Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 00:45:32 -0400
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Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
Comments: Resent-From: crispen@netsquirrel.com
Comments: Originally-From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
Subject: TOURBUS -- 29 APR 01 -- EARTH FROM SPACE / FUTURE WEB?
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TOURBUS Volume 6, Number 75 -- 29 April 2001
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\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
FIVE YEARS of Searchable Archives at http://www.TOURBUS.com !!
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Earth from Space / Future Web?
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.sgi.com/fun/gallery/world1.html
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?5826
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html
Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from the beautiful city of
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the pause that refreshes. :)
TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. PLEASE
take a moment to visit today's sponsors to thank them for keeping
TOURBUS on the road.
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On with the show ...
----------------
Earth from Space
----------------
About 10 years ago, a guy named Tom Van Sant created the first flat,
cloudless image of Earth as viewed from space. This was no small feat
considering that, despite recent Internet rumors to the contrary, the
Earth isn't flat after all. In fact, it took Van Sant over a year
using a bunch of old, 1990-era computers to complete the task.
The final image of Earth from space is absolutely stunning, and Van
Sant has made a pretty penny from its sale (prints and murals are
available at http://www.geosphere.com/gifts.htm). That's the good
news. Now for the bad news. Even though Van Sant's satellite
composite view of the Earth has been used in over 300 different
magazines, it is darn near IMPOSSIBLE to find online. SGI has a
wordmarked version of Van Sant's image on their website at
http://www.sgi.com/fun/gallery/world1.html .
The image is approximately 500 Kb in size, so it should take about two
minutes and 22 seconds to download over a 28.8 modem and about 1
minute and 12 seconds to download over a 56 K modem. Believe me, it
is worth the wait.
Okay. Jump ahead 10 years. The folks at the Goddard Space Flight
Center (GSFC) decide to make their own satellite composite view of the
Earth. Only this time, THEIR view will be of the Earth at night.
You can see their results at
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?5826 .
Four versions of this image are available:
1. A really small JPEG (540 x 270)
2. An extraordinarily large GIF of Earth's lights only, without
the continental map
3. A very large JPEG (2400 x 1200)
4. A ridiculously large grayscale GIF (30,000 x 15,000)
You want the third one. Like Van Sant's image of Earth during the
day, the third version of GSFC's "Earth's City Lights" image is about
500 Kb in size. Unlike Van Sant's image, however, the "Earth's City
Lights" image is both free and can be found practically EVERYWHERE.
In fact, I am using a cropped version of this image as my desktop
wallpaper.
The thing I like the most about this nighttime atlas is that it
clearly shows most of the world's major cities. In fact, you can
actually see Tuscaloosa, the world's most important city! [Look for
Atlanta (the biggest city in the southeastern US) and then go west.
The next big city is Birmingham. Just west of Birmingham is an other
dot. That me!]. It's also pretty cool to be able to see the
difference between the populated and unpopulated places on this
planet. For example, the Sahara and the Himalayas are clearly visible
from space because NO ONE LIVES THERE. :)
By the way, if you are interested in finding even more images of Earth
from space, you might want to add
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
to your bookmarks list. Visible Earth is a free site from NASA that
is a searchable, Yahoo-like directory of images, visualizations, and
animations of the Earth. If you are interested in learning more about
Earth's biosphere, cryosphere, or any other type of sphere, you are
going to LOVE this site.
---------------
The Future Web?
---------------
Whenever I hear somebody talk about the future of the World Wide Web
or the Internet, I usually chuckle. More often than not, the
prognosticator is a corporate shill predicting how his company's
product is going to revolutionize the way we use the Internet ... for
a small price, of course (for example, see
http://www.microsoft.com/net/hailstorm.asp.)
So, you can understand my recalcitrance when I ran across a recent
article talking about the possibility of creating web pages whose
content is solely meant for the use of other computers -- something
called the "Semantic Web." This, supposedly, will unleash "a
revolution of new possibilities."
Uh-huh.
I was about to file this article in my cylindrical "yeah, right"
folder when I noticed its author: Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who
invented the World Wide Web.
This may be something to check out, folks The article is titled "The
Semantic Web" and it appears in the May issue of Scientific American
magazine. You don't have to run out to your newsstand, though ... the
article is also available on the Web for free at
http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html .
I'm not sure I completely understand this article -- I am between
semesters at Pepperdine, and my mind kind of needs to be defragged
before I can once again think deeply -- but this is something that you
might want to check out, especially if you are interested in knowledge
creation and enabling. Considering Tim Berners-Lee's previous record,
when he speaks about the future of the Web, we might want to listen.
That's it for today. Have a safe and happy week, and will talk again
soon!
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Earth from Space / Future Web?
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.sgi.com/fun/gallery/world1.html
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?5826
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html
---------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE WEEK
---------------------------------
PLIGHT (adjective) Showing consideration for others or being tactful.
Usage: "Bubba, don't hand the preacher yer half-eaten Moon Pie ...
that just ain't plight."
[Special thanks to "Rhonda" for today's wurd]
You can find all of the old Southern Words of the day at
http://netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
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