Weekly Digest – August 24, 2014

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Not a happy day

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From The Washington Post, Why the escape of numerous Ebola patients in Liberia’s worst slum is so terrifying:

People gathered near the entrance of an Ebola isolation unit, where dozens of patients, many of whom were suspected if not confirmed to be infected, were getting treatment. Pictures showed some in the crowd had masked their faces with T-shirts or shawls. Others, including a woman in a red dress named Batu Flowers, tried to convince the mob that Ebola was real, they weren’t being lied to, that news of the outbreak wasn’t a hoax. But the crowd wouldn’t be dissuaded.

It pushed against the gates of the Liberian primary school, which had been converted into a treatment center in the middle of West Point, which some call the most squalid community in Liberia if not West Africa. Thanks to poor sanitation and open sewers, the community of tens of thousands crowded onto a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean has long been prone to debilitating sicknesses from typhoid to malaria to lethal diarrhea. Now it has one more to contend with — a virus spread through feces, blood and vomit.

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Weekly Digest – August 17, 2014

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Summersweet

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“Summersweet” is the common name for Clethra alnifolia.  It’s relatively small shrub that likes swampy areas but will grow in a wide variety of environments.    They’re abundant in the swampy areas along my main route to and from work.   They’re in flower now and the aroma is great – very rich perfumy.   (The origin of “summersweet” is apparent.)  I put the windows down when I drive by to take it in.

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WorldView-3 launched

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The WorldView-3 satellite launched from Vandenberg AFB on an Atlas V rocket:

What’s WorldView-3, you ask?  Well, if you use Google Earth then you’ve seen imagery from WorldView-2.  WorldView-3 will provide higher spatial resolution imagery, 30 cm vs 50 cm, as well as imagery in additional spectral bands which can support science missions.  From Ball Aerospace, who built the satellite:

WorldView-3 also features the first atmospheric sounder DigitalGlobe will fly in space. The Ball-built Cloud, Aerosol, Water Vapor, Ice, Snow (CAVIS) atmospheric instrument will enable WorldView-3 to collect scientific data based on ground reflection by correcting images for atmospheric interference.

The specs are pretty amazing.  And some propaganda promotional materials from DigitalGlobe here.   (Note the not-so-subtle smackdown of Skybox.)  Like I wrote above, it’s pretty amazing.   Unlike Landsat, you won’t be able to get the imagery for free but, hey, you get what you pay for;-)  Landsat data is good for it’s intended purpose but I think it’ll be really easy to get spoiled on WV-3 imagery.

ADDENDUM:  Most of us think about the visible spectrum – red, green, blue.  If you’d like to learn about what longer wavelengths (too red for the human eye to see) are good for there’s a nice not-to-technical summary here.

What’s wrong with this picture?

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I’ll start with easy one:  The police have automatic weapons.  (Or are the just semi?  Can’t tell.   Doesn’t matter anyway.)  In the civilized world riot police carry shields and truncheons.  Sending in a heavily-armed paramilitary force is not how responsible people act to de-escalate a tense situation.

A friend of mine once said, “There are a lot of assholes in the world.  The police are who we hire to be assholes back to them.”   While I don’t disagree with the sentiment in general, the devil is in the details. The militarization of the police is bad news.

Weekly Digest – August 10, 2014

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