this is an old one from a year ago when I stopped blogging here completely. Jumping off an earlier post mapping the route to blog nirvana, this Valleywag blogger mapped out which blogs have gotten close, or reached it (boingboing). I'd comment, but it's pretty self-explanatory.
via the fabulous/ist io9, this animation from the European Space Agency of the distribution of space debris in orbit around the Earfs between 1957 and 2000.
At closing speeds reaching 50 thousand km per hour, even the smallest bits of space debris can cause serious harm to spacecraft; larger ones cause catastrophe. Near-Earth missions, like the International Space Station, now carry ever-more sophisticated shielding. Not only is space debris a hot topic, it is also a fascinating — and growing — field of space science.
The animation shows the little dots of light representing satellite grabbage increasing and swarming around the Earth like flies. It's creepy.
Just 'cause you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
Silly, but seriously, haven't you ever thought about it?
Via Scott Westerfeld I came upon this video about a Japanese maglev train in testing phase. This is one of those emerging transportation technologies that gets my undies into a bunch. Nothing more to say here.
what wired geeks do when they're bored.
"you just can't beat a good old fashioned map sometimes." Indeed.
a very cool project from MIT for the Venice Biennale, involving bus traffic, pedestrian traffic (as measured by the use of handheld devices) 'n' stuff like that mapped out.
Real Time Rome is:
the MIT SENSEable City Lab’s contribution to the 2006 Venice Biennale, directed by professor Richard Burdett. The project aggregated data from cell phones (obtained using Telecom Italia's innovative Lochness platform), buses and taxis in Rome to better understand urban dynamics in real time. By revealing the pulse of the city, the project aims to show how technology can help individuals make more informed decisions about their environment. In the long run, will it be possible to reduce the inefficiencies of present day urban systems and open the way to a more sustainable urban future?
a school project using, as far as I can tell, Second Life avatars and landscapes to make a video demonstrating the temperature difference at different altitudes. Kids these days!
an apparent rockclimber usernamed cmayda has some fun with a video editing program, some country music, and a trip through the intermontane region (between the Rockies and the Sierras. A terrific use of software and stuff for geographic purposes.
There's also this less entirely successful (but vastly more ambitious) video, called "Geography as Art: The Course of Empire," about landscape art as tracing the philosophical course to empire in the US. The research that must have gone into this is phenomenal. But the "Star Wars" theme and quotes were very cheesy, and the music, overall, not so great. The images really spoke for themselves and didn't need the overly simplistic context they were given. Nevertheless, a very cool project and multiple hand claps for effort.
okay, the brit Royal Society for the Protection of Birds? Needs some help staying on message.
Check out the maps above. These were created, as the RSPB explains here, to demonstrate the "catastrophic impact (on the safety and habitat of endangered bird species) of the world's largest onshore wind farm," which is proposed for the Hebridean island of Lewis.
But how exactly these maps demonstrate that is beyond me. Take a closer look. What each one is, is an overlay of the proposed wind farm over a major UK city.
The unique maps show the current layout plans for the wind farm superimposed over same-scale maps of British cities. Shockingly, they reveal how the development would stretch north from Edinburgh city Zoo to beyond Methil on the other side of the Firth of Forth and west to Dunfermline; from Glasgow Central Station to East Kilbride in the south and Falkirk to the north east; and from Epsom Downs south of London to several miles north of the Thames flood barrier and east to Hampton court.
Okay. So? The wind farm is big. We knew that. That's what "world's largest onshore wind farm" means. It's big.
I get the feeling that some geeky, 21-year-old intern down Royal Society way, with a hard-on for GIS and a newly minted Photoshop expertise, made these one off day when no one knew what to do with her and all the silver-haired birdwatchers got all excited about the "branding" (or was it "marketing"?) possibilities.
What boggles my mind is not only that anyone thought that these maps would help ... anything, but that while they were formatting them for the web and writing press releases so the press could ... do stuff ... with this riveting information, it never occurred to them to superimpose the black turbine installation shape (which looks distressingly like a bird in flight), over a habitat map of the island of Lewis the RSPB must have stashed away somewhere. Or, if they don't (and shame on them if they don't. They have an extensive collection of online maps of bird reserves.) they could have cobbled one together from the excessive online bird migration atlases.
This is such a rich story, and one the RSPB would do much better to pick apart for the press, if they want to save some birdies. Because it's a difficult sell on two fronts:
1. It's ridiculous. Check out their estimation of the dangers the turbines offer to endangered species:
I'm sorry, but even as I'm thinking what a shame this would be, I'm giggling at the grotesque image of kitten-sized predatory birds demonstrating what happens when shit hits the fan. Also, the birdy names are cutesy (as birdy names are wont to be) and hard to take seriously. I'd rather protest the shit-fanning of a "panther" or an "elephant" than a "corncrake" or a "whooper swan," especially if the latter come in pairs.
- 50 golden eagles lost due to collision with turbines
- 50 merlin lost due to collision
- 75 to 150 red throated divers lost due to collision
- Minimum of 314 pairs of dunlin lost of the Great British population due to habitat loss and displacement (we believe this figure is more likely to be 640 pairs)
- Minimum of 350 pairs of golden plover lost due to habitat loss and displacement (we believe 700 pairs in a worst case scenario)
2. They're sending a few hundred ridiculous-sounding birdies up against one of the best technologies currently available to save us from oil addiction. It's spy vs. spy, environmental cause vs. environmental cause, only ... stopping the wind farm will only save a few hundred birdies too stupid not to fly into the blades of the fan, and going ahead with the wind farm will save ... well ... us. Bad message there.
If you think I'm being too harsh, well, I think the RSPB can be forgiven for flubbing the entrée into a brave new world: one in which "alternative energy sources" are becoming a necessity in the public mind. It will be a long time before fossil-fuel-free energy sources get associated with evil big business, and in the meantime, alternative energy installations---which all always take up a lot of space usually inhabited by something else---will come increasingly into conflict with ... well, pretty much every other environmental cause there is.
As such, wildlife organizations need to hit the ground running and start crafting a more complex message that they can get the public used to in stages. Remember, this is a public that still doesn't get why we need to save whales or pandas, other than that the former sings and the latter is cuddly. It's going to have an even harder time understanding why we should continue to emit greenhouse gases just to save a few barnacle geese.
And I'm all for using maps, just not pointless, nonsensical maps that demonstrate nothing. Once again, a map of the installation laid over the Hebridean habitat it is actually going to interfere with would speak a thousand words, and be ... um ... logical. Better yet, a map of existing wind farms that have already interfered with wildlife habitats---before and after maps showing concentrations of birds, perhaps---would speak ten thousand words or more. How about something like that?
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