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January 28, 2003
sjh didn't die in vain
sydney j. harris didn't die in vain. he wrote a book, based on a series of his newspaper colummns called "Things i learned on the way to looking up other things." it reads like a primer on my mind. it reads like a primer on the web. s.j. didn't live to see the web. but i did...
it's 1:30 in the morning and i've been online at 28.8k since 4:30 pm trying to find a map of Moab, Utah for Dean's birthday. i've learned more about geodata, geographic info systems (GIS) commercialization of research and data done with public money and the politics of suppression of data then i want to. even the army and navy is pissed (at least their civilian employees who actually have to make the maps.) and i haven't delved very deep or far. just enough to learn how fucked it is. and enough to know that what i used to be able to buy at the USGS in palo alto is now sold by microslop, what they used to give away online is charged for, and the file formats have changed 3 times since shrub took over. and that's a gross oversimplification.
but i did make my first real map. an honest to mercator relief map of moab, acurate to ten meters. below you'll find a compressed to hell bite sized version. no wonder they hide, obfuscate and commercialize this stuff. if an idiot like me can do this in five minutes, imagine what a skilled graphic artist/civil engineer could do. underneath Moab is Chicago, slightly altered to excentuate detail. we're not flat at all.
remember, these are compressed to make them small for downloading, so detail and shading is lost. i'm not putting the 100meg versions of these on line, even a 5meg version would hammer teh server to pieces.
Posted by parody at January 28, 2003 01:45 AM
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Comments
I miss Sydney Harris.
And I mis the day when the information superhighway wasn't dotted with toll booths.
Posted by: Jerry at January 28, 2003 10:09 AM
And Ffej, don't you know you're not supposed to be consorting with Moabites?
Posted by: Jerry at January 28, 2003 11:56 AM
what you talking, willis? moses' father in law (jethro) was a moabite. are you confusing them with amalkites?
Posted by: ffej at January 28, 2003 12:38 PM
For shame, Yaakov! Yithro, may his merit be a shield, was a Midianite.
The Moabites and Ammonites are the two tribes with which intermarriage is explictly prohibited (Amalek is included by inference -- I mean, you can hardly marry into a tribe which you are required to smite "man, woman, child, yea, even life in the womb" -- at least, the marriage woudn't last long.) These two tribes denied Israel hospitality when they wandered the desert after deliverance from Mitzrayim, and Hashem therefore prohibited intermariage with them (as opposed to every other tribe, with which they may freely inter-marry, so long as the Proselytes accept the Covenant.)
If you're looking for an exception, Ruth the Moabite is your answer. Yes, the lineage of Moshiach is corrupted by Ruth (as it is by Tamar, who consorted with her father-in-law, Judah.) I have a 'drash on "The Corrupt Lineage of Moshiach," which I delivered on Shavuoth a few years ago.
But, as Zornberg (yes, THAT Zornberg) pointed out to me at Pardes Yeshiva in Jerusalem on Shavuoth: "When there is a conflict between law and narrative, narrative prevails." Ruth is indeed an excepion. Others cross that line at their peril.
Back to Yeshiva for you, Boychik!
Posted by: Jerry at January 28, 2003 02:24 PM
Ffej,
This week's Economist has a report on the internet. I've only glanced at it so far, but I like what I see. And, hey, they believed the Microsoft settlement was a sellout, that MS should have been broken up (they ran a cover saying that,) and they regularly repeat your mantra about the "failed business model" of the entertainment industry (last week's cover story dealth with that, as have previous stories and editorials.) As the House Organ of Global Capitalism, they are way to the left of Bush (which says a lot about Bush.)
I got over my heavy Irish Republican prejudice to read this rag, and was richly rewarded with coverage of occupied Ireland far superior to anything published here. You might consider the same possibility for your prejudices.
Anyway, they start out by quoting Barlow and Lessig's over-blown predictions of the New Information Age. They juxtapose those quotes with current quotes from the same sources about the End of Freedom As We Know It. They, correctly, I think, observe that the current prophecies of doom are as exaggerated as their prior prophecies of a brave new world.
The Web will be pretty much like the rest of the world, with some notable improvements, and some notable regressions.
Anwyay, I'll share it with you, in print (you have to be a subscriber to get it on the web -- they predicted the toll booths years ago, and weren't silly enough to pour their resources down the drain.)
Posted by: Jerry at January 28, 2003 03:10 PM
Dottle on your philtrum? Try using an aglet.
Posted by: Sydney Harris at January 28, 2003 06:11 PM
Aglets for your laces, old son. Might I interject that inenglish, all those tribes sound like a b-movie? The MIDI-interfacing Amonia Ice Whores From Utah, which stared Ice-T, Ice Cube, Mr. T, and Jeff Goldblum as the infared transmitted intersteller cross platform computer virus. I assure you the names are all quite different in the original Greek.
Posted by: Buckley Roberts at January 28, 2003 08:20 PM
So... howzit done? Could we have a page dedicated to the subject of turning the raw data into maps? Cookbook or links to cookbooks (and map scandles and scuttlebutt) would be appreciated.
Posted by: Ben at January 30, 2003 01:31 PM