hobolinks :: January :: 2006

ESRI has released ArcWeb Explorer beta.  The one sentence review: the potential is there for a lot of power, but the interface doesn’t feel good yet.  More comments at the GISuser weblog.

The main job from here on out, according to Professor Tim Halliday, will be to document species as they are lost so they aren’t forgotten.

The reality is that many thousands of species will become extinct in the near future; so perhaps it is time to face this reality and to replace the ‘conservation paradigm’ with the ‘extinction paradigm’.

On the up side, this is Earth’s sixth major episode of extinction, so maybe it’s not all our fault.

(Via Another Chance to See)

This looks like a pretty good site for finding hikes in your area.  Lacks a good map interface, though.

“This is one of the strangest fish that I’ve seen in my whole career,’ said Ralf Britz, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s tiny, it lives in acid and it has these bizarre grasping fins. I hope we’ll have time to find out more about them before their habitat disappears completely.”

I’ve just discovered this blog by a couple doing an epic trek from London to Cape Town.  Much of the writing really resonates with me, such as this passage:

For all the halts and problems, I wouldn’t change this expedition for anything.  Every day when the sun drops behind the vast gravel mountains, and the stars soar far above in the still desert night, I look up and think that I must be one of the luckiest people on earth; I think  of all the nights I sat in London, cooped up inside, watching adventures like this on the television and feeling a sad, weary kind of envy, wondering if I would ever get out of the work-and-pay rut and on with the life of my choice.  And even though it is cold now in the night, I wrap up in a blanket and we make a little fire and I listen to  Madani and MBarak sing, and drink my tea, and think that I don’t have to wonder anymore, don’t have to feel sad or envious – right here is exactly where I want to be, and I am grateful for this life every single day.

Argentina 2006

Originally uploaded by bekisjak.

On the Pacific Crest Trail I complained bitterly about the endless “sun cups” in the snowfields. Little did I know how lucky I was, they could have been “Penitentes”.

This is a facinating interactive, real-time view of over 500 satellites orbiting our planet.

(Via J-Walk Blog)

They have some 6-inch resolution coverage in some areas, and two new zoom levels to take advantage of it.  No impact to API mashups reported yet.

The Announcement

I currently work at on a university campus where students have died in the past year from alcohol poisoning.  I think our students would have responded much better to this approach than our president’s communications.  Of course, our president may never have had a drink in his life, oh well.

… I guess this is what the rest of the country is up to.  The East Coast boys are soaking up a lazy Sunday with the Chronic(What)cles of Narnia, while out west the lazy Monday falls to Color Me Mine.

Mos’ definitly Rock Soup days.

This travelogue of a reunion in Kunming provides a interesting account of how much the city has changed recently, physically and culturally.  This was the closest city to the villiage on the Salween River where my father was born, which probably accounts for some of my curiosity about it.

It’s surprisingly fun to ferret out the flaw in these proofs of things like 1=2.

(Via Asymptomatic)

What, they can’t find something profitable to do with 500-pound masses of stinging slime?

This is a fun quiz-formatted collection of sensory illusions.

Like Tom Waits said, there’s a whole world going on underground. When I lived near this part of the Sierra Nevada range I attended an amazing slide show by Herb Laeger on caving around the world – I wonder if he was on any of these investigations?

If this happens, it would be the first species to go about which I could say, “Wow, I remember seeing those…”

I haven’t read the whole thing, but this guide to winter outdoor activity looks pretty comprehensive.

Interactive panoramas of many US parks.  These 360-degrees views always freak me out a little.  It even has a map interface.

J-Walk found this impressive slideshow from Foreign Policy.

Tom at Two-Heel Drive declared the hobomap “way, way cool”.  Thanks Tom!