18. August 2011 by admin.

Twice in 1995 Bulgaria’s counter-intelligence refused to arrest him.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/World/Story/A1Story20110512-278538.html

His command center for the Balkans was located in Sofia, Bulgaria, an [ex-]KGB controlled area.

http://www.financialsense.com/node/215

According to FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko, Zawahiri was held in Russia December 1996 to May 1997, Dagestan, Makhachkala

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article818210.ece

FSB Blowing up Russia, provides proof that Russia was involved in apartment bombing that spawned the second Chechen war.

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3. July 2011 by admin.

Last week I picked up a project that I started a while back, the bsaic idea was to use the Google Maps virtual driving images (non-standard feature) to collect information about undocumented/mapped rural road side attractions.

• http://urbano.ws/maps/streetview_flip.html

I have the dual image sequences up, but now need to provided the capability for the user to add new features. I don’t have the time to do this now, but it seems like the best bet is Google Fusion Tables.

• http://code.google.com/apis/fusiontables/docs/developers_guide.html

In the process of researching this I found GeoXML (JavaScript API for parsing GeoData) which could be useful for this and other projects.

• http://www.dyasdesigns.com/geoxml/

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22. May 2011 by admin.

Yahoo Local Maps

Pro:

• Most up to date imagery (i-cubed 2008)

• Has Indicators showing gates at forest roads!

• Shows state lands

Con:

• No terrain

• Does not show national forest

Google Maps

Pro:

• Shows state lands

• Shows national forest lands

• Although boundaries are inaccurate (ref: http://archie.co.jefferson.co.us/website/panterra/viewer.htm)

Con:

• Has terrain menu pic, but it is not available in this region

• Shows foot trail as road multiple times

• Does not delineate between state and federal lands. Boundaries do matter because some state trails don’t allow bikes.

Bing (Had no obvious way to get a link to the map)

Pro:

• Shows state lands

• Shows national forest lands, Although boundaries are inaccurate(http://archie.co.jefferson.co.us/website/panterra/viewer.htm)

Con:

• Does not delineate between state and federal lands. Boundaries do matter because some state trails don’t allow bikes.

• Was not until zoom level 6 that private golf course and national forest were differentiated by color

Take away:

I’m having trouble picking a winner. Usually I go to Google or Yahoo, the KML community provides useful data. All of the popular webmaps are flashy advertisement tools and lack usable data. I suppose the idea is that the imagery provides all other necessary map data. Not true, especially when it is out of date.

Could not find any forest boundary maps. It appears that counties are the place to go for map data:

http://archie.co.jefferson.co.us/website/panterra/viewer.htm

http://gis.douglas.co.us/wapps/mapit/Default.aspx

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12. July 2009 by admin.

Although I knew that nuclear TEGs were used on Cassini, I did not realize how many other possibilities of TEGs (Peltier modules) exist.  Solar TEGs have caught my attention.  Well designed systems can achive 4-5% efficency. Signifcnly less than PV, but TEG is much simpler, low cost, and low maintancene.  Hybrid and concentrating systems seem to be the most promsing.  I plan to either make my own TEG w/ nichrome and copper wires or by one off eBay for $10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seebeck_effect#Seebeck_effect

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12. July 2009 by admin.

 I came across Imanishi’s ideas last year and was fascinated.  I still digesting his material and understanding how it relates to things like self-organizing networks.  Key points are    emergence, transmission and modification of patterns with in a network.

“… Imanishi denies that natural selection is the mechanism promoting
evolution. Instead of viewing evolution from the perspective of individuals or spe-
cies competing with one another for resources, he perceives the process as a series
of adjustments by which the entire system—the world of living things—maintains
its viability. To Imanishi, the evolution of predator-prey relationships occurs in
order to “avoid unnecessary conflict,” and parasitic relationships reflect a finely-
tuned equilibrium. Imanishi describes the character of this larger system as a con-
servative hierarchy. When the “ruling class” reaches its peak of development and
then degrades, as happened to the reptiles in the Mesozoic era, a new group takes
its place—in the case just cited, mammals—but the structure of the hierarchy is
essentially unchanged. The history he discusses is the history of biological classes,
but it could easily be taken as a metaphor for the history of social classes, saturated
as it is in the language of politics and economics.”

Imanishi, Kinji. A Japanese view of nature: The world of living things.

http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/pdf_attachments/About_Imanishi2008.pdf

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31. January 2009 by admin.

I came across an interesting source of biofuel.  It is the Croton Megalocarpus tree which is native to Tanzania and other semi-arid African regions.  The interesting thing about this biofuel source is that it has the ability to reverse African desertification and provide a sustainable ‘crop’ for rural communities.  Also provides the possibility of value on the carbon credit market.

http://bamafrica.org/downloads/lukenya.pdf

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24. December 2008 by admin.

Given that shipping containers are being transported on ships, trucks and trains, tracking and monitoring sensors could be power by piezoelectric and RF harvesting power modules.  The ambient RF signal produced by communication could provide a trickle charge source for these sensor.

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22. December 2008 by admin.

ArborNet Environmental monitoring.  Use of sensor to monitor the behavior/state of trees and other organisms. This will enable the detection of complex phenomena by fusing measurements from simple sensors includes humans.

What environmental conditions do trees respond to?  Is their response general, or can it characterize the condition?

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20. December 2008 by admin.

Cleanroom software engineering embodies the belief that software systems can be developed with fewer bugs than are present in the majority of software projects.  Specifically it states that software engineering should not accept the presence of bugs and iterate through find and cycles.  Functional verification can be used to ensure that the development of software occurs with out introducing bugs.  This is philosophical because be have not yet been able master the practice of clean room software engineering, although many advances have been made.

Cleanroom software engineering does not unit test code.  ‘Testing’ only occurs in the review and evaluation of methods used to evaluate the correctness of the functional verification process and in the review of the requirements representation.  Cleanroom testing encourages software development without needing access to a compiler.  Of course a complier would be need later to facilitate integration testing.  Cleanroom software engineering does not utilize typical testing because it intends to address errors before they are introduced into the code.

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20. December 2008 by admin.

Three destructive activities that are very important to every company are first to outsource for cost.  This is important because it can help save money and resource in areas that utilize commodity personnel.  This can also be dangerous because of increased need for management oversight and the possibility to lose IP.  Second is selling what is worth more to someone else.  This is important because a company can trade a relatively low valued product for cash that can be used to strength new or existing product offerings.  The danger here is that the product sold may have move value when applied differently through the new owner, thus creating an unfavorable competitive situation.  Finally it is important to terminate failed efforts.  Failed efforts represent a drain on financial resources.  The problem here is that companies sometimes have difficulty terminating projects for emotional or legacy reasons.

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