Seb's weblog

Visualizing the use of Le vélo Star

Sebastien Tanguy — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:12:50 +0000

Le vélo Star is a public bicycle rental service provided by Keolis for the city of Rennes and it opened last year. At first, data were not provided officially, although one could look at the source of their google maps use to see that a list of station was available as a XML file and detailed informations were in HTML fragments. However, Rennes Métropole has decided to open up its data and the first step in this direction was done early this week by Keolis Rennes providing an API for Le Vélo Star.

So, I wanted to do something with it. Building a google maps stye application would have been easy but I tried for something different. I first started by building a script that would collect and store the data (number of bikes and slots available for each station) using RRD. Graphs are nice, but it wasn’t helping much seeing the whole picture. So instead, using a background image generated from OpenStreetMap I built a time-lapse animation of the stations’ usage.

All the code I wrote is available on my Github repository, except for the animation bit, were I currently used iMovie.

back from Punish Yourself, Antipode, Rennes

Sebastien Tanguy — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:01:26 +0000

First part was assumed by Deadcell and maybe they should have abstained. Some kind of Ministry/KMFDM sound, mostly with a (bad) recorded backtrack and strange videos in the background (I had a problem associating correctly the images of Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Religion and the USA, but that may be just me). The girls on guitars were kinda cute, but I spent maybe 5 mins trying to see if their instruments were plugged in.

Punish Yourself may be uglier, but at least they sounded far better (even if this time I had a doubt with the drummer vs the backtrack). They were screaming, painted, flaming and moving the people around and that was good. Soundwise, they’re a bit of mix between punk, rockabilly (I’m pretty sure to have clearly heard that influence in one or two songs) and hard techno. Stage-wise, it was also really nice to watch: lasers, flames and body paint.

Overall, it was just a bit short (1h and 1:25 respectively) but it felt good in the end.

my very own opinion about the Apple iPad

Sebastien Tanguy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:04:12 +0000

So, Apple showed the world its new world domination toy, the iPad. What do I think about it? First, the name is silly and boring. The device seems interesting with limited capabilities, but most probably due to physical and technical constraints. Sure, it can’t do multitasking and it is just an oversized iPhone, but one has to take into account that the thing is thin and that the battery is good even though the display and the faster processor would be more power-hungry than those on the iPhone/Touch.

Would I buy one? Not yet. Although I’m a good target, I think that this is still a bit expensive (not even speaking of the cash cow represented by the various storage capacities, and what about the OS updates?) for what it can do and my pocket are not that deep. I would rather keep a laptop instead, at the time being, for home usage. Hopefully, in one or two years, it will get better feature-wise. Would it get more “open” to other apps? Not sure Apple would let go.

However, I think this represents a kick in the nuts for the eReader market. Many of those compete on the features and in the end are expensive old-fashioned (b&w) devices. If I had to choose between an Apple iPad and any 10” eReader, at the same price, I think the LCD screen would win this time. I don’t know if they could compete directly with the iPad. Build a cross-over device with ePaper and touch capabilities at the same time? Not likely to win. My guess is that they would better try to go against the touch/iphone, with simple/cheap 6” devices, where they can’t be reached by glossy and battery-hungry gadgets.

best hard rock stuff for ages

Sebastien Tanguy — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:30:03 +0000

If you think the new Guns & Roses is getting too complicated, check out Paul Gilbert and Freddie Nelson’s United States album as it just rocks your pants off.

back from Magma, Salle de la Cité

Sebastien Tanguy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:42:26 +0000

(yeah, I’m late).

About a week and a half ago, I was seeing Magma in concert for the second time. The first part was filled by L’Effet Défée which provided us with a strange mix of sounds: Vocals (and samples), Harp (yes, harp!), Bass (with a bow) and noise/hardcored drums (the guy lost a cymbal and broke a stick, it can’t be much hardcore). In the end, it gave a powerful and refreshing mix, with a kind of Björk-meets-Magma result.

Next came Magma. They played a powerful set, although I was a bit disappointed because compared to the previous performance I saw, I thought that the bass and guitar were less overwhelming in their sound and presence. I think the guitar was a bit low in the mix and there was only one real solo. But I still love watching Christian Vander play the drums with ease and at the same time a lot of power (he too lost a cymbal, that wasn’t the night for the drums techs).

Grate expectations (sic)

Sebastien Tanguy — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:57:19 +0000

This gives me goose bumps. I know anything goes, but I think 2010 might get interesting on this point.

on the market for a new guitar

Sebastien Tanguy — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:02:50 +0000

I recently wanted to get a 7-strings, but it appears the ones I chose are out of my range (be it price-wise or stock-wise), so instead, I’ll go look for a new 6-strings (hey, Christmas is coming). The aim of the exercise would be to tune it lower (or more differently) than usual (either in Db/C# or even in NST). So far, my requirements would be:

NOT a superstrat body (but best if this is not a plain Les Paul copy or a SG;
lighter and smaller than a Les Paul (and I mean it: not just a Lite LP);
dual humbuckers (coil splitting a bonus but not required);
oil/wax neck finish (even though this could be done after);
NOT inlined tuners (but bonus for locked tuners);
right arm rest is an ultra-bonus;
low-mid range price (aka: not cheap but not requiring me to sell my kidneys again);
either really good looking (but I’m picky) or cheap looking (and it will suffer);
fixed bridge;

available from a local dealer.

Currently, my eyes would be on a Godin LG, but I haven’t tested the neck yet. Otherwise a ’72 tele might fit part of the bill, but that would not be exactly my current aim.

of guitar and picks

Sebastien Tanguy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:57:40 +0000

[ this is a geeky post, but geeky as guitar-geek, not computer-geek ]

I played the guitar for quite some time now and as a self-taught mostly rock guitar player, I used to play with a pick (or mediator, or plectrum) and unlike what some people may say (Hi Aurélien!), I think the quality of the pick has an influence, maybe on the sound but mostly on the way one plays. My first picks, as far as I remember were either noname ones or from Fender. And one day, about fifteen years ago, while visiting New York, I discovered the Dunlop Tortex picks. I bought some then and maybe a few more a few years later, but I think I haven’t bought any for 5 or 10 years.
My main picks for quite some time were the black (1.35mm) Dunlop Tortex Sharp and blue (1.0mm) Tortex. I tried the same in 1.50mm gauge but found them too heavy for my taste. Anyway, recently, I gave a try to different picks, to see if I should change. Here are my feelings and reviews for the few I have at hand:

Dava Grip Tip: Maybe the most different of the picks I had, I think it requires more “training” to properly use it, since it would take advantage of the way the fingers handle it. A bit too soft to my taste. Maybe I should try instead the Rock Control or Precision versions which provide harder tips;
Dunlop Big Stubby: A basic and large width pick, I don’t really like the grip I have on it, for my usual way of playing. Maybe I should try to use it for playing the bass or only for strumming;
Dunlop Nylon Jazz XL: heavy (in width) but small pick with a nice tip. I think the “jazz” title is well earned since I like it to play melodies and solos, but I have a hard time keeping a good grip when changing styles for strumming or playing in a more rock or metal fashion;

Dunlop Ultex Sharp: at first it felt weird, because I took one of the smallest of the lot with the 0.90mm and compared to my trusty 1.35 sharp tortex, it just felt naked, but once I got used to its width, it was just the right one, being hard enough, precise and with a good (basic) grip. I only need to see know how it holds in time (but so far, it looks good).

This is just a small review of what I got on my hands and there are many other products available on the market. At the time being, I think I’ll mostly go with the Ultex, maybe picking up the Jazz every now and then.

self reminder about “le vélo star”

Sebastien Tanguy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:10:14 +0000

So, this is a XML list of vélo star stations and this is the state of a particular station (as an HTML fragment)

safari 4 and…

Sebastien Tanguy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:27:40 +0000

I preferred when Safari was chewing up tons of memory. At least then it didn’t crash every 10 minutes on random web sites.

Sure, the usual culprit is most of time the flash plugin. Ok, that’s an external thing, that could be an excuse. But my guess is more on the thread management (which was already the subject of my previous post). Sometimes it would freeze loading a page when moving the mouse around. (I would bet on some kind of race condition between the cookies handling and the javascript interpreter).
If somebody wanted to bad mouth apple, one could say that they send out buggy software, crashing, being slow as molasses (I’m looking at you, iTunes), but mostly on older operating system releases, to push people to the upgrade way.
Bleh!