Today is the shortest day of the year in Ireland, so it’s a good day to give a little fact in this regard. If June 21st is the day when we receive the most sunshine, why is it regarded as the beginning of summer and not its peak? And similarly, why is December 21st, the day of least sunshine, the beginning of winter and not mid-winter day?
Blame the oceans, which heat up and cool down only slowly. By June 21 they are still cool from the winter time, and that delays the peak heat by about a month and a half. Similarly, in December the water still holds warmth from the summer, and the coldest days are still (on the average–not always! ) a month and a half ahead.
For more information and a daylight map of ireland go to maps.ie .
Recent news reports are showing the diversity of potential uses of GPS technology. A quick scan of GPS news items show the following headlines:
- GPS could soon carry out abortions
- Golf Course offering free GPS system tryout
- GPS tracking devices used to protect college students security
- GPS to track ophan tasmanian devils
- GPS to track sex offenders in New Jersey
It seems more and more that GPS technology coupled with human ingenuity is creating many different uses for a technology invented by the U.S military for surveying.
Members of Congo’s Mbendjele Yak tribe are using GPS that come with mobile phones to protect their forests from commercial loggers. Sacred sites and trees they want preserved are identified and tagged using GPS. These sites are then linked to a map used by logging companies and international conservationist groups.Behind the conservation project are the global environmental group Tropical Forest Trust, logging firm Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB) and others. CIB sought the help of London School of Economics anthropologist Jerome Lewis, an expert on the Mbendjele tribe, to assist the company by designing pictorial icons understood by the pygmies, who do not read or write.
According to VNUNET.com global shipments of GPS-enabled mobile phones are expected to more than quadruple between 2006 and 2011, market watchers predict.Research firm iSuppli said that GPS mobile handset shipments will jump from 109.6 million units in 2006 to 444 million units by 2011.Nearly 30 per cent of all mobile phones shipped by 2011 will have GPS capability, up from 11.1 per cent in 2006.
GPS Magazine: If you still don’t own a GPS unit, then you are truly a step behind. Tribes across the Amazon Basin have begun acquiring these portable navigation units and using them to map out their lands.
These tribes have begun mapping the 20 million acres of land that they traditionally charted by foot and canoe in order to avoid getting overran by developers, ranchers, loggers, miners, oilmen, and biopirates. Much of the help in this effort has come from the Amazon Conservation Team, a Virginia environmental and cultural preservation organization, which provided equipment, cartographic expertise, and financial assistance.
In addition to GPS mapping, tribes are also using Google Earth as a tool to track their territories. They have been using Google Earth’s satellite imagery to identify threats such as an encroaching soy farm or a river stained by the runoff from a gold mine. A few tribes in Brazil with Internet access are marking the coordinates of surreptitious activity they see in the images, then investigating on foot or passing the information to government enforcers.
If you need more proof that GPS is the wave of the future…look no further.
