After combating on proposals for a few recent projects, I am getting a bit frustrated with the preponderance of IT generalist firms chasing after the same work we do. Seems there is still a notion out there that information technology is the solution to everything. Problem is, the reality is that IT in and of itself is not and will be a driver to compare with the actual business. And if the actual business requires understanding of geospatial analysis, or of geodesy and high-accuracy locational data, or of environmental science, or of transportation and congestion, then these are still the primary drivers.
Sure, you can hire some button pushers cheap... but will they really serve the need? Maybe, but most likely not. Will they display any thought leadership or vision? Definitely not. Is any of it meaningful to the IT generalists? No. Just butts in seats, generating revenue, quantity versus quality. Whatever happened to qualifications, domain expertise and past performance?
IT Generalists
Research Triangle Institute
I had been bumping into a number of their people over the last couple of years, and it always seemed that we had many mutual interests. At any rate, we may well be forming some more solid alliances with RTI moving forward, to pursue geospatial applications development and environmental science. I was impressed with their capabilities, their ethic and many other aspects of how they operate.
They have many interesting things going on, such as a bioinformatics division, which is doing such things as modeling avian influenza on synthetic populations using a Linux supercomputing cluster, as well as much work for USEPA Office of Research and Development. Excellent breadth and depth in environmental and life sciences.
I could do a lot with an organization like this behind me - May this be a long and happy relationship...
Earth Day 2007
Tomorrow, Sunday 22nd, 2007 marks the annual celebration of Earth Day.I regard this as an excellent opportunity to give homage and thanks to our planet for all that it has provided us, particularly this rich life that we enjoy.
Regardless of any controversy over Climate Change, certain truths are self-evident. We should, we must be good stewards of our planet. We must accept responsibility for our impact on this planet. We must live our lives in a sustainable fashion. No political argument, no economic argument will ever remove the moral and ethical responsibility to minimize and mitigate our adverse impacts on our environment.
Congratulations to St. Thomas More
National Engineers Week
There are, in particular, numerous initiatives and fun events toward getting kids interested in engineering, and toward fostering a love for the math, science and principles underlying engineering:
There are a number of engineering resources for kids at Discover Engineering - such as PBS Kids' Cyberchase (one of my 5-year-old son's favorites), "New Faces of Engineering" to meet young engineers, PBS Kids' ZOOM, virtual bridge building, and plenty more.
"Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is February 22nd: http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/girlsday.shtml
Another fun one is the Future City competition: http://www.futurecity.org/
Check it all out at EWeek: http://www.eweek.org
2001 Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics data now available for CONUS
Just received this announcement from a colleague:
National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2001)
The U.S. Geological Survey, on behalf of the interagency Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC), is pleased to announce the availability of NLCD 2001 products for the conterminous United States. These products are web enabled for download from the MRLC website at www.mrlc.gov. NLCD 2001 products include 21 classes of land cover, percent tree canopy and percent urban imperviousness at 30 m resolution derived from Landsat imagery. NLCD 2001 will support a wide variety of users, institutional sectors and local- to national-scale applications with this updated land-cover data. Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico will be completed by December of 2007, which will then represent the first compilation of nationwide land cover ever produced at 30-meter resolution.
Great news for a wide variety of applications - I was just looking at a watershed application, myself, where this data will fit quite nicely.
I did a quick check, it's not yet visible in the MRLC map viewer, however the data is available via FTP - visit the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics site: http://www.mrlc.gov/
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analysis, applications, earth observation, environment, federal, geo, Geospatial, GIS, imagery, land characteristics, land cover, land use, LULC, map, mapping, maps, modeling, news, planning, preservation, raster, remote sensing, science, spatial, sustainable development, vegetation
"Longitude" - by Dava Sobel
The dynamic of battles between clockmakers and astronomers, and beyond this, the twists and turns introduced by the both arbitrary and capricious, yet bureaucratic and obstinate Board of Longitude are presented with great wit by Sobel, with our self-taught clockmaker protagonist, John Harrison showing tremendous brilliance and tenacity in the face of adversity after adversity.
A well written, well-researched, and extremely well-presented tale, if with odd continuity from chapter to chapter - I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in science. Sobel spins an excellent tale, against a richly woven tapestry featuring many other great figures in 18th-century history, such as Astronomers Royal John Flamsteed, Edmond Halley, and Nevil Maskelyne, Captains Cook and Bligh, King George III and many others.
As fast as I read, the stack grows faster... Currently on the stack are re-reading Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy, by Mark Monmonier, I have Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah, Metamagical Themas (another Hofstadter book), The Geographer at Work, Mental Maps and a few others from my late Penn State professor Peter Gould and quite a few others working their way to the top of the stack...
astronomy, author, authors, book, books, cartography, chronometers, clock, clocks, exploration, geo, geodesy, geodetic, Geospatial, history, map, mapping, maps, navigation, science, space, technology, temporal, time
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