from #osgeo channel

Posted on October 21, 2009 by mloskot

A tiny discussion about climate change triggered by FOSS4G 2009 talks logged by seven on #osgeo IRC channel:

[seven] The Earth's climate is changing.
[seven] Finally it seems like it is not a discussion any more.
[seven] We messed the world up and now?
[seven] We go fly to down under. Huh.
[mloskot] The Earth climate is a self-modifying code performing multi processing tasks, quite hard to debug
[seven] Debug earth's climate is easy: Remove humanity
[seven] says a dedicated Borg...
[mloskot] seven:  right, that sounds like a reasonable patch

EEA / Microsoft partnership

Posted on August 30, 2008 by mloskot

It is 3 months old news, but I’ve found it very recently. In the middle of May 2008, European Environment Agency announced they signed a partnership with Microsoft. The aim of this collaboration is (or was) to create ”an environmental information platform” based on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

In July 2008, EEA/Microsoft launched Eye on Earth platform with Water Watch component combining scientific data and Web Mapping to present water quality in European countries:

Currently, it includes information on the water quality for more than 21.000 bathing sites throughout Europe

nasaimages.org

Posted on July 28, 2008 by mloskot

NASA Images is

a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections

I’m not sure when it was launched, but PC Authorities magazine announced it a few days ago. Regardless, there is a great set of interesting images of Our Mother Earth, Solar System and more.

OpenGeology.pl

Posted on May 30, 2008 by mloskot

From time to time, Google helps me to find and get new treasures laying deep on the Internet. Today, it dug out OpenGeology.pl website. Apparently, it has been launched quite recently and Google reports very few references about it. Because it’s mostly in Polish language and English version is incomplete, I will give a short overview of it here. So, what is this website about?

The front page explains it very well:

The OpenGeology.pl is devoted to the applications of Open Source Software in Geology

Later, one can browse various resources organized by topic – reviews of Open Source Software, tutorials ie. on DEM processing and 3D technologies in geology as well as collection of free and public geodata. DEM of Poland based on the SRTM-3 is available through a friendly map-based interface in two alternative coordinate systems (WGS 84 and PUWG 92) and three grid formats. It’s worth to notice that holes in original DEM files have been patched. I’ve not played with this data myself but it sounds very promising.

Now, let’s get to the point – the software. And here, my eyes saw a nice list of FOSS packages, including OSGeo Foundation projects…and there was much rejoicing.

OpenGeology community (see below) has found following FOSS4G and OSGeo projects useful: GRASS, Open Source Software Image Map (OSSIM), Quantum GIS, GDAL/OGR and FWTools.

A couple of words about the OpenGeology.pl authors. If my understanding is correct, the website was founded by Polish Geological Institute and Maciej Tomaszczyk is the main author and content provider. Kudos to the OpenGeology.pl Community for their efforts to spread the FOSS4G in Poland.

RMA 2008

Posted on April 11, 2008 by mloskot

This is a short post spreading the announcement about upcoming RMA 2008 conference. The RMA 2008 is the 2008 World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling. It will be held at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Warsaw, Poland, June 15-18, 2008.

The conference will provide a forum for the presentation of recent progress in the use of modeling techniques to help in the understanding and managing of complex natural resource systems

The call for papers has been opened very recently and not yet widely announced. As I’ve been told by organizers, it’s possible to present applications and software packages related to the conference matter. I’ve been wondering if there would be anyone from the OSGeo Community interested to present FOSS solutions for environmental related problems.

By the way, RMA 2008 is planned on the same week as Cascadoss symposium and workshop. So, there is some chance to visit both events.

The Earth is Flat

Posted on March 1, 2008 by mloskot

It may be surprising, but some people still believe it is. Here is an interesting debate the Al-Fayhaa TV aired in 2007, during which astronomy researcher is arguing with physicist on this subject:

It’s been nearly 500 years since Nicolaus Copernicus and afterward Galileo Galilei proved with their researches that we do not leave on a plate but on a potato. Not to mention what we’ve learned from a number of space missions and explorations made with satellites. By the way of digression, how would the Global Navigation Satellite Systems work if the Earth was flat? Hmm…

The Cascadoss Project

Posted on February 12, 2008 by mloskot

In this post, I’m going to spread a word about the Cascados project. The project is founded by the European Commission in frame of the Sixth Framework Programme and is focused on development of a trans-national cascade training programme on Open Source GIS & Remote Sensing software for environmental applications. The Cascados project is formed by a number of partners from Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. More detailed information can be found on the project website (multilingual) recently launched at the http://cascadoss.eu/

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Mateusz Loskot

mloskot's life, programming, c++, geo and adventures

Tag Archives: science