Earth Viewer 3D has to be seen to be believed. Using spy satelletite data it lets you rotate the globe and zoom in– REALLY zoom in — to the point of being able to see individual cars, people lining up outside the Louvre, and more in hi-res areas! Free 14 day trial available.

Free as in Freedom, a biography of Richard Stallman and the Free Software movement is one part hagiography, one part history, and one part technology flirtation. And in serious need of a proofreader. I can only hope that no one infers anything about the collaborative process from the number of typos and grammatical problems in this book.

Still, it is a sometimes compelling look at a fascinating character who is largely responsible for much of the software technology that we enjoy today, often without even realizing it!

NetScan provides some interesting visualization of online communities– specifically, USENET news groups, of which I am a big fan (and user).

The ability to forget, to put things behind us, to have our empathy fade, is a critical characteristic for survival. But sometimes we need to be shaken up a little bit. This article collecting experiences– through final phone calls and those who made it out– of many inside the WTC up to two minutes before it fell is harrowing… and a must-read.

I’m just about finished migrating to Movable Type for this site. The primary reason is that I want the ability to split my writing into a couple of weblogs (one for these “traditional” weblog entries and another for longer and creative pieces) and I’m really looking forward to the category features. And hey, it’s always nice to use a product that is in development. I love GreyMatter, but I need more!

I’m ba-ack… after a longish hiatus due to the school year ending, illness, travel, depression, and feverish work, I am blogging again. First order of business– migrate the old log to Movable Type, since I want to have at least two weblogs on the site (and possibly more later for classes and such).