Sun-soaked afternoons in the Keeneland grandstands, weekend adventures through the endless Appalachian landscape of Red River Gorge, sunset over vibrant Bluegrass farmland — these are all staples of Kentucky’s personality. The Lexington Brewing Company has experienced and influenced these traditions that Kentuckians hold so close through its connection to the Commonwealth’s beloved commodity: bourbon. Distillers connected to Lexington Brewing and Town Branch date back to 1794, just two years after statehood was gained, and have left a legacy that includes shaping the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, pushing through Prohibition, and operating today as one of the only companies on the planet that crafts both beer and bourbon. Just as the Kentucky state flag depicts a pioneer and statesman uniting, Lexington Brewing Company represents that of brewing and distilling.
As an ode to My Old Kentucky Home, the following songs by native Kentuckians are paired with selections of Lexington Brewing Company’s beers to embody the love of flavorful brews and a kick ass state.
Bourbon Barrel Ale: Parachute – Chris Stapleton
A pairing of unique Kentucky sweetness and twang will make you feel warm and cozy, thanks to Lexington Brewing Company’s best-selling beer and Stapleton’s award-winning 2015 album.
Kolsch: Golden – My Morning Jacket
Slip away in the shade of a summer day with a Kentucky Kolsch in hand, and the upbeat alt-country drum lines of Louisville’s My Morning Jacket on your bluetooth speaker.
BBA Old-Fashioned: Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked – Cage The Elephant
Weighing in at a whopping 10% ABV, this one packs a punch. Enjoy the gritty steel-sliding guitar licks of Cage The Elephant with Lexington Brewing Company’s strongest beer.
BBA Stout: Coal Miner’s Daughter – Loretta Lynn
Skip coffee, kick back on the front porch and enjoy a beer as dark and rich as eastern Kentucky coal with an accompaniment by Loretta Lynn.
Race Day: Good Day -Nappy Roots
Hops and hooks make a good team. Formed at WKU in the ’90s, Nappy Roots’ hit single imbues the joy of a sunny Keeneland race track.
It’s been a great semester at CirrusMio, and before I get back into the swing of things for this spring term, here is the work I’ve done– summed up:
Identified a sample project for data collection (study of college music listening choices, ex. how do UK and Transy differ? What is WKU’s top artist?)
Researched and utilized API for Spotify, and ultimately implemented Lastfm API.
Organized, branded, and presented ‘Campus Tunes’ study.
Sent out Google Forms-based survey that outputs response to spreadsheet.
Continuously marketed study on social media sites.
Contacted several dozen professors and staff from across Kentucky, in both Music and Computer Science fields with information and link to survey, asking them to pass it along to their students.
Multiple professors did send study to all of their students.
Gathered usernames and colleges of each respondent and thrown into CSV file
post/print results based on user’s input (Whether to print tracks or artists, # of results to use)
Created huge Spotify playlists with user’s top tracks and shared them using Ivy
The Github repo for Python code: https://github.com/Mudrak/lastfm-data
Next Steps: CirrusMio is working on a script in conjunction with the Moonbase platform to run analysis on the Campus Tunes data, so no overarching results just yet, but soon.
It’s been fantastic to work with professional developers in a company with great culture, CirrusMio has rocked! Observing Agile development in action while learning about it in my Software Engineering course has been a invaluable experience, the mix of hands-on, in the field work and exploration of theories and best practices in the classroom has taught me a great amount.
Now that I’ve completed three upper-level Computer Science courses in one semester, I feel much more confident and knowledgeable about the field and my abilities, and have a more tempered direction for the years ahead of me. With more projects and code under my belt, I want to explore further into UI/UX and Front End Development, as well as Project Management. Onward!
What is UK’s top artist? How do EKU and Transy differ in musical tastes?
I’m running a music study to discover the distinctive music choices of each college in Kentucky called Campus Tunes. (as a student working for Lexington-based software company CirrusMio as an internship and class credit with Transylvania University via Dr. Moorman)
I’m using Last.fm’s API in connection with Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, etc. toget JSON data, and I look forward to any interesting cultural and campus conclusions that I’ll be able to make after I run it through a database platform for analysis. There’s potential here to look into some unique patterns in colleges in a way that hasn’t been done before, and if I keep accumulating users I will be able to precisely track the top artists, tracks, and trends for Transy, UK, and any other university that I gives me a large enough sample size.
Luckily I’ve had some success with getting people onboard, but I’m still definitely in need of more data over the course of the next month, especially to get each university on the musical map.I can’t wait to see what I uncover!
For a while I was pretty stubbornly stuck on using the Spotify API, and just that, for the Campus Tunes college listening study. The one problem of course was that it didn’t actually do what I wanted it to do, as there is currently no way to access a user’s top track plays through the API. However, Last.fm’s entire platform is to get top track plays and manipulate that data via Scrobble, and what do you know, the Last.fm API is even easier to use than Spotify’s API. To collect a sample set of users from a number of Kentucky colleges and study their listening habits, the only additional step will be for students to go into their Spotify settings and ‘Scrobble to Last.fm’ in order to collect data.
About Last.fm:
The awesome parts:
+ Top track/artist/album plays are a key and public feature, so no authorization is even needed. Yay!
+ All that I have to request from the API is each username
– The new update has momentarily locked down getting an API key, luckily users have shared their keys online
– Now I have to bring an outside feature into play in hopes that people will make a Last.fm account and integrate it with their current music platform, yuck!
All aboard! The next step will be to share the study’s information and Google Form on social media to collect user’s Last.fm usernames and listening patterns. Over the next month I’ll be writing a script for Campus Tunes and using sensors/other data collection tools to test out Moonbase as I await a sufficient amount of response from my Google Form. I’m going to design some graphics and a logo to market out as the look of the survey with the digital marketing experience that I’ve built up. I had concerns that I’d have to completely pivot my project after Spotify’s API fell through, but things are looking up now as long as I can get enough attention from my push on social media and other avenues to get this out!
It’s time to narrow in a little bit further, as I begin to design the outline and processes of my Spotify-based college music study. For the most part it’s laid out in front of me, and I will be working to specify the data that I need and advertise the study to Kentucky’s colleges next. I can’t wait to get some data and find out what the top artists are for Transylvania, and why Centre only listens to Kidz Bop!
Here is what I have figured out so far:
The Process
I need top track plays for each user, and that’s not straightforward with Spotify
As there is no outright enpoint to call for this, the only way to do capture top track plays with Spotify would be to get recently added songs in each user playlist as well as their starred tracks as an indicator of what they’re listening to. It works, but it might not be the best study. Recent developments by the music-streaming company include integrated methods to get top track plays, but those have yet to be released. For now, I am looking into last.fm’s API as a work around, because it is a connected service of Spotify and already takes in user play history through Scrobble. If this works out, it’ll probably be the way that I collect data, but may be a bit more troublesome than a single API, one-time authorization method that doesn’t depend on the user also having a last.fm account and meddling with both platforms. More research ahead… yay!
I’m excited to see the study come together, and hope that I can pull together some really interesting conclusions about campus culture with colleges in the Commonwealth as a subject. Down the road I could definitely see this Moonbase sample project turning into a full web or mobile app in the form of a Yik Yak for local music interests and discussion, and I’m looking forward to whatever is ahead.
In the third week of my internship, I have identified a direction to guide me forward in developing a sample project for the cloud storage platform Moonbase: Campus Tunes, a Spotify-based application.
With Campus Tunes, I plan to discover the unique tastes of universities across the Bluegrass state through trends and distinctive listening characteristics. This research project delves into the intersections of music, culture, and big data by examining the influences of location, campus environment , and other factors. User playlists and any top-streamed track data from users/specific locations will be necessary to utilize data from a sample of students from at least two Kentucky institutions. As I develop further into the project, I may look into differences in Ivy League schools, state versus private institutions, and other distinctions. This application serves as a component of course credit from Transylvania University and work as an intern at CirrusMio.
A quick rundown of what I plan to do:
Utilize Spotify Web API and authentication protocols to access information for local song plays, by playlist, streaming, or top hits for samples of KY college students
Collect and organize student listener’s information into a manipulatable format for analysis using Moonbase
Examine trending artists, unique music choices, and other analytics for each institution
Conduct and publish research on listening behaviors of users, and provide explanation about how location, culture, and community may interconnect
What’s out there: A look at other apps and research that has been conducted using location and Spotify streaming
Distinctive Artists: Unique artists indicative of each state, computed by delta in top 100 artists of each state in comparison to other states. Scaling this idea for colleges is part of what I plan to do with Campus Tunes. Kentucky’s most distinctive artist is Fall Out Boy– who called that one?
Musical Map: Cities: I’m blown away by this interactive map, it’s in the same vein as my current application and serves as an even more detailed version of “Distinctive Artists”, The coolest part of this study is that you can explore it, as Spotify created 100 song playlists for nearly 1,000 cities worldwide that present local preferences. Check out the most unique plays for Lexington and Louisville, featuring Kentucky-based bands like Sundy Best, My Morning Jacket, and Moon Taxi, as well as artists that resonate with folks in the Commonwealth, like the Avett Brothers.
Serendipity: Tracks when two users click play on the same song at the same time, worldwide. Some of the background processes may be of use to me, and it uses a very impressive interface and take on big data.
Others: A whole list of Spotify-based online apps, courtesy of Reddit
Once I get approval from Spotify to get keys for user authentication permission, I will venture further into the developement of Campus Tunes over the next 2+ months with CirrusMio. This project combines my love of internet services like Spotify and my interest in the culture of college campuses to make for an exciting study that I look forward to progressing into!
This first week as an intern at CirrusMio has felt like a hyper-relaxed astronaut debriefing, getting a feel for the tools that I need to succeed in my anticipated exploration of Moonbase. It might not be an actual trip to the lunar body, but I’m just as excited for the coming weeks of learning and discovering at CirrusMio. My figurative spacesuit is strapped on tight, and I’m ready to go.
My ultra-intense training outline has included a run through the centrifuge, and these:
Git
Github flow
Jekyll
Markdown
Github Pages
Atom Editor
Let me run through each of these, so that you too are locked and loaded to launch into working with Moonbase.
Git
The open source platform for developing software projects of any size, personal or enterprise, which is utilized for version control. Especially when operating with a large team with countless approaches to any one problem, Git saves projects from ending up as mangled, confusing, spaghetti code, by carefully merging individual work back together into the aggregate project so that it may be deployed cleanly.
Github flow
Github is a social network that uses the Git version control system. It serves not only a programming portfolio, but an entire way of producing projects. Here’s a paraphrased rundown of Github’s full guide:
The overall progress of a project is set on a ‘master branch’, like the strong and linear trunk of a great tree. What lies on this path is indicative of the operation of the final product. From here we have:
Branching: A path or environment set aside from the the master branch to try out new ideas and work invidually. Branching is ideal for fixes and features, and the branch names should reflect that. If your branch helps you discover a unique solution, you can merge branch back with the master branch.
Commits: Any change made to a file (add, edit, delete). Each commit takes a snapshot of your current progress on a feature, so that you can return to that version at any point. Not only are commits important to the developer, but also any other users to track each state of your progress. It is vital to write clear messages to communicate what is going on with each commit, saving you or any collaborators down the road.
Pull: Initiates discussion about your commits. Sending out a Pull Request asks the recipient for advice and review of your work, so that it may be pieced back into the master branch. Pull requests preserve a record of the historical changes to your code, allowing all to see your thought process and how the decision was made.
Discuss & Review: Pull requests come back with suggestions and fixes on your branch, so a conversation is started. Make your edits and keep in contact.
Deploy: After numerous Pull Requests and a final review, your branch can be deployed back to the master branch.
Merge: The master branch is finally made to incorporate your changes. Congratulations!
Github Pages
A great service for testing out websites, offering plenty of attractive and responsive templates as well as free hosting for one site. Build webpages from the ground up, or begin with a flashy template with Github Pages. There are a number of ways to get a free hosting platform, I’ve used Google Drive’s hosting ability, but it’s awesome that you get a whole site with your own domain at no cost with Github Pages, even if it is for just once site.
Jekyll
“A simple, blog-aware, static site generator”.
Jekyll takes a bunch of raw text files in a number of file formats found in a template directory and converts them into HTML via Markdown, and then renders an operational website. Jekyll is actually the engine behind Github Pages, so popping your rendered page into that service will allow you to host your site for free!
To use Jekyll, you will need Mac OS X or Linux to run it, but a work around does exist for Windows. I have not been able to work the Windows alternatively currently, due to issues with Ruby’s file association.
Markdown
A plain text formatting syntax, and a software tool for converting plain text to HTML. Markdown serves as a component of Jekyll.
Atom Editor
Atom is an open source text editor, which is both user friendly and Github-based. I currently use Sublime Text for code editing, but I took a quick glance at Atom with the help of some online debates:
Strengths: Package development, Github ecosystem, site previews with Markdown
Weaknesses: Emmet editor plugin, not quite as polished as Sublime Text
For the most part Atom vs Sublime is just a matter of personal preference, Coke or Pepsi, Metallica or Megadeth, ‘jif’ or ‘gif’. I’m still leaning towards Sublime, partly because I kind of love the Cobalt color scheme, but also due to faster operation and a bigger user community backing it. I can foresee Atom getting the upper hand if Sublime 3 is a bust and/or open sourcing adds to the web’s favor of the editor, but for now I’d rather stay a member of the Sublime fan club. The notifications to purchase the full version of Sublime haven’t driven me crazy just yet!
In the next steps for preparing to board Moonbase, I’m brushing up on Ruby to be able to develop with the On Rails backend, and can’t wait for the learning, mentoring and challenging projects ahead of me!
Buying a computer for college can be overwhelming. It is the most expensive investment that you’ll be making your first year (beyond tuition of course) and can be totally confusing when you have no idea where to start. As a junior computer science major at Transy, I’ve been through the buying process and keep up with the newest laptop tech. Let me share some guidance.
The laptop that I trust the most is the Lenovo Y50, it’s the newer version of the laptop that I’m rocking. You’re likely going to have to choose whether you want a small & sleek computer with great battery life, or a tank that has all of the power in the world, but is bigger and needs to be plugged in often. I love my Lenovo gaming laptop, I don’t game as much as I could– but it’s there if I want it. Plus it performs great with anything from Photoshop to web browsing.
LINKS & GUIDES
How much will I use my laptop at Transy?
It depends. As a CS major, it’s pretty often, but mostly because I like doing stuff outside of class. Most of your laptop use will be for writing papers, checking email, listening to Spotify, and watching Netflix. Most of the work that you’ll do will be on Google Drive, using Google Docs, so you may not even need Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint! Only a few of the classes that I’ve had at Transy actually require a laptop, and some of the professors that I’ve had don’t really welcome laptops. You can use a laptop in class, but you may not need to. So, most of the work that you do on your laptop will be in your room, or in the library. You’ll probably want more than 4 hours of battery, but there are a ton of outlets in the library and classroom that you shouldn’t have a problem staying charged up. Plus, you’re at most 5 minutes from your room if you ever need to grab your charger!
Apple: the most popular college laptop, these are everywhere, and they’re quality.But be warned: you’re partly paying for the Apple logo, and that little glowing fruit on the back of your lid has a $1000 starting price.
Lenovo: the brand I use, it’s an offshoot company of IBM and I have had zero problems with mine. They carry laptops from as cheap as $350 and up to fancier $1000 rigs.
Dell, HP, Asus, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba all make solid stuff too! I may be missing a couple.
Tablets: Some students make a tablet work for notes and stuff, this is not me.
Not sure what you want? Check this guide out, it’ll ask you some questions and narrow it down based on your preferences: http://blog.laptopmag.com/laptop-finder
Slickdeals: Flash sales and spur-of-the-moment discounts from across the internet
Reviews, reviews, reviews: definitely research up before you buy! I spent a stupid amount of time researching– hopefully gathering some of this for you will save you time:
Of course this all depends on your price range, and what you want out of your laptop. Investing over $500 will ensure that it makes it all 4 years of college (and beyond) though! Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to run any laptops that you’re liking past me if need a second opinion!
In approaching personal, class, and community projects, starting from scratch without any resources can make for a long road. I’ve definitely been there, doing some painful work without much progress. Learning the foundational stuff in Photoshop or exploring social media from a professional perspective is great- but not time effective. Sure, to have a true feel for graphic design it’s essential to put in countless hours of meddling with the boundless features packed into software like Illustrator, but there’s more to design than software proficiency. If you have a creative vision in your mind, don’t let it stay there just because of lacking computer skills!
Let’s skip some of those tireless hours of getting used to a new technology or practice and make something slick.
Here are some of the best guides and tools that I have found helpful for creating social media content and poster design alike:
Design tools:
Canva:Don’t have the time or hundreds of dollars to get into Photoshop/Illustrator? No problem. Canva is a web-based image creator with tons of pre-made templates, amazing for posters and flyers. Design made super easy!
Inkscape and Gimp: Get cracking with free, open source, and pretty sophisticated image editing and design software. Inkscape = free Adobe Illustrator and Gimp = free Photoshop. Each is powerful and gets the job done, without dropping hundreds or paying monthly for professional adobe products!
freebie.supply:An almost overwhelming library of tools, from stock images. to color palettes, to business-end stuff.
freepik and flaticon: We don’t have hours to spend making an icon or backbone design, use these huge collections of free designs and icons to build something awesome! Use them in Canva, or free design programs
Coolors:An awesome color palette generator, use it anywhere from print to web design
Pattern Library:Nab some stunning patterns for the perfect popping backdrop to your design
wordmark.it:Preview all of your fonts, and test them out
Guides:
How to design:This two part guide really lays out web and even general design really well. Reading up and staying on-board with design trends, taking some inspiration, and using them to develop your own style is what graphic design is all about.
dribbble:Social networking community spotlighting the best designers out there, and their impressive portfolios. You’ll find everything from UX design to animation on dribbble!
Code Academy:Not everyone has time to learn weird computer science stuff, but if you’re up to learn some web development in a super interactive and approachable way, give it a shot! I learned a great deal about HTML/CSS through CodeAcademy, with lessons ranging from building your own website, mastering a language, or making an animated solar system.
Slack: The best platform for teamwork. A mix of group messaging, integration for countless apps like Google Drive, Github, and Dropbox, file uploads, and organized team collaboration make this great for projects. Either as individual groups or a whole business, Slack is great for sales teams and software engineers alike.
Overall:
Considering the amount of information to fit in to a work and the need to include an artistic touch to a project is important, but by and large don’t break the KISS principle! KISS, meaning Keep It Simple Stupid is very valuable in modern design, because it’s way too easy to screw up a good design by simply doing too much. I hope some of these links and resources are helpful, and if you have anything that you’d like to add, send it my way! In no way do I know everything about graphic design or tech tools, as I am constantly learning and trying new things.
If you want any more tools or ideas, check out my Product Hunt profile and some of the stuff that I’ve discovered!
On Christmas Day, family members from their teens to their 80’s filled the holiday kitchen to get a look at this wild, futuristic technology: the Oculus Rift DK1, brought by my older cousin; a software developer. It was my turn up to bat after watching my cousins stumble around and come out completely astounded by Cyber Space: still the most intense VR game that I’ve played to date. The premise is similar to the King’s Island swinging pirate ship ride, but it goes all the way around; terrifying stuff.
Slipping the black hood over my eyes, I became immersed in the virtual world. Before I knew it, the lap bar locked me to my seat and lurched forward.The thing is, I hate roller coasters. And when you’re wearing the Oculus, all that you can see is the virtual landscape in 360 degrees. There’s no looking away or escaping it. So this was about to be a wild ride.
Swing after swing, the centrifugal force on the virtual seat never let up, and a feature that made the demo even more ridiculous is the ejection. By pressing the enter key at any time, your body gets launched from the safety of the seat, and plummets toward the ground of the cityscape, so of course I got flung. Thanks for that one developers! It was all a simulation but I was shocked at how real it felt, so shocked that I screamed and yelled the whole time, and of course my family got it on video.
I was a little freaked out, but not like this guy freaked out:
Honestly though, I loved every second of it. Staying up to speed with the cutting edge of technology is a huge passion of mine, so when my cousin offered that I could borrow the Oculus for a while, I was pumped!
How it works:
The Oculus Rift DK1 can look like a confusing mess of wires and cables when connected, but the virtual magic isn’t beyond explaining by any means.
Stereoscopic 3D: Two slightly different images are displayed to the Oculus, where each is fused into one single image through the lenses of the headset. Similar to 3D movies, this gives you that feeling of depth and realism in-game.
Positional tracking: Take a look around, and the Oculus follows. By translating the in-game image 360 degrees around you, and the Oculus knowing where you are inside the virtual world, the sense of motion adds so much to the level of immersion that you feel.
After downloading pretty much every game I could find, and getting pretty motion sick in the process, I was learning a ton and was thoroughly blown away by virtual reality. I had just about every game imaginable; racing, horror, flight simulation, even Breakfest: a game where you had to play Flappy Bird while simultaneously eat a bowl of cereal. So, of course I brought it back with me to college.
I’ve gotten several dozen people to check out the Oculus now, and I obviously use the Cyber Coaster as my go-to demo, because it rocks. From friends to prospective students doing an overnight visit, the VR headset has gotten plenty of use, one might say that it increased the school’s enrollment for the 2015 year, who’s to tell. But the culmination of my use of the Oculus Rift was applying it to a group project in a humanities course– not science in the halls of BSC, but in Haupt’s Intro to Philosophy. It was time to get this mind-blowing tech into the halls of college academia.
I took brave volunteers.
We had been talking about the Trolley Experimentand quick, spur-of-the-moment moral decision-making, as well as the morality of living in a dream state that Descartes’ posed. So I found a way to pull in virtual reality to those topics, got Dr. Furlong’s approval, and went for it. We related VR to the moral guidelines of classical philosophers, talked about the benefits of VR through trauma rehabilitation and simulating complex tasks in a safe environment, and then let classmates try out the Oculus, one being a case study:
You find yourself sitting in front of a desk, how you got there? Who knows. A face pops up on the laptop sitting on the surface in front of you, giving you some quick directions, and then you’re on your own. The task is to not let go of the CTRL keys on the laptop, as a number of scenarios and environmental factors test your willpower. You can get scared, but don’t let go. What happens if you do lift your hands off of those keys, though?
If you let go, something bad will occur. In this case, letting go will cause something bad to happen to a loved one, so it is up to you to endure whatever happens to you in the simulation. People are opt to break their morals when issued a challenge, and that’s exactly what is facing you in this situation.
So what do you do? It is entirely up to you.
Showing off the Oculus in the classroom setting was a lot of fun, and made for an interesting, cross-disciplinary presentation. I continue to let anyone who wants to experience VR get their share, and now that Unreal Engine 4 is free to use, my prospects of playing around with the Oculus from the software development side are increasing. My plan would be to make some kind of simulation that tests your on-the-fly moral decision-making skills, because we’re lacking that and I feel it would provide some great philosophical insight.
Explaining a scenario like the Trolley Experiment gives you too much time to think about the situation, where a fully-immersed demo with the Oculus Rift would cause a person to make decisions from the Utilitarian or Kantian perspective immediately. This would display a truer sense of their morality devoid of social pressures to think a certain way; based on how they see the situation, not how society sees it.
This combination of technology, philosophy, and psychology is a great example of how a liberal arts class should be, and has been one of my favorite experiences at Transylvania. I am definitely going to keep playing with the Oculus, hopefully developing something, and learning even more from the potential invested in virtual reality.
s
you’re wearing the Oculus, all that you can see is the virtual landscape in 360 degrees. There’s no looking away or escaping it. So this was about to be a wild ride.
Erik Mudrak 
