Four short links: 19 June 2009

Cute Math, Fast Slo-Mo, Open Source HVAC, xkcd Hack

1. Inside-Out Multiplication Table -- very cool way to view the patterns of factors. Math is beauty with subscripts.
2. High-Speed Camera -- capture 100 frames at up to 1M frames/second. The sample videos, of a bullet liquefying on impact and a shotgun string boiling past, are stunning. The Makezine high-speed photography kit is the cheap amateur version.
3. Open Source Energy Management for Commercial Buildings -- open source project to enable interoperable applications for integrated Building Automation Systems (BAS). From NovusEdge. I wonder how they're planning to spread their open source and use it to disrupt. (via earth2tech and timoreilly on Twitter)
4. xkcd Knapsack Solution -- for those of you who like literal Python geeking with your comics. Have a great weekend!

XKCD on the Future Self

This morning's XKCD, Latitude, spells out one of the reasons people will be weary of setting up continuous location trackers: the future self. The future self forgets that they are sharing their location and then act as if no one knows where they are going. In this case Megan's friend tracks her stops at a sex shop, toy store, hardware store and finally the burn ward, telling a pretty clear story of a mistranslated kama sutra (ahem).

The name Latitude comes from the recent Google service that will share your location with your network (or publicly). However, it could have just as easily been called Loopt, Brightkite, Fire Eagle or any number of other location-updating services. I am personally looking forward to these services becoming ubiquitous so that I can track my location and aspects of my life, but as they currently stand these services are not poised for mainstream adoption. They need to do more to prevent people from embarrassing or endangering themselves.

One location-sharing service that takes a more constrained role is Glympse. It allows you to share your location on an ad hoc basis with specific people for a specific amount of time. Check-in services like FourSquare (or Dodgeball) let you specify when you self-locate as you wish. These are half-measures and don't meet everyone's needs, but they provide important steps in the right direction.