Landsat 8 Fully Operational
Landsat 8 is now fully operational as the EROS Data Centre run by the USGS had control passed over to it - get downloading them there data!
posted on: Mon, 03 Jun 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Let there be stoning!
I can't really add to much more to Garr's blog entry, other than to point you to the short essay/editorial that appeared in Ground Water back in 1985 (Lehr, J.H. 1985 Let there be stoning! Ground Water 23, 2, 162-165)..... in the first instance it makes you laugh, then you can feel the anger and then the wisdom. In short, whilst nearly 30 years ago, the detail of this paper holds the presentation essentials for any academic - it's a treasure trove of wisdom. Read it and compare yourself against his yardstick - there is no excuse for boring your audience to death.
posted on: Fri, 24 May 2013 | path: /teaching | permanent link to this entry
1926 London
Fabulous COLOUR film of 1926 London from the BFI..... what's startling (for me) about this is how little has changed in a lot of London, yet notice that there is no highrise and the streets are so clean.
London in 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.
posted on: Mon, 20 May 2013 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
The Long Swath
Great post from the NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day - this is 9000km swatch running from Russia all the way down through Africa offering stunning images along the route. It was captured shortly after the calibration and testing of LDCM completed and it was moved into its operational orbit - note its not due to enter full operational status until late May. Watch the video FULL SCREEN. It is stunning.
And check out further details of "The Long Swath" which includes a fabulous GigaPan at full resolution.
posted on: Thu, 16 May 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Asda's Not-so-easy Wifi
I was in my local Asda recently and saw the stand below - I don't think "Follow these simple steps....." could be further from the truth! The words "can't be bothered" spring to mind.
posted on: Thu, 09 May 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Word for the Day: Pareidolia
I came across the word Pareidolia at 500px yesterday which I didn't know, so looked it up on Wikipedia. This is what it had to say:
a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.... Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.
Perhaps one of the most famous remote sensing examples (below) is the face on Mars..... we've all seen them and the WIkipedia page has some great examples.
posted on: Tue, 07 May 2013 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
CONFIRMED: CBC council officially provide no educational leadership
Well this week saw Central Bedfordshire Council organise an open meeting to "discuss changes to schools and academies in Dunstable and Houghton Regis" (something I've blogged about before)...
posted on: Fri, 03 May 2013 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
Landsat 8: Landsat Data Continuity Mission
This passed me by for some reason last year, but a great summary on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission is available over at Remote Sensing of Environment. Gives a lot of detail on the instruments a is a great pre-cursor read to the impending wide availability of data.
posted on: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Journal of Maps Editor's Choice
Just wanted to flag to people the Editor's Choice over at the Journal of Maps. These are available to download for free and include many of the previous Best Map Award Winners. So, take a look, there are some great maps.
posted on: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 | path: /publications | permanent link to this entry
Antarctic Archive Data
Jonathon Amos provides a nice overview of a team that put together a mosaic of archive data of Antarctica (published in The Cryosphere which is open access) from the 3-week long Nimbus-1 satellite from 1964. Its a great example of the importance of old data and how it adds to our knowledge of the Earth system.
posted on: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Sony RX100 - a compact DSLR
I've gotten far more in to my digital photography recently - see gallery - and my DSLR (Nikon fanboy!)...
posted on: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
And the winner is....
submarine volcano eruption. Coooooool.
posted on: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
First satellite image
Well almost.....i09 shown the first weather satellite image of the Earth. This was taken from TIROS 1, a research satellite launched in 1960 to test the efficacy of remote observation from space....
posted on: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
LDCM Calibration
Nice article over at EO IofD as NASA/USGS prepare to ready LDCM for full operation status. As they say in the article....."You don’t just strap a satellite to a rocket, launch it, and voilà, it takes measurements." There's a bucket load more stuff to do. Worth having a read and watch as LDCM is prepared for routine data collection.
posted on: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
The Final
Cast your vote
posted on: Fri, 05 Apr 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
OS Terrain 50
OS announced this weekend the availability of OS Terrain 50 (T50), a maintained 50m DEM of the UK. This is great news as 50m provides an incredibly useful spatial resolution for a variety of tasks....
posted on: Wed, 03 Apr 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Google Translate goes offline
Google Translate is an excellent service and so useful for many translation tasks. It really is the closest thing to the Babel Fish that we have. As with many Google services (although alas not Reader) it is available across mobile platforms and it is really good to see this being offered as an offline service for Android 2.3 and higher. That doesn't leave all those Gingerbread devices orphaned (and it still remains a very active platform), offering an extremely valuable service. Download!
posted on: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Tablets in learning - not fit for purpose?
I'm actively involved in learning technologies both as my role as a lecturer (e.g. Livesribe pen and also as a school governor....
posted on: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 | path: /teaching | permanent link to this entry
Round 4 - need I say more??
VOTE!
posted on: Tue, 26 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
EPoD Redux
Just can't get enough of a good thing!! I was trawling through some old photos and came across one of a small translational slide in Glen Ogle, Scotland. I asked Alan Dykes if he'd be willing to pen a few words which he kindly did and....
voila Glen Ogle Landslide.
posted on: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 | path: /glaciology | permanent link to this entry
New dawn for "geoservices"
For want of a better name (new cartography, neogeography, geoservices or maybe geomatics!!), Science has a nice article on the emergent importance of geo in the global economy and the subsequent requirement for suitably qualified employees, noting a ~35% predicted growth in workers in the US by 2020. That's pretty big! Worth also reading the linked Oxera report for Google on Geoservices.
Bright future ahead people!
posted on: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
LDCM First Images
Yes the LDCM first images are here - take a peek over at NASA
posted on: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Saturn engines recovered
A pair of giant Saturn 5 rocket engines, used to launch the original US lunar missions from the 1960s have been recovered by a team sponsored by Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos. A real part of space history!
posted on: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Clear explanation of changes to education in Central Bedfordshire......
Watch...listen....learn....
Did you understand that?? No, neither did I. As a follow-up to my blog on educational leadership in Central Bedfordshire, I wondered where we had got to in informing stakeholders of the (not) clear direction and structured approach to change that we have in Central Bedfordshire....
posted on: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
Earth Madness Round 3
This slipped under my radar, but round 3 of Earth Madness closes on Friday, so get your vote in before the deadline
posted on: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
QGIS Primer
OpenShift have a good post of using QGIS for loading spatial data and then does some spatial processing using Python and GDAL for import. Its a good primer and forms part of a series on open source spatial - part 1 looked at spatial data
posted on: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Goodbye Google.......
Google's announcement that they are killing off Google Reader seems to have been met with dismay, including a petition to the federal government in the US (and the ubiqutous Hitler meme below)!...
posted on: Sat, 16 Mar 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Proprietary data silos
.....and the moral of the story is.....
.....don't lock your data away in proprietary silos. The quotation at the end is fabulous: " A person seeking public records should expect to pay the price for copying the records, but not the price for a public entity’s mistake in purchasing inefficient software."
posted on: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Burren in TimeLapse
A simply stunning set of time lapse photos taken with a Canon M5D Mk2/3 using a DIY rig to move the camera with a rising/falling rail. Make it full screen watch and be inspired.
posted on: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 | path: /fun | permanent link to this entry
Deleting multiple blank cells in Excel
I was doing some straight forward data management in Excel today and had gone through a long list of items and deleted a number of them....
posted on: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Get Voting: round 2!
.....Round 2 at Earth Madness 2013
posted on: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
UAVs and the law
UAVs are starting to the hit the big time with everything geospatial and are driving a hardware, data and software revolution along the way (more in later posts, but think open-source designs, open source software, massive datasets)....
posted on: Tue, 05 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Get Voting!
.....at Earth Madness 2013 (and read some of the linked stories to each image; they are good)
posted on: Tue, 05 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
iSERV.....
.....no, not another Apple product (although I'm sure the lawyers letter is waiting), but actually ISERV is a joint NASA/USAID product developed by SERVIR....
posted on: Sun, 03 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
OS Past and Present
Nice pair of contrasting videos about OS - the first a modern promo video from the OS itself which is very glossy but actually tells you very little about the organisation and the second from Pathe news in the 1950s which is cringingly dated, such as "It used to take two men a whole year to do the map making mathematics that these adding machines and electronic computers can do in an afternoon with a girl to help!" However it does show you the full map making process in 3 minutes - quite a feat!
Swansea Trip: 1:40 shows the use f plane tabling!
posted on: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Earth Madness 2013
From NASAs Earth Observatory:
"Thirty-two will vie for the title, but only one can be the winner. They are the best Earth images of the year, the top 32 from 2012....
posted on: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Software agnosticism
Nice post from James Fee on software agnosticism..... and yes, we all too regularly build an ArcGIS script to find it no longer works in a new version or hasn't been updated by a third party. And yes, the answer is don't use them!!! However as I am also doing (some work with Niels Anders), move to Python and do you geospatial processing there, then call from within ArcGIS. You even have Portable Python so no excuse for being tied to a workstation.
posted on: Mon, 25 Feb 2013 | path: /GIS | permanent link to this entry
Tristan da Cunha
Great astronaut photo of Tristan da Cunha. Nearest neighbour? St Helena, 2,730 km away! More at Wikipedia.
posted on: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 | path: /remote_sensing | permanent link to this entry
Uninstalling apps from your Android ROM
Sick and tired of the crap and bloatware that invades the version of Android on your phone but can't remove they because they are built in to the ROM?...
posted on: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
Get some Oomf(o) in your presentations.....
Have you ever been watching a TED talk and wondered how they got that cool dynamic chart? Did someone slave for hours over a long Flash animation?...
posted on: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 | path: /computing | permanent link to this entry
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