Thursday, August 31, 2006

GIS SITES Presents NUCLEAR FALLOUT MAPS AND THYROID CANCER MAPS

Fallout Map Tennessee Nuclear Attack Blast Map
By accident, I came across this site while looking for a subdivision in Missouri. It's a Nuclear Survival Resource site with nuclear fallout maps and blast radius maps. Bruce Beach is the author and is trying to build some kind of survival ark (ARK II) for survivors of a nuclear fallout/winter. The guy has put some effort into either creating maps or just lifting all the graphics from someone else. I'm not sure on that , but I thought it was interesting to look at. Personally, I'm not too worried about the paranoid aspect of the site, but after living in Montana for many years, I am well aware of the nuclear fallout from testing done in Nevada during the Cold War and the risk of lymphoma.

So, switching gears, I was able to find the fallout maps and rates of thyroid cancer in the United States linked to military nuclear testing during the Cold War years, roughly 1951-63. There are many links to the 1997 report, but here is one with the map.
The basic thing was that radiation from the testing was deposited in the areas above at higher than normal levels and instituted into the environment. One of the main issues are with people who lived in these areas where Moo-Cows ate the bad grass and the milk was tainted and consumed by people like me. Let's just say there are sorta high rates of Thyroid cancer in these areas. Anyway, check out the maps and data and below I have included some related links on the matter. Downwinders.ORG has the most up to date info and articles on the subject of nuclear power/weapons across the world.
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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

SWEEEEETTTTT!!!

GIS break: The Nashville Predators sign Dumont to two-year deal. Nice add, Nashville. Now, when the season starts, Kariya will have J.P. Dumont & Jason Arnott to help beat up the Red Wings again.

GIS SITES ADDS Pamlico County North Carolina GIS site

Another addition for the day is the Pamlico County, North Carolina GIS site.

GIS SITES ADD CHOWEN COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA GIS

Chowen county GIS has been added to the list for North Carolina. On the site there is also a tax assessor search to find the property if the basic search features on the GIS application do not yield the parcel you are searching for.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Technically, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization has a map on its site, so I can write it off as somewhat relative information for my site. It amazes me that in the world today, with the limited resources of time and energy, that people choose to focus on something such as the existence of BIGFOOT and justify it to themselves that they are making the world a better place by hunting down an urban legend with spotty photographs and limited evidence. Now, if they could only focus their energy on finding a real lost soul, ELVIS, then I might get on board. There is one bright spot that may redeem them, though. It's good for a laugh, something we all need now and then.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

GIS SITES Presents GIS News

New York City is stressing the importance of GIS services, which is something I wish would be pushed more for govenments to do. Namely, West Virginia and Kentucky. Try finding a rural address on a map there. Route and Box numbers are not fun when it comes to mapping property. Also, Google Earth has added an Egyptian Flare with the addition of the Ramses statue in Cairo.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

GIS SITES News

The geography and GIS world is rather quite at the moment, with GOOGLE EARTH pretty much being the biggest topic of related interest in the news. But, I couldn't resist the "SNAKES ON A PLANE" news report where someone brought live snakes into the theater. Ahhh, kids today! Oh yeah, and some porn...

Monday, August 21, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - "Dam it All!" Angry Beaver Shirts!

This eager beaver wants to take over the world with his dam abilities. Catch him on shirts and gifts shaking his fist at the world!

GIS SITES Presents - GIS ARCH - Archaeology for GIS users

Matt at GISArch.com has created a unique site for GIS and Archaeology. This neat mix of the 2 sciences is displayed at his site and here's a link to his article on the Archaeology of a 1945 Prison Escape Tunnel and the use of an "Electric Eel" camera on wheels. Neat. I want one of these just for fun. I could see myself getting into some trouble with it, though. I've already had my remote control race car taken away for chasing the cats and neighbors kids, so I can't imagine this not getting me into more trouble. This article is part 2 and the technical stuff, so head over and read part I to catch up.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - 3D mapping for concert seating

Now, this is an unusual way to apply mapping to the private sector. Adeso Technology has already began using 3D mapping software for ticket buyers looking to find their seats during purchasing. Not a bad idea. It's already in use at Tickets3D.com and it's pretty nice. Now, when I go to see Jerry Seinfeld at Caesar's in Las Vegas, I can find the best seat in the house. Actually, as long as that seat's not in the same venue as Celine Dion I'll be alright.

GIS SITES Presents GOOGLE EARTH News

3-D and mobile mapping is gearing up in the Google Earth world, but the most impressive thing for me is that Google is aiming at STAR TREK fans by recreating the bridge of the Enterprise. Not a bad way to get some attention.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - Digital Maps/GIS: Antigua, B.W.I.

GIS SITES Presents - Digital Maps/GIS: Antigua, B.W.I. The National Center for Coral Reef Research GIS site for Antigua, B.W.I. is a full GIS site for Antigua in the Caribbean with multiply GIS maps with full layers and features.

GIS PILOT Update

I have updated GIS PILOT with a few new sites and I have also tweeked the main page. Added to the site are:

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - GIS PILOT

Blogger is grumpy this week again, so if you have troubles with this site or others and need help finding the GIS Sites, data, or links you need, be sure to check out GIS PILOT . I have organized the GIS Links for the following pages on GIS PILOT:

GIS SITES Presents - Maps of Cuba/Mapas de Cuba

This site is in Spanish and is quite slow to load, but if you need Cuba maps then hopefully this site will quench your thirst. Other than the pretty maps, I can't tell much about the site because of the lannuage barrier. Why did I take German as a second language? Dumbkopf! Anyway, the site has good Java features such as pan and zoom, as well as some layers functions.

GIS PILOT Presents - Burj Dubai The World's Tallest Skyscraper Webcam and Pictures

Although it's still a year away from being completed, the Burj Dubai, the soon to be world's tallest skyscraper, is taking shape. They have an aggressive website that updates the buildings height as well as skyscraper news around the world, namely other buildings trying to claim the world's tallest title. A new outline of the building is highlighted in red with the building progess and a webcam updates pictures of the construction. 3-D renderings of the site plan and skyline are an added feature.

Also, a GIS site for Dubai is up but not operational yet. I have posted a link on GIS PILOT under the "World Countries" section. The same message has been up for a month now and I do not know when it will be operational. However, the link is there for your other mapping needs on Dubai.

On the web:

Burj Dubai Skyscraper

www.gispilot.com

GIS SITES Presents GIS News

GOOGLE EARTH is keeping in the headlines with offering new services like coupons for vendors.

Monday, August 14, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - ESRI Storm Tracker GIS

The Weather Channel meets ESRI on the Storm Tracker. Here's a good alternative to finding weather if you don't want to go to Weather Channel's Weather.com and have 37,000 pop ups on your computer.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

GIS SITES Presents - GOOGLE search engine trends.

Now that I'm officially part of the internet world with the creation of this handy blog, the term "GOOGLE" is pretty much tied to everything involved in my web work. This site, BLOGGER, is hosted by GOOGLE and I have GOOGLE search engines and GOOGLE AD SENSE on my main site, GIS PILOT. Now, with GOOGLE TRENDS, you can find out things like
  • "Winnipeg loves its pork, Calgary likes beef. Latin Americans are intrigued by Nostradamus. And except in Dublin and Southern California, hookers are far more popular than blow."

Read more about GOOGLE TRENDS

GIS SITES Presents - OK Go - Here It Goes Again

I thought I'd start the week off with a little something to pick up the spirits. In case you haven't heard about this video clip from OK Go, with 4 guys on treadmills sync'd up to a song, you'll have a blast watching them work. It's all in one take and quite a talented effort.

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

GIS SITES PRESENTS GOOGLE EARTH NEWS

GOOGLE EARTH is definitely gaining popularity in the world, but sometimes for the wrong reasons. Some governments do not want the satellite images of their countries available and have fought hard to block GOOGLE EARTH. Bahrain is having troubles with GOOGLE EARTH and has blocked it this week, followed by unblocking it today. Here's a few samples:

Saturday, August 12, 2006

GOOGLE EARTH FLIGHT SIMULATOR

Ohhh, this is neat. Take the satellite images of GOOGLE EARTH and mix it a little bit with a FLIGHT SIMULATOR and you've got plenty of time killing fun. Here's a sample of some of the cities offered.
  • London
  • Dublin
  • New York
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Los Angeles
  • San Francisco
  • Philadelphia
  • Disneyland
  • Toronto
  • Boston
  • Berlin
  • Madrid
  • Paris
  • and more...

Find out more at Googles Flight Simulator

www.gispilot.com

Dave & Thomas

Friday, August 11, 2006

GIS PILOT UPDATES - WISCONSIN AND MAINE GIS SITES UPDATED

GIS PILOT has updated the Wisconsin GIS SITES link page. All the dead links, which were only 2, were corrected and about 15 were added. Wisconsin was the last state page to be converted from GIS SITES to GIS PILOT. Now, along with standard link updates, GIS PILOT will focus on adding GIS Downloadable data sets and links of that nature. The MAINE GIS LINKS page has added a few of these sets yesterday, as well as the North Yarmouth Township Parcel Maps site, which can be used with their assessor data to find properties. MAINE GIS LINKS include:

Thursday, August 10, 2006

GLOBE AT NIGHT - GIS SITE

GLOBE at Night is a great GIS site with education in mind. Various sponsors like NASA and ESRI have helped bring this site to the web. It has a fully functional database that allows for layers and zooms. Overall, a neat site.
Here's a quick summary of what GLOBE is:
  • GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education and science program.

Also, check out NASA's VISIBLE EARTH site for a library of satellite images from various Space missions.

ANIMANIAC'S YAKKO & WAKKO WARNER SINGS THE STATES AND COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD!

Here's a couple of clips by demand. First, Yakko Warner of the Animaniac's sings the countries of the world. Second, Wakko Warner sings the states of the United States in a song as done by the character voice, Jess Harnell. I used to have the original video clip from the show, but it was taken down by YouTube. You can't see much from the video, but the song's fun. Enjoy!

WHAT'S THE STRANGEST THING YOU'VE FOUND ON GOOGLE EARTH?

Check out the plane with the "Ghost" shadow flying over a city. Google Earth allows the viewer to play around with satellite images of the world, so it's no strange thing when odd objects like this popped up. I've found out of military planes re-fueling, parachutes, flying cars, and secret, Chinese military bases!

GIS SITES & MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

A couple of things caught my eye this morning. With today's terrorist threat thwarted in the U.K., with the arrest of 20+ potential terrorists, there is another story stateside that is gathering attention. 11 students from the Middle East arrived in the United States to attend English classes at Montana State University-Bozeman. Only thing is, once they arrived in the U.S., they disappeared and never arrived in Bozeman, MT. The reason I bring it up is that I have attended this school and this is really the first time I've seen it in the headlines since moving away. Also, with the the terrorist threat in Britain today, which involved blowing up planes heading toward the U.S., I had a post for a "Google Earth Flight Simulator", which had a little plane that you flew around satellite images and could crash. The post was scheduled for this morning, but for obvious reasons I will postpone it.

THE CAPTAIN HAS TURNED ON THE "SNAKES ON THE PLANE" LIGHT

GIS SITES cannot wait for the new Samuel L. Jackson film. It's almost 2 weeks until the internet driven action flick "Snakes on a Plane" hits the theater and in case you haven't heard about it, it's 2 hours of snakes on a plane, with Samuel L. Jackson. 'Nuff Said. CafePress is running a promotion with the film and its makers to promote T-shirts on the movie. Be sure to head over to see all of them, so far that's almost 800.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

GIS SITES ADDITION - NAVAJO COUNTY ARIZONA GIS

GIS SITES has added for NAVAJO COUNTY, ARIZONA, the Assessor and GIS site links.

GIS SITES SECRET TO AVOIDING

If you have ever called your phone company or cable company and broke your finger by spending 30 minutes pressing menu buttons just to talk to a live person, then GIS SITES is proud to tell you of GETHUMAN, an online database of company secrets to avoid those menus and go directly to a human agent. Their list includes all the utility companies as well as credit cards and insurance groups.

GET HUMAN Website

GIS SITES PRESENTS GASBUDDY - GAS PRICE MAP OF THE US

GasBuddy is an updated map of gas prices throughout the United States. Here's GasBuddy's description:
  • GasBuddy.com can help you find cheap gas prices in your city. It is a network of more than 173+ gas price information web sites that helps you find low gasoline prices. All web sites are operated by GasBuddy and has the most comprehensive listings of gas prices anywhere.Gasoline prices change frequently and may vary by as much as 20 percent within only a few blocks it is important to be able locate the service station with the lowest priced fuel. GasBuddy web sites allow motorists to share information about low priced fuel with others as well as target the lowest priced stations to save money when filling up at the pumps!

www.gispilot.com

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

GIS SITES PRESENTS GIS PILOT

BLOGGER has announced more outages for this week, so if you have the time head to my other site at GIS PILOT and give it the 'ole bookmark for when this sites hits an outage, which is about once a week now with Blogger. However, GIS PILOT and this site, GIS SITES , have about the same links on them. I have started to add GIS Download data links to GIS PILOT because this site is just getting too small for more links. Throwing on 1,600 links to the HTML of a blog can get pretty demanding, so if you need a speedy resolution, then GIS PILOT could help you out.

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL BLACKOUT MAP

Every now and then, a post gets asked for or gets a lot of traffic so I repost it. This one appeared June 20th, not too long ago, but is asked for a lot. It's the Major League Baseball blackout map for television broadcasts: If you have ever wondered why you can't watch you local team and you hear the term "blackout" then I have the map for you. "Blackouts" refer to NOT showing a local team in a local market to encourage people to go to the games. In theory, if you live in Atlanta and the Braves have not met the "Blackout" rules, usually 'x' amount of tickets sold before a game, then the Braves would be "blacked out" on you television broadcasts. New technology and television standards have made the "Blackout" rules outdated and with the advent of Internet streamed games that advertise being able to watch games online, MLB must reconfigure its "blackout" standards. For example, if you live in Iowa, you are being blacked out of 6 teams from 4 states. "Blackout" rules make a St. Louis fan anywhere in Oklahoma unable to watch games when they are "blacked out" even in western Oklahoma where you would be closer to 2 other teams in 2 states that aren't blacked out. www.gispilot.com

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Dubai man-made island nears completion

Well, it looks like Yahoo! has gotten on the Dubai bandwagon with their man-made islands in the shape of palm trees. The island construction began a few years ago and should be done by December of 2007. It has been such a success that others have popped up in the shape of the world and an even larger palm tree complete with leaves. I've posted a few times on the subject and I have included them in this post.

April 11, 2006

Welcome to Your New Home- The Palm, Dubai. The islands are almost complete, and if you are rich then you can own a piece of history. Man made islands are being constructed in the shapes of palm trees, among other things, in the Middle East. Come to Dubai and live on a replica of the world or a palm tree. The Palm Developments

Friday, June 16, 2006 Satellite images of Dubai & The Palm (Island of sand)

Satellite image of The Palm

The Palm has updated their website to include new photos as their construction takes shape. The Palm can be summed up as a man made subdivision in the shape of a palm tree. The trick is that it's built in the Persian Gulf using sand.

Click for hi-res: you can see the dredgers at work building the island.

During the construction

Burj-al-arab Hotel

Click for hi-res - Burj-al-arab Hotel

Dubai's goal is to be the recreation site of the world. The World's largest skyscraper are being built here as well as the World's largest man-made islands, like the Palm. So far, popularity is so high that there are islands being built in the shape of the world as well as another, larger palm tree with leaves. (See Previous Post: Livin' in a Palm tree in Dubai!) The Burj-al-Arab hotel is considered the finest in the world, offering a private and spoiled stay in a hotel built in the Gulf. The hotel was built in 1999 and the design is modeled after a sail from a boat as it catches the wind. Rates start at about $1,000/night and it is considered the only 7-star hotel. Yes, it's so fancy they made more stars on the rating system to accommodate it. There are plans in Dubai for an underwater hotel, theme parks, and various other skyscrapers.

Dubai-UAE

Saturday, August 05, 2006

GIS SITES PRESENTS EARTH AT NIGHT

EARTH VIEW is a live satellite image of the earth, complete with the blanket of night. It's a great site that allows the viewer to zoom in to check out the details. It's easy to see the industrial cities at night as compared to the rest of the landscape.

CHECK OUT EARTH VIEW

THE WORLDS TALLEST BUILDINGS - ALL IN ONE PICTURE!

GIS SITES enjoys the thought of another skyscraper race to be the tallest building. Currently, the biggest will be in Dubai in a few years, but until then if you can imagine the current, tallest 25 buildings in the world all in one skyline. Lucky for us, a couple of guys have gathered them all together and created a mural of the resulting cityscape.

World's Tallest Buildings in one Skyline.