I didn’t know Singapore went in for the flashy, “we’ve got to be #1 stuffâ€, like the Malaysians do, but here it is – the Singapore Flyer. The world’s newest “tallest†and “largest†observation wheel.
It bumped off the London Eye as the numero uno largest and the Star of Nanchang as the tallest.
It’s rather like a sudoku puzzle that you’ve almost finished, and then realize you’ve made a mistake somewhere along the way…
(more…)
If you, like me, are somewhat obsessed with the imaginary lines that divide our little planet, few lines are more more amusing that the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
There’s a new BBC series, called Tropic Of Capricorn, which I’ve not seen, which charts a course around the world along (what else?) the Tropic of Capricorn.
I guess Michael Palin was unavailable for this BBC journey.
Why is the line “amusing� To quote the BBC:
[Defining the Tropic of] Capricorn is a little more tricky. The best and pithiest definition appears to be that the Tropic of Capricorn is the point furthest south where the sun can be seen overhead.
This occurs at noon on the Summer solstice in the Southern hemisphere.
But there is much more to it than that.
That’s a typically British piece of understatement. Fortunately, they go on to explain it… don’t take my word for it, read all about it here:
BBC News => What is the Tropic of Capricorn
Technorati Tags: Television, Travel, UK, Video
It’s no secret that Doctor Who and the Silurians is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who serials. Episode 2 was the first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw, back in… 1975 or 1976.
Owing to a bit of indiscriminate programming on behalf of KVOA TV 4 in Tucson, it was also the third and fourth episode I ever saw, too. Despite that, how could it not work its magic on me? Space aliens AND dinosaurs! (Although, I doubt I realized the Doctor was an alien at that time.)
The Silurians was the only VHS episode of Doctor Who I purchased, and that was because the had colorized it. The color copy was lost and the BBC undertook colorization for this story, and it was a wonderful job.
Now, the Silurians is coming to DVD! (Along with the two sequels, The Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep.)
In an early “heads-up†to retailers, distributor Warner Home Video has revealed BBC Video’s plans for the USA release of 3 new classic Doctor Who DVD releases (all digitally restored/remastered), along with a box set of these stories collected into a package called Doctor Who – Beneath The Surface.
From TVShowsOnDVD.com – check link for further details.
I can hardly wait!
Technorati Tags: Doctor Who, Dr Who, DVD, Television, UK, Video
For years I’ve been hearing about a seemingly mythical Arizona/Phoenix Skeptics group, but the only traces I find seem to be in ancient newsletters and references in various magazines/podcasts to Mike Stackpole being the “leader of the Arizona Skeptics.†Yet, somehow the word “Skeptic†isn’t to be found on his website.
Frankly, I’m skeptical that they even exist.
In any case, I happened to stumble across azskeptic.org today. I think is different from the ancient newsletters I’ve found on the net and I also think I’ve seen the site before and thought it was a cobweb site, because the latest news on the front page is (as of today) from Jan 2007, you have to wonder a little bit.
If you dig a bit deeper, though, you’ll see that they have a new blog just started this year and grand plans for 2008, so to that end, I’ve added a link to my blogroll, and if you happen to be a skeptical Arizonan, check ’em out.
Technorati Tags: Skepticism
Quick, call the production team at Primeval! Maybe they can work this one in for series three… the missing crocodile link.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian paleontologists said on Thursday they had found the fossil of a new species of prehistoric predator that represented a “missing link†to modern-day crocodiles.
The well-preserved fossil of Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi, a medium-sized lizard-like predator measuring about 5 1/2 feet (1.7 meters) from head to tail, dates back about 80 million years to the Late Cretaceous period.
From Reuters => Brazil finds fossil of missing link to crocodile | Reuters
Technorati Tags: Natural Sciences, Paleontology, Science
I am the Eggman. They are the Eggmen. I am the Walrus, goo goo g’joob.
Is this the future Lennon had in mind?
(more…)
Have they no staff at all?
(more…)
This is the third (and final) part of my reactions to my new Garmin Vista HCx model GPS. This installment is computer-related pieces.
Maps & MapSource
There’s not much reason to buy the Vista HCx model unless you’re going to use it with maps. There are two basic kinds of map products available: routing and… non-routing.
The non-routing maps are things such as topographical or marine maps, and work equally as well on lower models of the eTrex line. Routing maps, on the other hand, are capable of providing turn-by-turn driving directions in the same fashion as Garmin’s NUVI car-based line of GPSes.
I got two MapSource products so far, City Navigator North America and the the US Topo maps.
Garmin’s mapping product is MapSource. MapSource is a Windows-only program, which presents a problem to a Mac user, because certain maps, such as the City Navigator maps, require unlocking and key management to be loaded on the GPS. In this instance I’m fortunate because I’m condemned to have to have Windows around for work, so I have Parallels running on my Mac. I was able to install and use MapSource inside a virtual machine with an install of Windows XP.
This was not without certain problems, particularly concerning the installation of the USB driver for the GPS. There seem to be conflicting versions, and the damn thing, to this day, still asks me to install the driver every time I attach the GPS in Windows. That’s an inconvenience and, at this point, I’m willing to blame it on the virtual machine environment, although I’ve not encountered this with other USB devices.
Second, MapSource is a pretty awful program. It’s a classic example of software written in support of a hardware product. It’s not well-thought out and they’ve got a long way to go before this would cut muster as an OSX app. At present, to my knowledge, there is no way to use MapSource maps on your Vista GPS without having an available Windows computer. It is an option to purchase pre-loaded microSD cards with Mapsource products on them, but I’m unclear if you still have to go through a Windows activation program to use them.
I obtained and installed City Navigator first. Per instructions, I installed the Garmin USB drivers first, current from their website. Then I installed the City Navigator product. The maps and the software are part of a single install process, and there are no options for all or partial installation. After installation, I downloaded an update from the Garmin website.
Mapsource is somewhat like Google Earth, but without the satellite images. You can plot waypoints and routes, plus the City Navigator product comes with thousands of points of interest (“POIsâ€) locating schools, restaurants, banks, etc.
The North American map, which doesn’t seem to include Mexico, is broken into sections. Arizona, for example, is broken into 4 pieces. With the MapSource tools, you can select the maps that you want transferred onto your GPS. This is necessary to conserve space. Non-microSD versions of the Vista only have 24mb of space for storing maps and the ability to be selective is crucial.
The City Navigator product requires activation and is bound to the unique ID of your GPS and must be done with MapSource.
The Topo maps do not require and unlock key, but still must be loaded into MapSource to be loaded to the GPS.
When you install your second MapSource product, the installer acts as if it is doing a complete re-installation of the MapSource product, even though you are just adding additional maps. That’s an awkward system and not very logical.
For the time being, I’ve loaded the topo maps for all of Arizona, and the City Navigator maps for Arizona and all of the border states. The 2GB microSD card on my unit is still well below half utilized.
Garmin has slowly been releasing Mac-based utilities. For example, they have a GPS-firmware update utility that works fine with the Vista. A MacWorld they finally released a beta version of “Bobcatâ€, their OSX version of MapSource. You cannot install maps to your GPS with it, not can you install maps into Bobcat.
There’s an insane and deeply wasteful way that maps are installed. First, you load them in Windows MapSource. Unlock them, load them to your GPS. With US topo and City Navigator, this is around 4gb of disk space. You then run a windows program called MapConverter, which exports the 4gb maps to another 4gb file with a .gmapi extension. Then the program tar-zips that into a .tgz file.
You move the .tgz file onto your Mac. (In my case it was already there) and then (get this!) you unzip the .tgz file.
Then, there’s a Mac-based utility called MapInstall which takes the unzipped .gmapi file and moves it into your ~/Library/Application Support directories and tells Bobcat you’ve got it.
If you’re not being careful, you’ve now got 4 sets of the 4GB worth of files on your computer!
I’d like to say Bobcat is a good product, but so far, it turns my GPS off every time I try to load data to or from the unit, and then throws an error exception and dies. As a mapping program, it’s still very basic.
Having the maps on the GPS is a paradigm-shifting experience. It’s like having a completely different electronic gizmo. Prior to the maps, the unit was perfectly serviceable, but now I have dozens of new things to play with. I can search for and find addresses anywhere in the areas I have maps loaded for. It locates businesses by name, and even allows me to do searching for nearby places containing certain words in the name. (Example: Locate all nearby places with the word “pizza†in the name.) If I want to have xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung in California, I just key in their name and it pulls up driving directions and an ETA. (It’s a long way to drive for dumplings.)
When it is giving you driving directions, it usually provides plenty of advance warning about upcoming turns and lets you know which way you’ll be turning. Should you miss a turn,it obediently recalculates a new path.
The topo maps aren’t as useful, and they’re at large enough scale that they don’t have a lot of detail. They are helpful when you go off road, though.
Although they don’t seem to sell it in the United States, I know that Garmin also produces City Navigator and topo maps for Taiwan. I’m really looking forward to buying them and trying them out next time I’m in Taiwan.
With the patchy OSX support, it’s lucky that I don’t need the Garmin programs much, except to load the maps in the first place.
To make it work, it’s quite a hodgepodge, and I’m slowing really improving what I know by looking for help in the geocaching.com forums over at groundspeak.com.
Here are some of the utilities I use
Google Earth Plus
At $20 per year, the utility of Google Earth Plus is still in doubt. You do have access to dedicated servers, and you can connect your GPS directly into the program. You can transfer data directly from your GPS into Google Earth Plus, but not transfer data back to your GPS.
When you connect the GPS to Google Earth Plus, you can receive real-time position updates, and even track your movements. Presumably, this is a lot more useful for people with laptops. While I was testing it, I was sitting at my desk, and the “real-time†display was pretty dull.
GPSbabel+
GPSBabel+ is a free graphical front-end for GPSBabel, a veritable Rosetta-stone for GPS formats. GPSBabel can convert from practically any format to any format. GPSBabel+ can also connect directly to your GPS and import and export data into any of the formats it understands.
This is a top-notch little utility, and my only complaint is that Geocaching data files in .GPX format don’t seem to load into my GPS using it.
LoadMyTracks
LoadMyTracks is another free utility for loading and unloading data from your GPS. This one only understands GPX and KML files, but it feels slicker than GPSBabel+. It’s also faster and more responsive. Key feature for me is that LoadMyTracks correctly loads geocache data into my GPS from .GPX files.
HoudahGeo
HoudahGeo is a program I only discovered today. It’s purpose is to synchronize the tracking data from your GPS with the date/time stamps in the EXIF data of digital photos.
For example, if you’re out on a hike, you leave your GPS running. This records where you’ve, how fast you’re moving, how far you’ve gone, and other data like that. Let’s say you also take photos while you’re out hiking.
When you return to base, you take those photos into iPhoto (or Aperture). You can then select them directly in HoudahGeo. After selecting the photos, you can either import data directly from your GPS or you can import it from a .GPX file exported from the GPS. HoudahGeo syncs the two sets of time data and allows you to update the EXIF info in the photos (or copies.)
It also has tools for exporting directly to flickr or Google Earth.
This is a slick program, and since I’ve only had it a few hours, I haven’t given it a complete workout. Having the time in your camera synchronized with your GPS is critical, although you can enter an offset to compensate. I’ve had a couple problems, including the program crashing when I try to extract the data directly from the GPS and failing to maintain the orientation of auto-rotated pictures when exporting to Flickr or Google Earth. Other than that, this promises to be a fun program.
HoudahGeo is $39.
Conclusion
Mac support isn’t where it ought to be with this Garmin Product, but there are enough alternatives available to make for a lot of added value to this GPS. I’d like to see the map products freed from the shackles of Windows, plus a little more thought given to the Garmin programs, but otherwise, it’s working OK for me.
Technorati Tags: GPS, Review, Technology
In the United States, we have this thing called a Constitution, it’s supposed to be the highest law in the land. There’s a couple things in that Constitution, like the First Amendment, and Article VI, section 3, which are supposed to build a wall between the government and religion, and prevent any form of “religious test†as a qualification to any office or public trust in the US.
It’s all pretty straightforward and anyone with a cow’s brain or better ought to be able to understand it. That said, there’s either some cow brains in certain state governments or we’ve got people willfully contravening the US Constitution.
I found these examples a while back and a saved them, but failed to mark the attribution. Since I can’t quote the original source, I looked them all up just to see if there are really true. They are. unbelievable!
The Texas Constitution
Article 1, section 4
No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.
(Emphasis mine.)
I guess I’m OK in Texas, I do acknowledge the existence of a supreme being – myself. It may be immodest, but, if that’s the best they’ve got in Texas, I’ve got them beat.
The Constitution of North Carolina
Article VI, Section 8 Disqualifications for Office
The following persons shall be disqualified for office:
First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.
Great, atheist are first on the hit list in North Carolina, a charming state, I’m sure.
Incidentally, these are the “disqualifications†for holding an elected office. The second disqualification is not being eligible to vote and the third is treason or a felony.
I’m so they were able to get their priorities straight.
Let’s move down to South Carolina, an apparently equally benighted place, with their constitution, Article VI, Section 2, charmingly titled, “Person denying existence of Supreme Being shall not hold any office under their Constitution†Which says, in its entirety,
Like Texas, I think I have an “out†on this one, since it only mentions “supreme being.â€
Then there’s Tennessee, the land that gave us the Scopes Monkey trials. A state that can’t even publish their constitution in something other than PDF.
They’ve got Article IX, Section 2 under disqualifications from office:
Despite this nonsense, I’ll give minor points to Tennessee for also disqualifying all ministers and priests from being an elected legislator. They’ve also had the good sense to disqualify anyone how has ever participated in a duel.
So… why haven’t these constitutions been declared unconstitutional?
Technorati Tags: Atheism, Commentary, Rant, Religion