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Central America's Diary

Recent diary entries

Somalia maps campaign on the Independent

Posted by Central America on 4 August 2011 in English.

Hi,

I am finding it frustrating that I cannot get decent satellite images of the famine struck regions of northern Kenya and Somalia, I have taken it upon myself to add comments to any story in the Independent newspaper that concerns this story. I am just pointing out that with all the billions of dollars of aid that is slowly going to the region that there are no publicly available maps for the region. With the UN and the largest Aid Agencies going there, yet there is no discussion about the necessity of maps to help these agencies or to start planning for long term development. The fact that the refugee camp in Daadab has been there for 20 years and yet there is no map of it.

So I am asking for a little help. If you see an article in a newspaper about the famine can you post a comment about public maps and the availability of UN Satellite images. We all pay for the UN so I would have thought that the images should be under a public domain licence

The Independent newspaper is here

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/

but if your prefer you own newspaper then thats good too

Cheers

Bob

Links from Last nights pub meeting

Posted by Central America on 18 May 2011 in English.

After a good night of chat here I are some links that might be of interest

OSGeo Live CD

http://live.osgeo.org/en/index.html

For those that have never tried Linux, this is a full operating system that can be downloaded as a CD. You can then start up you computer from the cd and enjoy lots of mapping goodies. Once you switch off the computer and remove the CD the computer goes back to normal. Just make sure that when you use the CD you do not install it on your computer because you may wipe everything that is on it.

Wheelmap.org

http://wheelmap.org/en?zoom=14&lat=55.94834&lon=-3.19327&layers=BT

For those needing wheelchair access this website and iphone app helps pinpoint what access is like. Available in several major languages and a few minor ones like Klingon

Foragers

http://forage.rs/

For those that like foraging for your food

There is now Openecomap for Glasgow and Edinburgh

http://www.openecomaps.co.uk/map.php?pack=LDN&zoom=1&lon=-0.1&lat=51.5

cheers

Bob

Cheap HD Camera for Bike Helmets and Remote Controlled Aircraft

Posted by Central America on 23 April 2011 in English.

Hi,

I noticed there was a lot of buzz recently about a cheap, lightweight HD camera on some RC aircraft lists.

This Camera has been used on Bike Helmets, RC Quadcopters, cars and planes and seems to be doing well. It looks like the firmware is hackable to a small degree. Unfortunately, I can't find direct UK Suppliers.
The price seems to be about £30

A good review of the camera is here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj26JjSiazQ

Does anyone know of suppliers in the UK or of other very light weight HD cams

Cheers

Bob

Openstreetmap Pub meeting Wed 29th September Edinburgh

Posted by Central America on 28 September 2010 in English.

Hello,

We will be having a pub meeting at 7:pm Wed 29th September 2010 at the Guildford Arms

We will be having a guest Ivan Sanchez Ortega who will be able to give us many different insights into the spanish mapping community.

We also may be planning our first mapping party to map one of the permanent Orienteering maps in Edinburgh and contacting the local Orienteering groups

More details here

osm.wiki/Edinburgh#Social_Events

All welcome

Cheers

Bob