Media Monday Edmonton: The Wanderer

Edmonton’s online coverage got a little bit richer last July when The Wanderer officially launched. Described as “Edmonton’s premier daily online magazine,” The Wanderer was born at the University of Alberta but aims to reach beyond campus by highlighting local politics, culture, science, sports, and more. I sat down recently with Emerson Csorba, one of the site’s founders, to learn more.

Emerson is entering his fourth year of Sciences Politiques at Campus Saint-Jean after spending a year working for the Students’ Union. Last spring he started throwing around the idea of starting a newspaper or magazine with some friends. “We wanted to highlight Edmonton a little differently,” he said, citing influences such as The Atlantic, Gawker, and GOOD. The wanted to provide an alternative to The Gateway, but also didn’t want to be restricted to covering university-related news. The other founders included Sansitny Ruth, Dongwoo Kim, Katrina Regino, Skye Oleson-Cormack, and Sydney Rudko. In the summer they decided to make it happen.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson and the team recruited about 20 writers and started posting content, with the site officially launching on July 5, 2012. Today they’re up to about 70 contributors, 20 of whom contribute regularly. All are volunteers. “We run off gratitude,” Emerson told me. “Thanks for contributing!” Emerson is hoping to have some professors start writing for the site consistently too, perhaps talking about their research. And another challenge is to find a core group of younger students who can contribute. “We want to have a reunion 20 years from now!”

The goal is to publish something new every day. Contributors have quite a bit of autonomy, though usually a piece will get bounced off at least one other person before going live. The site runs on WordPress and contributors are granted “editor” privileges. For the most part this works well, though it can backfire occasionally. The satirical paragraph about northsiders in this piece didn’t come off well, Emerson told me (nor did his piece on Plastiq). Still, they didn’t take it down. As of April 15, a total of 847 articles had been published on a variety of topics.

The name of the site was a suggestion from Sansitny. “At first I didn’t like it,” Emerson admitted, adding that it has grown on him since. It’s meant to capture the idea that students are wanderers, experimenting as they work to find their path. Other names that were considered included “Butterdome Republic” and “Rutherford Post”.

I have really been enjoying the content at The Wanderer, especially lately. Interviews with Omar Mouallem, Edmonton Opera’s CEO Sandra Gajic, and Mayor Mandel have all been great reads. An earlier project that received a lot of attention was The Wanderer’s list of the Top 100 Undergrads. I asked Emerson if he considers himself a journalist, but he shunned the label. “We want people to write about things they’re involved in and passionate about,” he told me.

The Wanderer

As for what’s next for the site, Emerson says “consistency is the goal,” at least in terms of posting content. Watch for podcasts and videos in the future, as well as enhanced visual arts coverage. Emerson is also hoping to have The Wanderer branch out into events. “Maybe we can do a half day conference on education,” he mused. “Tie all the levels of education together.” Another area of interest is community leagues, and how to engage more youth (Emerson served as president of the Parkallen Community League for a year, so he knows a thing or two about that!) There’s clearly a lot of energy and ideas flowing. I think their recent “Thank you, readers” post captures the possibilities well:

The Wanderer honestly doesn’t have an end-point in mind; we evolve based on our writers’ ideas. We provide autonomy to our writers and tell them to basically “go for it.”

The Wanderer is off to a great start, with a Yeggie nomination in the “Best in Edmonton” category (if that wasn’t proof enough that The Wanderer is on to something, a website called Ualberta Green Onion poked fun at them recently), and more than 60,000 unique visitors and 200,000 page views since launch. Add to that a large team of contributors producing quality content, and you’ve got a local site to keep an eye on!

Edmonton Notes for 4/28/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

EPL Parkade
Lovely shot of the EPL Parkade ramp by Ian McKenzie.

Here are some upcoming events:

Edmonton 124St
I love street art. This is somewhere near 124 Street, photo by Alina Strandberg.

Potholes in Edmonton: A closer look at 100 Avenue

Every Sunday for the last couple of months I have driven down 100 Avenue, so I know firsthand just how bad the potholes on that street are. Every week they seem to get worse, but not evenly across the street. Some places are far worse than others. It got me thinking – why are some areas of 100 Avenue so rough while others are smooth?

100 Avenue

I considered the section road from 170 Street east to 149 Street. Closer to 170 Street there definitely seem to be few, if any, potholes – for the most part the road is smooth. Right around 163 Street, the potholes get really bad. For a while there was a pothole big enough that I’d describe it as a crater! As you approach 149 Street there seem to be less, but still more than the section closest to 170 Street. Why aren’t there potholes along the entire route?

My first thought was that perhaps the traffic volumes are significantly different for each part of the street. Fortunately, the Open Data Catalogue contains average annual weekday traffic volumes for the period 2006-2011, so we can find out. Here’s the result:

Unfortunately there isn’t data for the part of the street closer to 149 Street, but I can’t think of a reason it would be much different (especially since there is nowhere to go but north or east once between 149 Street and 156 Street, more on that in a minute). So it doesn’t appear that traffic volumes would have had much of an impact on the number of potholes.

My next thought was around the maintenance of the street – maybe sections were repaved at different times. I asked the City of Edmonton on Twitter, and was very happy to receive a response:

That actually aligns really well with my empirical evidence! The newest section of road, from 163 Street to 170 Street, is in good shape. The oldest section of road, from 156 Street to 163 Street, is in really rough shape. And the middle-aged section, from 149 Street to 156 Street, is a bit better. Clearly there seems to be a connection between the age of the street and the number of potholes it contains, at least in this example.

Remember that crater I mentioned? It was located right around 161 Street. Here’s what it looked like on April 16, 2013:

100 Avenue

And here’s what it looked like in May 2012, courtesy of Google Street View:

Looks like this is one of those potholes the City patches every year! Given that the street hasn’t been repaved in nearly 20 years, perhaps it’s time?

There are a few other interesting things to note about 100 Avenue. If you haven’t driven down there in a while, take a gander on Google Street View. Here’s a quick summary:

  • From 170 Street to 163 Street, there are four lanes of one-way traffic (east). For most of this section, there are sidewalks and commercial property on either side of the street.
  • From 163 Street to 156 Street, there are two lanes heading east, one lane heading west, and one lane of parking on the north side. There is residential on either side of the street, with a sidewalk on the north and a sidewalk separated by a landscaped buffer strip on the south. Traffic is restricted from turning south.
  • From 156 Street to 149 Street, there are two lanes in either direction (though in some places the west-direction is down to one lane). There is residential on either side of the street (except for a few strip malls on the north), with a sidewalk on the north and a sidewalk separated by a landscaped buffer strip on the south. Traffic is restricted from turning south.

One of the things you’ll notice as you drive down the street is that all the potholes seem to be on the south lanes where traffic is going east. No doubt this is due in part to traffic volumes (there’s a lot less traffic heading west). But I have a hunch that there’s more to it than that. I think there are two key features that contribute to the potholes, especially for the section between 163 Street and 156 Street.

First, I think the lane of parking on the north prevents potholes from forming there. Remember that you need water and traffic to create potholes. Even if the water drains toward the sidewalk as expected, the parking lane prevents the vast majority of traffic from causing potholes. Second, I think the landscaped buffer on the south encourages more water pooling. With less sun to melt the snow, more soil to hold the moisture, and more traffic, it’s no wonder that more potholes appear there. It seems there is so much water, in fact, that it overwhelms the drains in the area.

100 Avenue

I read the consolidated 100 Avenue Planning Study, and discovered there were good reasons for that landscaped buffer strip:

A number of concerns have been identified with respect to the impact of the 100 Avenue roadway improvements on the neighbourhoods of Jasper Place and Glenwood. These include traffic noise, speeding, pedestrian safety, and the possibility of traffic shortcutting, north-south between 95 Avenueand 100 Avenue.

The Stony Plain Road/100 Avenue Facility Planning Study, approved by Council on January 8, 1985,  recommended that these problems be dealt with by the installation of pedestrian crossings, the closure of some local streets south of 100 Avenue, and the development of a landscaped buffer strip along  the south side of 100 Avenue.

The study did mention that the existing stormwater system was “inadequate” but I’m not sure if or when that was originally addressed. I’m sure the authors of the study weren’t thinking about the possible impact of the design on potholes, but we can see the effects today.

All of this just reaffirms to me the complexity of the problem! Solving the pothole problem will have an impact not just on the way we maintain streets, but how we design them too.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #75

Here’s my latest update on local media stuff:

  • The rumors were true: Dave Rutherford announced his long-running and highly-rated Rutherford Show will retire this summer. “I think that the broadcast news industry, for lack of a better term, is dumbing down,” Rutherford told the Calgary Herald. On Twitter he said “the number one Alberta talk show is retiring” but added “Dave is not, opportunity awaits.” Here’s what his website looked like today:

  • A year ago, the 630 CHED tagline was still “Alberta’s Information Superstation”. I didn’t notice it until recently, but in March of this year they changed it to “Edmonton’s Breaking News & Conversation Station”. Anyone know the story behind that?
  • Well what do you know, the Edmonton Police Service has decided to jump into web video with The Squad, “a gritty, hard-hitting look at policing in Edmonton.” There’s apparently going to be weekly episodes of the reality-TV-like web series. You can check out the stars here.
  • I meant to link to this last week. The local sports media have a bit of a reputation for going easy on the Oilers, but they certainly put Kevin Lowe on the hot seat after he announced the firing of Tambellini. Peter Adler argued they shouldn’t have done so, but the core of his argument is that there’s actually a view from nowhere that journalists are supposed to uphold. “A journalist’s job is to inform as fully and as truthfully as possible,” he wrote. So let’s put the blinders on and ignore the fact that the guys and gals covering the Oilers are big fans? No thanks.
  • Unsurprisingly, the Boston Marathon bombings and the replacement of Tambellini by MacTavish dominated online traffic at the Journal last week.
  • Gawker has launched a new design with an interesting take on comments called Kinja. “It’s a free thing you can use to say dumb stuff. Go for it.”

There has been some really interesting discussion this week about “online vigilantism” related to the Boston Marathon bombings. Here are a few related links I found interesting:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 4/21/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

4/20 Edmonton
4/20 Edmonton, photo by Hugh Lee.

Here are some upcoming events:

19th April 2013
Post-It Notes at Churchill LRT Station, part of the Ideas for Edmonton competition! Photo by Funmi Omotade-Tan.

Recap: Intersect – a collision of artists and geeks!

Sharon and I walked down the street to Startup Edmonton for the first ever Intersect event on Friday evening. I had heard Ken talk about the concept in the past, so I had some idea of what to expect. Think DemoCamp, but with artists showcasing their work rather than software developers! Here’s how the event was officially described:

A collision of technical and creative minds, Intersect is a new event that puts geeks and artists on stage to show off projects that merge the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, and other creative fields. A fun way to support artists and creators in our community, Intersect will inspire constructive conversations and interactions around concepts, demos, samples and prototypes being created in Edmonton.

Intersect

We arrived shortly after the advertised start time of 7pm and found the third floor of the Mercer Warehouse buzzing. A couple dozen people were enjoying the DJ and the bar and we could see projects setup all around the room. Startup Edmonton teamed up with Megan & Beth Dart, the sister duo behind Catch the Keys Productions, to curate projects for the event. They ended up with five, in order of introduction:

  • Scott Smallwood

    Scott Smallwood is a sound artist, composer, and sound performer who creates works inspired by discovered textures and forms, through a practice of listening, field recording, and sonic improvisation. He also designs experimental electronic instruments and software, as well as sound installations and site-specific performance scenarios. Scott has been active as an educator for over 15 years, teaching composition, improvisation, and electroacoustic music at the University of Alberta.

  • Good Women Dance Society 

    Good Women Dance Society is a creation-based company that is committed to helping create a vibrant and sustainable contemporary dance community in Edmonton. The society’s artistic focus is on creating and producing innovative new works with integrity and conviction.

  • Owen Brierley, GURU Digital Arts Collective

    Owen is the Executive Director of Guru Digital Arts College. Over the past 14 years Owen has worked with, taught and worked for many of Edmonton’s top talent in digital media. From Project Director for a Serious Game in the oil and gas sector to Lego trivia interactives for the Telus World of Science, Owen has had the pleasure of exploring almost every form of interactive digital media production.

  • Technitone 

    Built by local interactive firm gskinner.com to showcase Google Chrome, Technitone is an interactive web audio experience that lets you join other creators to plot tones on a grid, construct melodies, and modify the output with a robust toolset of effects. Technitone packs a few neat extras, too, such as a solo mode for those who like more control, and a gallery where you can publish your masterpieces, whether made on your own or with a group.

  • ShowStages Collective 

    ShowStages is a video and design collective. We build narratives through projected media and interactive audio-visual experiences. We work in theatre and new media.

Though it felt like a mixer at first, we soon discovered there was a program for the event! Hosts Omar Mouallem and Julian Faid introduced each project, and then the artist behind it had a few minutes to talk about it. We went around the room from one project to the next, which was a nice change from the stay-seated approach of DemoCamp. After each project had been showcased, the event reverted back to the mixer-like atmosphere and attendees were free to seek out more information from the artists.

Intersect

I had already seen Technitone – Grant had demoed it a year ago at DemoCamp Edmonton 18 – but it was neat to see it again with big displays. The performance by GWDS was really impressive and utilized FaceTime (I think) to incorporate an interesting visual perspective. At one point the dancer, I believe it was Ainsley Hillyard, created a sort of infinity effect (like you might do with mirrors).

Intersect

Intersect

I thought Owen’s project, which if I understand correctly involved positioning video displays using software, was pretty neat. You could create some pretty cool installations with the approach! Scott’s work with sound was fascinating to learn about. I’m not sure if it is still active, but I can totally understand why Scott would be the guy behind Dorkbot Edmonton. Unfortunately Elijah had a few technical difficulties, but he still did a good job of demoing what ShowStages can do. I love that they use a Kinect plugged into a MacBook!

Intersect

I really enjoyed Intersect, and I do hope it becomes a regular series! I’m sure there are many more interesting collisions of art and technology taking place in our city. Kudos to Startup Edmonton and Catch the Keys on a successful first event!

Intersect

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here.

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #74

Horrible news out of Boston today with an attack on the Boston Marathon. Jeff Jarvis called it a “media attack” tonight: “The attack on the Boston Marathon was designed to maximize media coverage: a popular event with cameras everywhere and a narrative that will be sure to follow about innocent enjoyment henceforth ruined by danger.”

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

  • The next Art of Conversation event, hosted by Graham Hicks, Rob Christie, and Audie Lynds, is scheduled to take place on April 24 at 4:30pm at The Rose and Crown Pub downtown. If you decide to attend, be prepared to put down your cell phone for at least an hour!
  • Should the City forgive property taxes on the Film Alberta Studio, formerly known as Allarcom Studios? “The next movie expected to use space at the studio is the crime drama Cut Bank, which will bring actors Ben Kingsley and John Malkovich to Edmonton in May,” according to the Journal.
  • The Journal is still looking for a Digital Media Developer. The deadline to apply is Saturday.
  • I really like this visualization of the Oilers’ history creating by the Journal’s Lucas Timmons.
  • Avenue Edmonton is looking for an Art Director. “As the Art Director for Avenue, you will shape the tastes, trends and psyche for Edmontonians.” The deadline to apply is April 30.
  • Surprise, surprise: the downtown arena dominated online discussion last week. What will we talk about when construction starts?
  • It’s okay Kevin, it happens to everyone.

  • Tomorrow is the big day: Leduc’s new radio station, 93.1 FM The One, launches at 9:31 AM! And in case you were wondering about the station’s signal strength, Mike McGuire has you covered:

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.

Edmonton Notes for 4/14/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Here are some upcoming events:

Cambridge Building
The sidewalks on the north side of Jasper Avenue are open again, as you can see in this shot of the Cambridge Building by Darren.

Recap: DemoCamp Edmonton 21

Edmonton’s 21st DemoCamp took place tonight at the Telus Centre on the University of Alberta campus. DemoCamp brings together developers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and investors to share what they’ve been working on with the local tech community. Tonight’s audience seemed to be filled predominately with first-timers!

We had five demos tonight. In order of appearance:

  • Opening the show was David Nedohin and Graham from Scope Technologies. They build augmented reality training systems. Tonight they demoed a pretty slick augmented reality training app for a pump assembly. Using a pair of Epson Moverio glasses outfitted with a camera, we were able to see everything David saw as he followed the on-display instructions. The app supports three modes: observe (learn what you’re supposed to do), execute (do it), and record (for auditing purposes). It of course drew comparisons to Google Glass, though the key offering here is the 3D overlay training solution, not the hardware.
  • Next up was Nolan Smits who showed us Nutrsync, a project he has been working on for the last nine months or so. After Nolan took a greater interest in his own health, he decided an app to track nutrients would be useful and he set out to build it. Written in PHP with lots of jQuery, it’s a slick looking app even if it is missing a few features still. You can quickly see how much of each nutrient you’ve eaten, and it’ll suggest foods to fill up on the ones you’re missing. For me the biggest challenge is the same as every food-tracking app: unless you’re eating pre-packaged brand name meals or fast food, it’s too much of a pain to input what you’re eating!
  • Third tonight was Ric Williams from Hungry Moose Games who demoed their new effort called 9 Lives: Casey and Sphynx. One of the neat things about Hungry Moose is that it’s a mashup of local talent, including some ex-BioWare guys and Ric who was with Empire Avenue (and was inspired the guys who built Life Goes On, demoed at DemoCamp Edmonton 18). The highlight of the work-in-progress demo was that the game was built with Unity and was running on a Kindle Fire HD, controlled with a Green Throttle Bluetooth controller. “The $60 game and $125 million investment is going the way of the dodo,” Ric told us, explaining the upheaval taking place in the gaming industry right now.
  • Next up was David Quail and Tim Fletcher who demoed Zenlike. They’re hoping to save users time by utilizing machine learning and natural language processing to automate mundane, boring tasks. Their first area of focus is meeting scheduling. You simply CC your “virtual assistant” on an email thread to setup a meeting, and it parses out the details and sets up the calendar entry and invites (kind of like the way TripIt automagically parses out your itinerary). It was really slick to see in action (it’s a combination of Mechanical Turk and algorithms). I look forward to the day when my devices just know what I want to do and do it.
  • The final demo of the evening was from Ben Zittlau and Greg Bell. They showed us a new Mover.io feature called Clonr. The idea is pretty simple: magically move things from one place to another! They’ve decided to focus on WordPress to start, and tonight they demoed the ability to completely move a WordPress site from one server to another with basically a single click. They support DreamHost, 1and1, HostGator, as well as plain old FTP, and they’ll move beyond WordPress to other platforms once they’ve got a bit more functionality in place. There’s a massive market for this kind of thing!

DemoCamp Edmonton 21
David Nedohin showing us the augmented reality demo

It was another solid night of demos, so well done to all the demoers! I think my favorite was probably Zenlike, because I can see the trajectory they’re on and it’s thrilling. I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords. I think there’s no question that Clonr is going to be a big success for the Mover guys, and I’m looking forward to seeing that tool evolve.

Some of the announcements made tonight include:

  • Edmonton now has a Python Meetup Group! They’re planning to meet on the second Monday of each month.
  • TEDxEdmonton 2013 is coming up on June 15. Tickets are on sale now, and some of the presenters have been announced!
  • Ready to build something? Startup Weekend returns to Edmonton on April 26.
  • I hope you see you on Friday at the new Intersect event, billed as a collision of artists and geeks.

If you haven’t already done so, sign up for the Startup Edmonton newsletter to keep up-to-date on future events (you can also join the Meetup group).

See you at DemoCamp Edmonton 22!

Media Monday Edmonton: Update #73

Here is my latest update on local media stuff:

  • I attended the Spacing Edmonton launch party last week, along with a few hundred other Edmontonians packed into The Common. It was great to see Spacing’s publisher and editor Matthew Blackett back in Edmonton for the event.

Matthew at the Spacing Launch

  • Local co-editor Paul Giang spoke at the event, and published an editor’s note to kick off the website:

Indeed, Edmonton is a city undergoing transition. With rapid economic growth, emerging global/regional issues and many ambitious projects underway, we have reached a critical point where we must have a constructive public discussion about Edmonton: to explore its past and present, to understand who we are and what do we want, and to appropriately address the future. This discussion has already started with many passionate citizens and we have many great stories waiting to be told and celebrated locally and globally. Spacing Edmonton aims to accelerate just that.

You can follow Edmonton media news on Twitter using the hashtag #yegmedia. For a great overview of the global media landscape, check out Mediagazer.

So, what have I missed? What’s new and interesting in the world of Edmonton media? Let me know!

You can see past Media Monday Edmonton entries here.