november 2002 archives

Thursday, November 28, 2002

It seems like GPS technology is becoming more and more useful, both in the city as in the countryside. Zingo uses newly available mobile phone cell-location technology and GPS terminals in London Taxis, to connect people to a nearby taxi that is available for hire.

Another activity promoting the use of GPS is from the Dutch Forestry Commission, “Staatsbosbeheer”, has introduced GPS-led walking trails taking you off the beaten track. If you don't have a receiver yourself, you can even hire one online!

No chance over the weekend to update, as it was very much a family weekend! Anyway, it was really great to see everyone again.

Just heard on the Dutch radio, that Boudewijn Büch, a Dutch TV presenter and writer, was “lying in state” today for the general public to say its goodbyes: Pim Fortuyn set the trend here apparently. Talking of the dead, I am still rather shocked to hear that Lennaert Nijgh passed away this morning. Many of my favorite songs were written by him, e.g. “Verdronken vlinder”. The final line of its lyrics seems so apt all of a sudden: Om te leven hoef ik echt geen vlinder meer te zijn.

Friday, November 22, 2002

Almost on my way to sanity, i.e. a nice long weekend in the Netherlands! Very much looking forward to seeing my family and escaping the hectic times at work. Hopefully logging in from the other side of the North Sea sometime this weekend to update this blog.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Geocaching (locating containers with a GPS unit and coordinates) has been around for quite a while now, but only the other day I stumbled upon the “Degree Confluence Project”. The project's aim is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories accompanying these visits are posted on this website. Was about time I got a GPS and do some geeky stuff with it...

Monday, November 18, 2002

Funnily enough my previous blog entry is about Open Source! Just stumbled across a very interesting new book: “Kartenverfälschung als Folge über-großer Geheimhaltung?” published by the Bundesbeauftragter für die Stasi-Unterlagen (sorry, it's only in German).

Before 1989, the Stasi, the secret service of the East Germany changed the lie of the land on purpose to fool their own population! Not only did the Stasi change the borders with West-Germany, but also strategic objects such as barracks and parts of the road network. Furthermore, industrial estates were marked as marsh areas to mask incidents of environmental polution!

That's what I'd call closed source!

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Looking for a PERL script to convert GIS data into SVG, I came across Open Source GIS. I bet this resource will be valuable for a lot of people...

Not much going on this weekend. Karate yesterday morning was really good: kata at last. Been such a while that I forgot most of the moves. All in all rather embarrassing, but it all came back to me eventually. On our way in (Dan, my flatmate, joined me) we were stopped by the police, as the area around the Royal Albert Hall was all blocked off: a security measure for the Remembrance ceremony taking place this weekend. Apparently, even the building we were training in should have been evacuated! If this encounter was not royal enough, on our way back we passed one of the Dutch princes strolling in Hyde Park...

Friday, November 08, 2002

Mmm... Woke up this morning at 7.30 am and was ready to leave for work at 8.15.... Naaaah. So I went out, bought myself some milk and a newspaper to have a relaxed breakfast at home. Now, that's the way to start the day!

Online routeplanners are being slagged off once more... This time it's MSNBC. In “Web maps lead some drivers astray” it tells how Yahoo Maps and Mapquest.com get it wrong. Again. Funnily enough, no mention of MSN MapPoint! To address this “omission”, Directions Magazine carried an article this week on XML web services for mapping. This time the basics were discussed, but next week the author (who works for MSN MapPoint) will go into more detail, i.e. promote MapPoint web services!

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

In case you thought that maps are only useful if you can actually see them, National Centre for Tactile Diagrams provides tactile diagrams, maps and pictures for blind and partially sighted people of all ages and all walks of life! Imagine if maps on the web came all as SVG graphics and if there were some way to render it as sound! Hmm...

One of the tabloids revealed a few weeks ago that petrol stations are part of the conspiracy... Yes, the big conspiracy to harm public health. The big boards outside petrol stations that list the prices for the various fuels apparently pose as a mask for cellular transmitters, so-called “Mobile Phone Base Stations”.

However, this information is for all people to access at website of the “Mobile Phone Base Station Database”. This is a national database of mobile phone base stations and their emissions. The database is managed by the Radiocommunications Agency, an Executive Agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, on behalf of Government. Check out your area!

Monday, November 04, 2002

Had a bit of a busy time last week. That's why I haven't updated this blog for quite a while. The last weekend of October, Peter was over from the Netherlands to visit me. I had taken the day off on Friday, so we could go into town together. We walked for miles and miles, but it was so nice to be able to show him the spots that I like so much in London.

On Saturday we organised a housewarming/Halloween party. Later on this week I hope to upload some of the pictures that were taken that night. At last I had the chance on Sunday to watch the documentaries that Peter had worked on in his final year of his course. Very good stuff!

This week I hope to make a few more changes to this website, especially to integrate the section with pictures a bit more seamlessly.