Designing for Visual Efficiency

Ryan Coleman gives a brief but inspiring presentation about the process of how we see and how that knowledge allows us to create designs that are more visually efficient. This is a nice introduction to a field every information designer should look into.

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This talk is a much shorter version of the very useful presentation:

Earthquake and fires in Bhutan

Mark LaPrairie, a Canadian who is the World Bank representative to Bhutan, has posted some stories about recent earthquakes and fires in Bhutan:

• First Month on the Job in Bhutan: Trial by Earthquake
• First Month on the Job in Bhutan: Trial by Fire

Mark has also posted this video about the destruction of these two events:

Hatfield looking for an Information System Specialist

Hatfield Consultants, the place that I work, is looking for an Information System Specialist. The full job posting is online here. This person will work on all sorts of interesting projects, ranging from local linear development applications, to aquaculture applications to international opportunities in Africa and SE Asia.

Required Skills and Experience

• Must be able to work independently and with a team to design, implement and test web based data management, project management and collaboration systems;
• High attention to detail;
• Excellent English written and verbal skills;
• 5+ years experience developing ASP.NET/PHP/Java web applications;
• Be able to work in a team context with non-technical users;
• B.Sc (Computer Science), B.Tech, B.Eng or related degree with equivalent experience;

Engineers Serve The World

The typical refrain of Engineers is “ERTW”: “Engineers Rule The World”, but Engineers without borders is trying to change this to “ESTW” – Engineers Serve the World”:

Wordpress

Not that I’m a crazy blogger or anything, but I was finding the blogger system to be  rather annoying. As such, I have decided to move my blog over to a wordpress installation. Let’s see how this works!

100 Open Lectures All About Africa

When I have some time, I plan to go through this fabulous list of open lectures about Africa.

“As the world become an increasingly interconnected and truly global marketplace, it becomes ever more important to learn and understand the history, culture and economic roles of nations around the world. Africa is no exception, and this collection of lectures, many from renowned scholars, researchers and innovators, will help you better understand the many varied regions of Africa and the continents changing role in the world marketplace.”

Canadian Place Name Trivia

Some interesting Canadian place-name trivia. In all, we have a lot of pleasant places, but we’re not all that creative when it comes to lake names! (“hey – that lake looks pretty long, let’s call it Long Lake!”)

Source: http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/info/trivia_e.php

Most Common Place Names in Canada

Most Common Feature Names in Canada

Beer for Data Sharing in Afghanistan

The Taj in Jalalabad, Afghanistan is indeed an oddity. Not only is it the only bar in eastern Afghanistan, it is also the location where an ingenious “Beer for Data” program began. Put simply, if visitors to the bar have useful data (gps plots, imagery, technology white papers…) they can trade this information for a beer.

source: Human Technology Network

Luggage Handling

You always expect for your luggage to be treated badly when putting it onto an airplane, but check-out this picture and video of a luggage container stuck in the engine of a Japan Airlines flight out of LAX. Crazy.

Source: BBC

Sandbagging effort in Fargo

This video captures 20 minutes of sandbagging at the Fargodome.