Most recently, Rotterdam for a meeting and right now, MIT in Cambridge for yet another meeting. Otherwise, I’ve been neglecting this space since the holidays! In my absence, wordpress was hacked (by a bot, turning most of the pages into spam links…). I think I’ve worked all of that out, I may resort to a complete rebuild to be certain.
Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
Where I Have Been?
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009Yellowknife Seismological Array
Friday, August 24th, 2007Wednesday afternoon I took a tour of the Yellowknife seismological array. It was set up in 1962 to monitor nuclear explosions as part of the non-proliferation treaty and to monitor and study earthquakes. The actual array includes 33 seismometers in the form of a cross spaced 2.5 km apart, so we didn’t trek out to any of the actual monitors (really just a hole in the bedrock with an instrument inside and radio transmitter above). Earthquake or explosion data are recorded on site and transmitted to Ottawa for study. The facility also has a detector that looks for radioactive material in the air, a sensor for counting meteorites, and a GPS receiving station that is part of the Canadian Active Control System (ACS) for improving spatial referencing. It was a fascinating tour. What I couldn’t figure out, and forgot to ask about, was the NOAA truck parked outside the building. It was a long way from the U.S.
Guess Where NYC
Thursday, April 19th, 2007I’ve always enjoyed kicking around on flickr, but my new addiction is the group guess where NYC. People post pictures from the five boroughs and you try and guess where they are. I’ve only posted a few pics, and from the distribution of them it’s obvious that I need to get out of my neighbourhood with my camera more often. I’ve correctly guessed even fewer than I’ve posted, so I’m not in it for the competition, but I love the challenge of trying to get at least the borough or general area correct. Besides, given that some of the members are licensed tour guides, I’m out of my league anyway.