Archive for April, 2006

St George’s Day

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 23 April, 2006 in Celebrations. 0 Comments

Today (23rd April) is St George’s Day here in England. St George is the patron saint of England - but his feast day is not widely celebrated across England. That is, or course, you live in the cathedral city of Salisbury, where the they have a long tradition of celebrating his day in a big way.

Rather than write endless descriptions of the day, I set out with a camera to capture what was to be a quintessentially English day out. There is now a set on Flickr, should anyone be interested in what country towns get up to when they want to celebrate something (or someone)!

For basic info on St George and his feast day go to http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/stgeorge.html

For the long-winded version, there is of course the entry for St George on Wikipedia.

Being Cornish (and proud, me ‘ansome), I think it’s great to celebrate your identity and your country. I think that St George’s Day has been avoided on the whole because of the appropriation of the flag (amongst other things) by the National Front, and it became linked with racism. I think it is time to reclaim St George’s Day as the wholesome celebration that it once was of national pride, and celebrating the country that we live in.

St Patrick’s Day, anyone?

In Cornwall, you’ll see the flag of St Piran (Cornwall’s patron saint) flying everywhere from the borders of the Tamar to Land’s End. There are big events to celebrate “Cornishness” not just on St Piran’s Day (5th March), but throughout the year. It’s healthy, it’s fun, it fosters good community relations. And it doesn’t exclude people who aren’t Cornish!

After experiencing St George’s Day in Salisbury, here’s to more places celebrating it!

Tags:
Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • BlinkList
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb

Map Mobbing

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 20 April, 2006 in Geotagging, Geodata and Ramblings. 3 Comments

A group from OpenStreetMap are gathering en-masse (well, 15 of them) to make a map of all roads and footpaths on the Isle of Wight, UK, which they will then make freely available.

MAPPING REVOLUTION TARGETS THE ISLE OF WIGHT

This weekend, 5th - 7th May, the Isle of Wight becomes the center of a global mapping revolution. Contributors to the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project are meeting on the Island with the aim of mapping as many of the roads and footpaths as possible.

The OSM project aims to create free geographic data, such as street maps, to anyone who wants it. The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways.

OSM contributors, including one travelling from Germany, will be driving, cyling, and wandering the Island with GPS (Global Positioning Sytem) Units recording the route of as many of the roads and footpaths as possible.

Further information can be found on the project web site http://www.openstreetmap.org/

In the UK, most current mapping is all privately owned (by the Ordnance Survey - despite being a government department, and a number of others). Using it can be either expensive, or you tread dodgy ground by trying to make your own derivatives from it (including digitising their aerial photographs).

With the rising interest in location-based stuff on the internet, such as geotagging, geocaching etc, in the name of the freedom of spatial information, there’s an “open source” mapping movement, which I applaud. It also sounds like quite good fun.

Related Link (blog): OpenGeoData

Tags:
Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • BlinkList
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb

A million archaeological records…

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 4 April, 2006 in Archaeology. 0 Comments

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) are a UK-based organisation who exist to preserve digital information related to archaeology, as well as promote and disseminate the data. They’ve just announced that they have made their one millionth record available on their ArchSearch catalogue.

It may not be the United Kingdom’s most well known archaeological site, but
for the ADS it represents a significant landmark. The site of Keavil Dovecot
in Fife is the subject of the one millionth record to be made available via
the ADS Online Catalogue - ArchSearch. (Dr Stuart Jeffrey, User Services Manager, Archaeology Data Service, 4th April 2006)

The amount of information on the ADS website is staggering and varied. From simple summaries of archaeological sites, to PDFs of site reports, to full-blown dataset downloads, it’s a must for anyone interested in archaeology in the UK. You can also search their records via a map interface, which uses clear Ordnance Survey mapping, which is useful.

More and more archaeological units are submitting their reports electronically, which can only mean that it will become (if it not already is), the prime location for searching on archaeological information. Importantly, since they are also an archive, they aim to keep data “fresh”, that is migrate it to new formats as they become available, meaning that no more strange proprietary files whose software has long since ceased development.

Long-term preservation and management of digital data is vitally important, if data is to be useable in the future, and “data refreshing” to latest formats is one of the ways to do this (along with backups, and refreshing data to new disks).

One other thing that the Archaeology Data Service do, is ‘real’ computer archaeology (no, they don’t dig them up! Well, not that I’ve heard ;-) ). They collect old systems (Amstrads, Ataris etc etc), recondition them, and pop them away in a ‘museum’ for safekeeping, in case any old data surfaces on piles of dusty floppy discs or tape - they can have a go at recovering it on contemporary hardware (and crucially, software). Have a look at their list of recent acquisitions (and get in touch with them if you can help!).

Tags:
Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • BlinkList
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb

Megalithic Portal

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 4 April, 2006 in Archaeology. 1 Comment

The Megalithic Portal have recently received their 20 millionth page impression since their launch in 2001. Well done guys!

If you’ve never visited the Megalithic Portal, it’s a website dedicated to standing stones, stone circles, all things megalithic, and interesting prehistoric (archaeological) discoveries. It’s a community-based website, with forums, picture gallery and a news system, which anyone can contribute to if you sign up to become a member.

There’s also an interactive map, so you can find out if there’s anything of interest locally. Their coverage isn’t just limited to the UK - although it does have a British and Irish focus, the whole world is covered.

If you’re a “megawrack” or just have a passing interest in prehistoric sites, you owe it to yourself to pay them a visit!

Tags:
Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • BlinkList
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb