WIFLblog

Saturday, April 05, 2003

Virtual Parks: The idea of this story is to simply list some of the best sites on the Internet that feature Virtual Field Trips to parks around the world.Additionally for those people interested in digital photography, many of the sites have links and information on how to photograph panoramas.

http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/stories/2003/04/04/virtualParksPanoramas.html

9:56:57 AM

Friday, April 04, 2003

Environmental Education Organizations in Alberta

I have posted a list of Environmental Education organizations in Alberta at:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/stories/2003/04/01/albertaEeList.html

10:35:40 PM

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Environmental Education Organizations in Alberta, Canada

Another good source from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society is their list of environmental education orgnanizations that are found in Alberta, Canada.

The folllowing link will take you to the page that lists those EE organizations.

http://www.cpawscalgary.org/education/network-environmental-education/organizations.html

9:08:47 AM

Major Expansion to Canadian National Parks Announced March 24, 2003

For the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Soceity web site:

http://www.cpaws.org/news/national-parks-2003-0324.html

March 24, 2003 Heritage Minister, Sheila Copps’ announcement of an additional $144 million dollars over the next five years to implement the Action Plan for Canada’s National Parks and National Marine Conservation Areas
This funding is added to a commitment of $74 million announced in the federal budget in February, 2003.
The Minister also announced an ongoing increase in funding of $54 million per year to provide long-term support after the five year plan is complete.
As a result, Canada will be increasing the size of our treasured national park system by close to 50%
In October, 2002, the Prime Minister and Heritage Minister, Sheila Copps announced a plan to create 10 new national parks, five new national marine conservation areas, three park expansions, as well as to restore and protect the ecological integrity of our existing parks.

8:36:55 AM

Monday, March 31, 2003

USB digital binoculars.

Zupera's come out with a pair of USB digital optical binoculars that connect to a PC so you can view the magnified image on a computer screen. They say it's aimed at "bird or wildlife observers, landscape survey, marine and aviation survey, electronic-loving enthusiasts, and casual consumers who enjoy capturing an occasional image from afar," but you better believe that that last part is codeword for voyeurs; there's no doubt they'll put these binoculars to good use. And let's not even try to decipher what sort of sick fetish they mean by "electronic-loving enthusiasts".

[Gizmodo]
7:43:34 PM

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Buckminster Fuller Institute-BFI

This blast from the past for me was stimulated by a referrer link to Philip Dingra's blog at:

http://www.philosophistry.com/

at the BFI their who we are blurb is as follows:

"The Buckminster Fuller Institute is committed to a successful and sustainable future for 100% of humanity. Founded in 1983 and inspired by the Design Science principles pioneered by the late Buckminster Fuller, BFI serves as an information resource for concerned citizens around the world."

Their home page URL is:

http://www.bfi.org/index.html

Kinda gave me that warm and fuzzy feeling, that these ideas had not totally died with the grass materliasm of the 90s, seems like the opposite of the 60s.

PEACE MAN!!

3:36:50 PM

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Look at this great article I pulled from David Fletcher's weblog, check David's blog out at:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0110120/

Thursday, March 27, 2003

National Environmental Information Exchange Network

The National Environmental Information Exchange Network (NEIEN) is one of the more ambitious national XML projects. The project is funded by a $25 million grant through EPA and involves 44 states. States are already making progress towards achieving some of the benefits described in the NEIEN blueprint:

A common approach to environmental information exchange that is manageable by an agency as an agency, and not a collection of stovepiped systems, loyalties and approaches.
A transition from traditional information exchange approaches, which are rife with management and data quality problems, to a data-centric approach focused on data and data quality.
Enhanced potential for data integration.
Lower cost to exchange data.
More agency control over its own data, especially in light of public and legislative trends driving all public data onto the Internet.

Each NEIEN member is defined by their "network node." The node is a single point for delivery and receipt of information and contains a catalog of information and metadata available from that particular member (usually defined as a state). The node may contain data relevant to things such as air quality, water quality, leaking underground storage tanks, or hazardous waste. The data flows through EPA's Central Data Exchange (CDX). NEIEN activities are also coordinated through the Environmental Council of the States.

The typical architecture for a network node includes a SOAP listener, SOAP processor, Object Handler, Data Mapper, XML processor, and data connectivity components. According to the state of Maine, the State’s best “bang for the buck” from the benefits of electronic commerce technologies such as XML, Web services, and Enterprise Application Integration depends on the technologies being implemented once centrally and thereafter used by all agencies. Maine is interested in leveraging the NEIEN architecture and experience to develop and enterprise XML solution.

NEIEN Glossary

4:27:53 PM

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Fotonotes a Gotta Try!

http://www.fotonotes.net/index.php?action=home

The idea of embedding stories into a JPEG image is a wonderful idea! Well worth your time checking it out.

One of the author's blog is at:

http://gregelin.com:8668/duhblog/space/start

While the official Fotonotes blog is at:

http://www.fotonotes.net/blog/

Dan Gillmor has mentioned it at:

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000891.shtml#000891

While Doc Searls has mentioned it at:

http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/03/25#embeddedInScottsdale

if you go to Fotonote site and search for Switzer, Pierre Grays or Willemore Wilderness Park, you may be able to view some photos I realeased for your viewing pleasure!

7:11:34 PM