Archive for October, 2009
Google gives directions in SA
Oct 28th
Google have just released Google Maps SA. It’s awesome!
We’ve been able to see satellite images and some road data before. But now there is a lot of road data and you can get automatic directions!
The directions service works amazingly well. I’ve tested it with several routes that I often take and Google invariably got things right – even offering options!
For one test I typed in this exact input:
- V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
- Moyo at Spier, Cape Town
The service quickly offered two routes to Spier (N1 or N2).
It estimates time fairly accurately at about 40 minutes (N1 is slightly quicker even though it is slightly further).
It also offers step by step driving instructions for the route. Like a poor mans GPS. Simply amazing.
View the map yourself to see what I’m talking about.
Cat spies from the CIA
Oct 28th
I’ve just read several articles on a failed CIA program to use cats for spying. Se-ri-ous.
According the official documents from the CIA and this article on Wikipedia they ran a program to use live cats as listening devices.
Over several years in the 1960s they:
- Surgically implanted cats with radio transmitters, batteries and recording equipment
- Trained the cats to stay close to subjects (this was unsurprisingly tricky)
During the first field test a cat was released to eavesdrop on men at a park bench. Almost immediately after being released the cat was hit by a taxi and killed! Shortly afterwards the whole program was abandoned.
As hilarious and improbable as this sounds it appears to be true. It has been very widely reported, there are official documents from the CIA, and the CIA certainly did do some weird things.
There is some good debate on the subject in the comments section of this excellent article on Acoustic Kitty.
One of the most plausible alternate explanations is that the CIA set this up as a dummy operation and channeled the funds into something else.
Map of all nuclear test sites – 2000 tests in all
Oct 15th
Between 1945 and 2008 more than 2000 nuclear test detonations were conducted.
Amazing. More than 2000 nuclear weapons have been detonated on Earth!
This map (click through for the map) shows the locations of all the test sites. Click on each icon to read more about the site and how many tests were conducted there.
The four test sites related to Africa and South Africa interested me.
- Seems like South Africa collaborated with Israel in testing a nuclear weapon in 1979 south-east of our coast.
- The Americans conducted secret test detonations just 1800km from Cape Town in 1958 as part of Operation Argus
- The French conducted 14 nuclear tests in Algeria during the early 60′s
Analysis of Human Development Index for South Africa
Oct 7th
The UN’s Human Development Index is an attempt to quantify quality of life. Three measures are used to create a single human development score:
- Health (life expectancy)
- Education (adult literacy)
- Wealth (GDP per capita)
Using only three variables makes comparison possible, but it does mean that the HDI is pretty crude.
It still makes interesting reading.
The latest report (with data for 2007) has just been released. Norway comes out on top followed closely by Australia.
South Africa comes in at 129th of the 183 countries (some really bad places like Somalia and Zimbabwe don’t have enough data to be on the list at all).
I was particularly interested in the trends over time. South Africa has gained ground since 1980 but has fallen off since a peak in 1990.
Looking at each of the components in HDI it becomes clear that life expectancy is hurting South Africa’s HDI score. AIDS is really holding us back. GDP per capita has also been pretty flat.
How has South Africa done relative to similar countries? Let’s compare SA to the 26 countries with the closest HDI scores back in 2000.
Not pretty. As you can see we’ve been in free fall. We went from the middle of this little group to stone last!
What about similar countries by geography? Let’s compare SA to our regional neighbors. Clearly our region is struggling, but SA has still lost two places!
Computer program generates realistic image from freehand drawings
Oct 6th
Believe it or not a computer program called PhotoSketch generated the image on the right. Based on the freehand drawing and labels on the left!
This is pretty amazing stuff.
The program processes the input image and searches tagged images for the required components. It can then seamlessly combine the components into an output image.
This is a very early version of the technology and some of the output images aren’t great. But it is still very impressive (project page has more examples).
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