Seven Useful Resources

Posted on April 30, 2005 by Dave Pollard
geolocEpidemic News: ProMED provides up-to-the-minute news on epidemics around the world. When the legacy media stop covering the Marburg outbreak in Angola because there’s nothing “exciting” new to report, this site keeps covering the story. No film, no heart-rending stories, just the facts.

See Where Your Blog Readers Live: GEOLOC offers an applet that will show you at a glance (see example at right) on a world map where your current and recent blog readers live. Only in French for now, but that’s what Google Translations is for.

Read Up on Complexity Theory: Stephen Wolfram has an interesting take on complexity theory and how seemingly ‘simple’ algorithms can generate complex systems. I don’t particularly agree with his view (more about that later), but it’s compelling reading and the whole book is online free of charge. (Thanks to Rayne Today for the link)

Even More Awesome Satellite Photos: If you’re already bored with Google Maps, check out NASA World Wind, a complete graphics engine (you’ll need a high speed connection and lots of hard drive space to download it) that offers a more global and less urban-focused collection, with some interactive and educational features as well.

Campaign for Environmental Literacy Needs Your Help: If you’re an American reader, please visit their site and complete the online letter to your elected officials to urge restored funding for environmental education. You know, the stuff Bush doesn’t want you to know.

What Richard Dawkins is Up To: I’m more of a Gouldian (the late Stephen Jay Gould) than a Dawkinsian, but I greatly admire Dawkins’ courage and eloquence in taking on the religious loonies and their papered-over creationism fraud called ‘Intelligent Design’. In this Salon interview with Gordy Slack, Dawkins talks about what he’s doing and what he’s up against. Here’s a great resource on Dawkins, if the interview piques your interest.

What Edward Norton is Up To: In this interview with Amanda Griscom Little, from Grist magazine, the iconoclastic Norton talks about his work on the National Geographic environmental special Strange Days on Planet Earth, and some of the other very down-to-Earth eco-initiatives he’s working on. This guy knows how to work a room, and we need more like him. The Strange Days link above has a lot more, for those that missed the special on PBS.

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4 Responses to Seven Useful Resources

  1. Doug Alder says:
    April 30, 2005 at 22:01

    Dave – you gave the same url (http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:1000) for both the GEOLOC and ProMED sites.

  2. Mikhail Capone says:
    May 2, 2005 at 03:45

    You should probably have linked to the original Grist interview with norton, the Salon one requires a pass or annoying ads: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/04/27/little-norton/index.html

  3. lugon says:
    May 2, 2005 at 07:22

    ProMED (Program to Monitor Emerging Diseases) is a good example of focus and professionality. Their readership counts in the hundreds of thousands, many of them working in public health or in the media. Together with the news they provide insightful commentary, links to previous postings on the same issue (yes, there are “threads”) AND QUESTIONS!Pity they have no RSS feed (AFAIK) – I wonder if one could be built on their main page – i.e., “stolen”.

  4. Dave Pollard says:
    May 2, 2005 at 23:48

    Doug: Fixed now, thanks.Mikhail: Yes, I keep forgetting all my readers aren’t Salon subscribers — appreciate the direct link.

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