Seems a post on All Points Blog regarding NeoGeography has unleashed a flurry of posts relating to "paleo" versus neo and a whole lot of other issues.
I think I have a slightly different of a take on it... I view the two as sort of a Venn diagram, with each representing expanding spheres, with an equally expanding area of overlap and merging between them.
Note, my little 5-minute Visio diagram is not by any means intended to be comprehensive... But the fuzziness and overlap is fully intended.
I do not view them as "in competition" - each has its own stakeholders and requirements, and between the two there is a considerable area of commonality. The exciting thing about neogeography, however, is that it's about empowerment and putting tools and capabilities into the hands of the public, which previously would have been inaccessible. Additionally, it's about fusion and collaboration - which benefits both communities.
And along the whole NeoGeo theme, I will leave with this:
NeoGeo Wars...
Technology Workers, H1B Visas and Controversy
There have been a number of news stories circulating about the H1B visas and overseas technology workers finding employment in the US:
A fraud aspect of it stems from the appearance that employers are going out of their way to deny Americans jobs - more details here:
There are a number of additional videos and clips on YouTube and others relating to this...
I don't think that I have any problem whatsoever with foreign developers coming here in and of itself - I know and work with a lot of very wonderful and talented people from overseas.
What concerns me on one side is the pure profit motive of industry, and on the other side, I am also concerned by the protectionist and xenophobic attitude of some others, and so on. However even these seem to be stuck in the weeds and shallow water - there is also a bigger picture that needs to be examined -for example if Americans cannot find gainful employ in technology sectors, it creates many other cascading impacts and disincentives - and this in turn begins to undermine technology curricula at schools and universities, it impacts research and innovation, and so on. And ultimately, all of these may also adversely impact profit.
Gains and losses should be balanced judiciously.
Life isn't just about cold hard cash.
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.
ESRI Developer Summit?
No, I was not able to attend... Getting the occasional bits and pieces of information from the DevSummit.
For those folks who are attending, say hi to Xiuzhu Yang, a good friend of mine and very talented developer that I have been working with for the last year on EPA projects.
Another very talented guy that I cross paths with, also at the DevSummit this year is Vincent Zhuang from SAIC, author of Programming ASP.NET for ArcGIS Server.
Watch out for Design Squad
"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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