing shots of my bicycle from these trips on Facebook and Google+. 

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially!

This week I continued to work on my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project focusing on isolating and defining places that interest me and updating the body and data tables of "part one" of the project. Regarding the updates to the body and data tables, I'm working on a rough draft for a new edition. This means that none of these revisions are public yet, but will be in time. You can find the article that the updates will be eventually published to here on my website.

As I worked on the places of interest found in my work, I shared a couple of Google Street View scenes to Google+ this week. On Google+ I also shared a couple of photos from a cycling adventure I went on this past week to Michigan. I've continued to regularly cycle each day and cycled 254 kilometres since last week at this time bringing the total number of kilometres cycled since the installation of my trip computer to 850. I've also shared one extra photo from this past week's Michigan cycling adventure to Panoramio.

As I've been working on the places of interest found in my work, I've noticed that my most common urban classification is "town" (personal classification, not legal designation). Relative to cities this makes sense, there are more towns than cities, but relative to villages there ought to be more villages than towns. I believe that villages are likely under represented in my work due to the fact that the minimum population threshold for a municipality's inclusive in my data is 1,000 inhabitants which is used between the 1800 and 1900 decennial censuses. This would naturally exclude many small places that would give off the atmosphere of a village. I've found that there are many villages that I find to be pleasing and of interest so this has increased my interest in examining them. Regardless of this interest, it would likely have to be quite a while before I would be able to examine them more in depth as I already have a great deal of work on my plate regarding my DESW project as it is. Lowering the threshold any more would only put years more work onto my plate and potentially create an issue regarding what quality and quantity of data is even available for municipalities in that population range.

The Google Street View screenshot included in this post depicts the centre of Burkittsville, Maryland which is one of my favourite small villages in the United States. Throughout the couple hundred or so years that this village has been around, it may not have ever had more than 300 inhabitants at any given time. I love how tidy and simplistic it is. The entirety of the village is mostly situated on a single road with the backsides of the houses being serviced by lane-ways. You can explore the little village yourself here on Google Street View.

Regarding the revisions that I've been doing to the rough draft of my "part one" article and its associated data tables, it has been a relief to finally work on the backlog of work I have piled up for the article update. As I've been working all these months I've amassed a great deal of notes regarding what to rework for the article's next edition. 

I've also been thinking about visiting my city's museum to find some more resources for potential local projects that I could do. I might visit it this week. 

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me a great deal both mentally and financially! 

Going to be bringing tons of content like this video and more from behind the scenes of all the neat projects I've been working on!

Thanks for the support you guys!  It means the world to know that you are behind all these creations.  Let me know if you enjoy this and what challenge you might like to see next!?

More coming your way!

Much LOVE! - 

This week I focused on a number of things. One of the main things I focused on was my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project where I continued to focus on isolating and defining the places that are of interest to me. I've made great progress on these places of interest and I'm thankful that I'm nearly completely through at least one stage of working on this part of my project. Upon what I've been working on I've had to handle the stress of my father's upcoming open heart surgery which he's getting the afternoon that I'm typing this post.

Regarding the places that interest me in my DESW research project, the next step that I've been thinking of taking is going through all of the places in my list yet again and further organizing places by what type/feeling I believe that they have. Through this I will also reassess the interest ranking that I've been assigning each place by comparing places that I've described as possessing a similar type/feeling. One of the ideas that have resurfaced in my mind lately is to try to compare on the neighbourhood level since many large urban areas are extremely complex and may possess many exceptional features that would otherwise go ignored in my work if they are assessed only by their entirety. For instance, the present day city of Detroit isn't a place that I rank highly in my work but that doesn't mean that the city lacks anything that is noteworthy. There are a number of interesting buildings and neighbourhoods from many eras that are still intact despite the overall city being viewed in such a negative light.

As usual, regarding my DESW population data research project, I haven't released any of my recent work unless otherwise specified. I'm waiting until I have a finished product to release as a new edition of my "part one" article, the current edition you can find here on my website. 

Through all of this work, I've been looking into learning more theories and philosophies to help myself better understand the world not only for my work, but also for my own well being. I've been looking into social classes, wealth, happiness, urban design, gentrification, and the work by different postmodern philosophers. During my formal science education, postmodern thought was excluded so I've had to teach myself about these things. 

I've also been trying to let my creative side out a little more by designing another fictional map. My work tends to always stay in the "real" world so it is a relieving change of pace to just allow myself to make something up.

I've also continued to regularly cycle, cycling 343 kilometres since last week at this time bringing the total number of kilometres cycled since the installation of my trip computer to 1,193. I've shared photos from my cycling adventures this past week to Google+ and even more to Panoramio. My longest trip this past week was 155.7 kilometres.

The screenshot included in this post is of two windows being floated side by side on my desktop. On the left is the data table for the places that I find to be of interest in my DESW research project to showcase how it has been developing (notice that there are 512 rows in view). On the right is a screenshot of Panoramio, which I linked to above, and contains some of the photos that I've taken during my cycling adventures.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me be able to be who I am and continue to do what I do. 

This week I continued to make progress on my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project. I finished a stage regarding the places of interest list, continued to break down places by classification, started a new stage, and worked on some theories regarding interesting places.

Once I had finished the stage of classifying and ranking the 500+ places identified as "interesting" in my places of interest data table, I began to further break down the classifications from "village", "small town", "town", "city", and "large city", to "small village", "village", "large village", "small town", "town", "large town", "small city", "city", and "large city". This has helped create even more on par comparisons between places. This was done to address the issue that I've mentioned before in that many different places can be interesting in their own ways, but many times it doesn't make much sense to compare a large city like Boston, MA to a small town like Woodstock, Vermont. They are completely different and are likely enjoyed for different reasons. A screenshot illustrating this comparison is included in this post. On the left is the library and courthouse of the small town of Woodstock, VT, and on the right is a view along Commonwealth Avenue in the city of Boston, MA. 

Once I had completed the further breakdown by classification, I then began the step of looking over some of my lists of other places that I have identified as potentially being of interest. This step has taken me a while since I've had to go to all of these places and take an in depth virtual tour of them on Google Street View to try to assess if perhaps they ought to be added to my places of interest table, and if I believe that they should be added, I need to decide how to classify and rank them in the table. It has been quite difficult to figure out what to include and what to exclude. I'm happy that I've gotten through the majority of this step this week and my table has expanded by quite a bit. My previous quote for the number of places in my places of interest table was "more than 500 places", now it stands at 598. This includes places both inside and outside of the DESW, in other words, anywhere in the world.

While doing all of this work, I've also been working on theories to help explain why places look the way they do. These will be included in the next edition of my work along with all of these other updates that I'm working on. You can find the current public edition of part one of my work here on my website. There is also a current public edition of part two which can also be found on my website. 

Through all of this, I've been continuing to learn more postmodern theories to help me understand both my life and how to build some better framework surrounding the theories for my work.

I'm happy to announce that my father successfully made it through heart surgery and he's back home. I've had to help him a bit so that has been taking up some of my time.

Other than all of this, I've began to take political and population quizzes again. I used to do them more often, but I burned out on them. They are good trivial knowledge. I'm also excited that Google recently released some new Street View imagery which includes some places in the Philippines. I've been exploring Manila a bit the past few days and I'm surprised by the type of bicycle rickshaws they have (the passenger part mounts on the side). I also continued to regularly cycle this week, cycling 385 kilometres since last week at this time bringing the total number of kilometres cycled since the installation of my trip computer to 1,578. I've shared photos from my cycling adventures this past week to Google+ and Panoramio.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me be able to be who I am and continue to do what I do.

This week I continued to make progress and finally finished another stage regarding my places of interest list for my usual DESW "Developed English Speaking World" population data research project. I have now finished assessing all the places in my "might be interesting" list and ranked and classified all of the places that are situated in what I define as the DESW. The number of places in my places of interest list, which includes those situated both inside and outside of the DESW, stood at 598 places last week at this time, now it is at 624, up by 26 places. Regarding this list, I also worked on better defining the theoretical framework surrounding the urban classification system I've been using to help sort the data. On the right side of the screenshot included in this post is a diagram I created to help visualize this urban classification system. The system that I've devised isn't perfect, but when it comes to the more subjective, I think that it is important to realize that things don't have to be perfect and to move on with them. Needless to say, it is likely that I may further modify this diagram as I continue to work on the project.

As I've been working on this, I've been revising the rough draft of the next edition of my work where many months of updates will eventually be released in. I've been working on better explaining my already published municipal relationship theory and adding this "places of interest" component. As I've been working on this, I've noticed an issue with my already published "part one" article for this body of work. For some reason the main data table, which contains nearly 6,000 rows, each pertaining to a municipality or urban place, only displays 100 rows at any given time. I'm imagining that this is due to some kind of limit that I'm crossing and I was relieved to see that my other smaller tables that also contain thousands of rows weren't affected by this problem.  

Regarding the diagrams that I created this week to help visualize my urban classification theory, I've been taking tutorials for the Photoshop pen tool so I can better create digital maps. It is one of the most difficult tools to learn and although I've been using Photoshop for years, I still haven't mastered it. Learning it would likely allow me to better express myself digitally.

This week I've also had to help my father a lot since he's just come home from open heart surgery so that took away some of my cycling time. Nonetheless, I was still able to get out and cycle a bit, doing 177 kilometres since last week at this time bringing the total number of kilometres cycled since the installation of my trip computer to 1,755. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do any long trips and I didn't end up taking any photos, but I plan on doing so in the upcoming week. 

Over the past week I was excited that Google introduced Street View imagery for the Philippines and I did a bit of virtual exploration of the country. I was fascinated by a number of things including the Jeepneys (one of their common types of transportation) and how the capital city, Manila, has changed since the 19th century. According to one of my other population data research articles, Manila had 190,000 inhabitants by the close of the 19th century, making it at that time perhaps the 140th most populated city in the world. The history of Spanish colonization, the examples of Spanish colonial urban centres I've witnessed in Colombia, and the old city walls still present around old Manila, led my to hypothesize that the old city would be similar in character to a charming old city like Cartagena, Colombia, but I was surprised. Since the 19th century Manila has gone from being a Spanish possession to an American one, briefly to a Japanese possession, and then back to an American one before finally gaining independence. It has also faced a great deal of redevelopment and social issues. All of this has led to the city not looking quite like I thought it would. Nonetheless, I was still able to find a lovely Spanish colonial urban centre in the Philippines, an image of which is included in the left half of the screenshot included in this post. This place is Vigan, one of the last of its kind still preserved in the Philippines. You can explore from this point on Google Street View here.

Through all of this, I've once again considered doing some local projects pertaining to the city I live in highlighting some of the interesting physical aspects of its environment. Also, during this past week I decided to play a video game for the first time in years. I think it was a good thing to do. I tend to have an issue of overworking myself and thinking that I ought to not do particular things, but it is good to change things up a little bit. I found that I was able to focus very well on the game and it brought me back to my teenage days when I was very good at playing games and analyzing them. Just like how I like to break down and analyze things in the real physical world, I also have an interest in breaking down and analyzing fictional worlds. It has brought me to wonder if I should start another project, one that is smaller than my DESW population data research project, to analyze some games. There are many things that one can analyze regarding them, some of them are quite worthy of consideration, like how games are influenced by and in turn influence the culture and society that we live in. Whether or not to pursue this project is something that I'll have to think about, but I feel as though it would be enjoyable for me to work on something different for a change. I always find a change to be refreshing since I can get burned out on the DESW research project.

As always, thank you SO much for your continued support! It helps me be able to be who I am and continue to do what I do.