Chimp Conference...

Interesting post on the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog.
Too bad the text is not available in the blog. I mean, i love Google Earth but my laptop is slow, so i don't want to launch it just to read a blog post. Hopefully, Google maps now reads kmz files:
http://www.janegoodall.org/news/gombe-blog/New-Postings/August06/08-29-06.kmz - Google Maps

un extrait du post:
"Today was the first day of the conference and it started with a bang. It was an exciting morning as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni spoke with us during the opening of the meeting. It was certainly an honor for him to join us and it was reassuring to hear him speak about his commitment to conservation in Uganda, a place of rich primate diversity. Dr. Jane Goodall also spoke to the congress. In her tradition, she opened her speech by giving a pant-hoot, the chimpanzee greeting, and invited the congress attendees to respond with the answer of their study species. It was wild to hear the entire conference answer Jane! It was most moving to hear Jane talk about her experiences over the years and how the field of primatology has grown from her first meeting of just 10 scientists in the 1960s to an international meeting of more than 700 people in 2006."

[update]
I really love Google maps, look at these 2 links:
Overview of the posts location in Africa
Zoom on the Chimpanzee's habitat. woaw, the nice beach...

Maps in China

Xinhua - English: "Foreign organizations and individuals, who engage in surveying and mapping in scientific research and teaching programs, travel or exploration, must obtain approval from the government and accept supervision, the State Bureau of Survey and Mapping said.

The number of foreigners conducting surveying and mapping in China is on the rise and many field projects have been carried out illegally, which have threatened the security of the country, according to the state bureau.

[...]

Earlier this year, two Japanese scholars were fined a total of 80,000 yuan (10,000 U.S. dollars) and deported for collecting materials and coordinates of an airport and water facilities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It was feared their results could be put to military use.

The bureau notice said that foreigners who illegally survey, gather and publish geographical information on China will be severely punished.

Chinese partners or translators will be fined if they fail to stop illegal mapping activities as soon as they find out about them.

Details of regulations on how foreigners can conduct surveying and mapping in China will be announced soon by the State Bureau of Survey and Mapping."
_____________________________________

"foreigners who illegally survey, gather and publish geographical information on China"
Mmmm, of course, i'm not concerned! I don't "survey". I do feel i'm gathering and publishing though... ;-)

Other blog post about this (about Google Earth)
Another one (Single Planet)

WWF map

WWF - Selective map of flagship WWF projects around the world
woaw, cool map. Not i'm not ironical, it is not so bad!

Many maps i could find in the nature conservation area were very poor, very slow... compare to what could offer Yahoo or Google maps. But this one, is not so bad.

Arg, the Minshan area hasn't a little red cross. I guess it's not flagship. (i though it was)

Funny to notice the amount of "red cross" in Buthan. I thought there were doing pretty well there, towards environment i mean... do "they" really need WWF or WWF need some model projects?

Giant panda cited as global most sightworthy animal

People's Daily Online -- Giant panda cited as global most sightworthy animal: "According to a recent survey conducted by a global environment protection organization, China's giant panda and the Amazon rainforest in South America are elected as 'the most sightworthy animal' and 'the most sightworthy natural sight' respectively."

Strange they don't mention WWF directly.

That's the survey:
http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/best_place_species/index.cfm
and that's the result:
http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/best_place_species/current_top_10/index.cfm

i was going to say: "there is no date, who knows how long the survey as been running here."
actually, there are some details:
"Page last updated: August 29, 2006." that's for the "survey".
"Page last updated: August 23, 2006." that's for the result.

Anyway, i don't really understand of 1. the survey 2. the article.

If the article mention WWF, everything (the behind) would be much clearer to me.

Chinois sortis de la pauvreté

Un séminaire à Chengdu dans le Sichuan (22-23 aout)
En 20 ans, 100 millions de Chinois sont sortis de la pauvreté: "Depuis longtemps, le gouvernement chinois travaille inlassablement pour éradiquer la pauvreté et améliorer les conditions de vie des paysans. Au milieu des années 1980, il a fondé un département spécial chargé de venir en aide aux pauvres, et a déclenché à l'échelle nationale une lutte organisée et planifiée contre la pauvreté.

Selon les statistiques récentes du Bureau du Conseil des affaires d'Etat pour la lutte contre la pauvreté, à la fin de 2005, dans les 592 districts recevant la plus grande aide de l'Etat, 79% des villages sont maintenant desservis par la route, 95,8% des villages par l'électricité, 70% des familles paysannes ont accès à l'eau potable, 73,8% des villages sont reliés au téléphone et 87,6% des villages reçoivent les programmes de TV."

The black-necked cranes of Shangri-la

WWF - Buddah birds: Protecting the black-necked cranes of Shangri-la: "A rare species endemic to the Tibetan Plateau, the cranes have also achieved something of an iconic status in the tiny village of Hamagu, on the edge of the Napahai wetland in Shangri-la County in China’s northwest Yunnan Province. Here, villagers are tying their fortunes to the cranes’ popularity as they are becoming more and more of a tourist attraction. But those small fortunes will depend on how well the bird’s habitat is protected."

Flickr geotagging: Impressive

Great shot - where'd you take that?: "Flickr's great for exploring photos by photographer, tag, time, text and group, and now it's also great for exploring photos by place. There are a couple of short video tutorials (or "screencasts") which give the 90 second overview on how to geotag your own photos and how to use all the controls for searching and exploring geotagged photos. Watching them first will give you all of the information you need to get up and running.

If you want just jump in on the exploration side, here's the place to go: http://flickr.com/map"

"geobblogers.com" is back! well, kind of... it's a big new step for geotagging pictures.
Many new features make the experience very pleasant. (grouping pictures with the zoom level for example).

Well sure, it's yahoo maps, not google maps... but can't wait to use it. maybe yahoo maps are not so bad ;-)

Anyway, there will still be a way to see the same pics on a google maps, i guess.
Well, if you'll excuse me, i feel like geotagging now!

[update]
a nice link of my new flickr map:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philippe/map/
but i'll suggest fo there instead. (you can zoom in and out and filter to get the pics you want, and then link to the result by using the "link this", great simple feature. will we be able to embed this in a website soon?)

There is a lot to read about this. Here is a good place to start.

I'm only wondering something. I haven't found any comments about that, but it seems that if you use flickr tool to "geotagged pics", you will not give them the tags as geo:lat=xxx and geo:lon=xxx...
I think that means that, contrary to my "there will still be a way to see the same pics on a google maps, i guess.", it will be impossible to see the newly geotagged pics using the cool geotagging tools like Yuan.CC Maps. and that sucks.

[update 2]
ok, i could finaly find some info about this. it's there:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/geotagging/discuss/72157594255303300/
There is an API. The geotag-tools dev will have to adapt their tools.
Another important adress, the group discussion about Flickr API:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yws-flickr/

To sum up:
Yes, the geo:lat=xxx and geo:lon=xxx are not used by Flickr but it is still working and you still be able to get the location from the FLickr API and display it on another map.

[update 3]
great post again on the Flickr blog:
http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2006/08/geotagging_one_.html

[update 4]
I wasn't the only one (of course) to pick up on the geotag format choose by flickr:
http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/08/flickr_maps.html
In the comments, Rev Dan Catt! (the geobloggers guy) he says he will be blogging now.

Ecological degradation in Wolong NR

Entrez PubMed "Ecological degradation in protected areas: the case of Wolong Nature Reserve for giant pandas.": "It is generally perceived that biodiversity is better protected from human activities after an area is designated as a protected area. However, we found that this common perception was not true in Wolong Nature Reserve (southwestern China), which was established in 1975 as a 'flagship' protected area for the world-renowned endangered giant pandas."

Ecotourism (via singleplanet)

Ecotourism is more than just a label: "According to Jiang Mingkang and Wu Xiaomin, researchers with the Institute of Environment Science under the State Environmental Protection Administration, 22 per cent of natural reserves have seen damage to the species or biosphere specially protected in them due to tourist activities, and 11 per cent of the reserves even saw an overall deterioration of resources.

Jiang and Wu attributed the damages to three causes: an overload of tourists and their activities in the reserves, lack of careful tourism planning and strict supervision and the excessive presence of buildings.

Deng Bing, a graduate student from Peking University specializing in tourism planning, stayed in Jisha village in the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Area, a natural world heritage, for more than a month for her survey.
[i don't understand what this paragraph is doing in the article]

Boiled down, real ecotourism has rarely materialized. It is distorted into mere tourism in these protected areas, which either damages the natural resources or hurts the local community's culture or traditions.

Researchers have had made numerous suggestions to decision-makers on the topic of how to strike a balance between natural reservation, economic growth and community development with ecotourism."

Biogas stoves in panda habitat

WWF Internationnal has a group on Youtube.com!!! and look what i've found... (i'm gonna try to know more right away)

HK

Been to HK, got a visa.

- Train from Chengdu to Guangzhou was nice. Almost 40 hours but it was no problem. Surprisingly.

- Then HK. From Monday to Friday. Expensive to stay there but so many nice places to see. Met some interesting people as well... I'm thinking about the Filippino people we had lunch with, it was nice meeting these people, and hear their stories. I'm also thinking about the Indian people in Chung King Mansion where our "hotel" was.

- The passeport/visa was finally no pb. I thought it would when the chinese administration ask me to "repair" my passeport(my picture is a little "off"). Happily, the French Consulat was not too far. They said they didn't repair passeport and that they would have to make a new one (an emergency one) and reporting that to the chinese administration solved the problem: "ok, ok... no pb"

- 3 days to get a passeport actually means: if you give it monday, you'll get wednesday. pretty fast. Because of giving it wednesday, i got it friday, then we hurry to get out of Hong Kong.

- Here is a map to go from Wanchai MTR station to chinese admnisitration where to get a visa for china in Hong Kong.

- Bus from Guangzhou (Train/Bus station) to Shenzhen Airport is actually a bus to Bao'an. When you see the airport, ask for getting down... not like me. i thought he would stop there ;-) it's 50 kuai.

- the cheap way we used to go from Luo Hu Custom to Shenzhen airport: Metro (5 kuai) to the "windows of the world" the Public Bus (327? ask for it. 7 kuai) but be carefull. it takes a certain time (2 hours?).



sechina tagged map by user - Tagzania

Nausicaä

«Nausicaä», matrice de l'univers Miyazaki:
A lire!: "Ce manga écologico-apocalyptique extraordinairement touffu, infiniment complexe et idéologiquement raffiné, publié en noir et blanc a connu un succès phénoménal au Japon avec quelque 10 millions d'albums vendus au fil des parutions. On peut le lire en français dans une version en sept volumes édités par Glénat."

Les routes mènent les villages pauvres vers la prospérité

En Chine.
Le Quotidien du Peuple en ligne-Les routes mènent les villages pauvres vers la prospérité

Extrait:

Sun Xianjiu est un instituteur retraité vivant dans une vallée reculée du fleuve de Dadu, dans la préfecture tibétaine autonome de Ganzi, dans la province du Sichuan.

il faut près de deux heures pour que les villageois puissent atteindre, par delà la colline et la vallée, le district voisin de Caoke, qui est relié au comté de Shimian par un sentier de montagne.

"Notre village avait la réputation d'être un village de célibataires," poursuit Sun. "Nos filles préféraient se marier à l'extérieur, alors que les filles extérieures ne venaient pas (au village) en raison de notre faible niveau de vie."

L'article est mal écrit (et divisé en 3 pages) mais on comprend qu'une route a été construite pour relier le village isolé.

Beaucoup de villageois sont devenus riches grâce aux transports. Ils transportent des produits locaux, tels que les herbes médicinales traditionnelles chinoises aux villes et aux comtés, et rapportent les produits de nécessités quotidiens.

La préfecture tibétaine projette de dépenser 4,5 milliards yuan (US$550 millions) sur la construction d'infrastructure de transport, une augmentation de 38,2% au cours des cinq dernières années.

"Les fonds pour la construction des routes proviennent de trois sources : les subventions du gouvernement, les crédits bancaires et les honoraires d'entretien de la route," explique Xie Nengjian, un fonctionnaire avec le Bureau des Communications de Sichuan.

Libération.fr

J'aimais bien le site de Libé. C'était avant. J'y allais souvent, surtout à partir du flux RSS principal qu'ils avaient avant*.
Je m'étais réjouis de voir plein de flux RSS nouveaux et différents (pour pouvoir triller les informations qu'on veut lire: terre, cinema...). Je m'étais dis que si ça ne marchais pas** c'est parceque ce n'était que le début...
Je m'étais aussi dit que les commentaires sur les articles étaient une bonne idée.
Je suis un peu moins chaud là. les flux RSS sont toujours un bordel monstre. Les commentaires sur les articles sont parfois interessants mais là, je viens d'en voir un disparaitre. un commentaire que j'aurais aimé lire sur cet article mais qui a disparu...
«Désormais exploiter chaque goutte»: "Soyez le premier à réagir" c'est maintenant ce qui apparait. bon, allez, on va dire que c'est le commentateur qui c'est dit que finalement, il voulait que personne ne lise son commentaire...

Le commentaire était intitulé W.W.F. et l'aperçu que j'en avais (les premières lignes), c'est que l'article était remis en question. Je voulais voir si WWF était critiqué...

update:
* je recevais dans mon bloglines pas plus d'une dizaine d'articles dont je lisais les titres puis certains articles qui m'interessait. J'avais un point de vue rapide des news importantes de la journée...
** Maintenant, le même flux RSS me donne tous les articles de Libé, donc beaucoup de déchets (bourse, sport...). J'ai essayé les autres flux, mais ils me donnent la même chose la plupart du temps ("culture" par exemple)... mais ça a l'air de s'arranger. Par exemple, le flux RSS "Internet" a l'air de marcher maintenant.

[update 2]
Les commentaires sont là. Notamment celui intitulé WWF. Surement un petit problème technique.

Les charlatans du tourisme vert

Les charlatans du tourisme vert: "Labellisé ou non, l’écotourisme doit cesser de tromper son client. L’activité n’est pas une solution universelle qui peut s’appliquer partout : il n’est pas possible de reconvertir tous les peuples qui vivent près d’un site archéologique ou dans une forêt primaire en « guides » sous prétexte de protection ou de développement social. Le gouvernement du Chiapas mine dangereusement l’avenir en misant, si vite et si mal, sur la case « écotourisme ». Et, de même que le commerce équitable n’a pas enrayé la crise du café dans la région, l’écotourisme « frelaté » ne fera pas grand-chose contre la pauvreté."

L’Asie manque de femmes

L’Asie manque de femmes:

« Quel genre de femme je souhaite ?, s’étonne un jeune Chinois d’une trentaine d’années. Peu importe ! Il est tellement difficile de trouver une femme aujourd’hui. J’en veux une, c’est tout ! » Dans nombre de pays d’Asie, trouver une conjointe n’est pas si simple.

« 我 心 目 中 的 理 想 伴 侶 ？ » 一 年 紀 三 十 多 的 中 國 男 人 驚 訝 表 示 ， « 你 可 知 道 ， 今 天 女 人 難 覓 ， 只 要 好 運 找 到 一 個 ， 我 就 娶 了 . » 在 許 多 亞 洲 國 家 ， 娶 妻 可 非 易 事 .

(sorry, no english version. have to pay for this one)

Don't ask the book's author 'Why did they . . . ?' She is wondering too.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Gedo Senki, a First Response: "Don't ask the book's author 'Why did they . . . ?' She is wondering too."

The "Brief history" part is very interesting:

"Twenty or so years ago, Mr Hayao Miyazaki wrote me expressing interest in making an animated film based on the (then only three) books of Earthsea. I did not know his work. I knew only Disney-type animation, and disliked it. I said no.
Six or seven years ago, my friend [...] told me about My Neighbor Totoro and we watched it together. I became a Miyazaki fan at once and forever. I consider him a genius of the same caliber as Kurosawa or Fellini."

Where you get disappointed by Ghibli's behaviour:

"It was explained to us that Mr Hayao wished to retire from film making, and that the family and the studio wanted Mr Hayao's son Goro, who had never made a film at all, to make this one. We were very disappointed, and also anxious, but we were given the impression, indeed assured, that the project would be always subject to Mr Hayao's approval. With this understanding, we made the agreement."
[...]

"I am sorry that anger and disappointment attended the making of this film on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
I am told that Mr Hayao has not retired after all, but is now making another movie. This has increased my disappointment. I hope to put it behind me."

Where it gets "juicy":

"I did not realise that I was speaking to anyone but him and the few people around us. I would have preferred that a private reply to a private question not be made public. I mention it here only because Mr Goro has mentioned it in his blog.

So, in the spirit of everything being public all the time for fifteen minutes, I will give a fuller report of my first response to the film:" [...]

It seems there is many comments in Japan about the "controversy". One fan writes:

The ones affected the most are in a sense the most open and innocent. They only know that they have been moved, are happy and relieved when the boy lays aside his guilt and anxiety at the end, and so hurt by the more objective viewpoints that they tend to go on the offensive. Some are still willing to think, some are swayed by your comments (which they read with a dictionary) — and sadly some can't abide any criticism of the movie, protecting the director and blaming its incoherence on the books. Even so, they all are victims of the chain reaction which started when too much responsibility was shouldered by someone not equipped for it.

Ouch!

Hong Kong or Macao?

Well i think it will be HK. Don't know the consequences of the big Typhoon Saomai on the trip. it's not a small one it seems.

Well, it should be fun. I tried to plan everything carefully. It should be enough. I'm going to try to find where is Nathan Road.

Blogspot in China - it works?!

Could access blogspot from Chengdu, China. isn't that weird? is it unblocked?
cool anyway. now I can see how bad my blogs look. I thought it was because of using proxy before, but now, no excuse. I'll have to do some edit work on my template...

let's do some research:
http://google.com/blogsearch: blogspot china unblocked

first post is 21 hours ago from now
ah yeah! that's good news.

Black Eyed Peas - Sexy

Got this music in my head today...

Girl u really got me goin
Outta control
I dot know what im doin
Lets let it go
And do what we do best
Take off our clothes
We look better undressed

lyrics





don't worry, i'm ok. it's just that i saw the part of "be cool" where they dance on this music. Travolta, and the blond girl...

I saw it there by the way:
http://go.6to23.com/badshow/xc/dance.htm
http://www.xicaojie.com/forum/forum-/dispbbs.asp?boardID=68&ID=24747&page=1
Chinese remix of video of people dancing in movies. xz send it to me.

RADIO.BLOG.CLUB - Balkan

Damned, i need some music.

My Internet connection is not good enough for pandora. That's really a shame because i think it's the "number 1" solution.

I still have a hard time using last.fm... although the new last.fm software to track the music you're listenning looks good and simple. i still don't know for sure if it works coreectly.

Then, the alternative: radio.blog!
Improving slowly, but still improving. you can now test radio.blog 3.0 on the website.

Last time, i tried to blog a track (when this feature was brend new) and it didn't work. well, it seems it's now easy to do so!

Nu River:“Nobody has told us anything.”

Report from the Nu River: “Nobody has told us anything.” | 怒江，江水能变“石油”吗？: "This past Chinese New Year [January/February 2006], I travelled to the Nu valley for the fourth time. Over a two-week period, I interviewed people in 100 households that would have to move if proposed dams, such as Liuku, Yabiluo, Bijiang and Maji, are built. Survey and drilling work is already under way at those sites. "

Nu River
Open letter
UNESCO World Heritage site

The Author: Yongchen Wang is a Beijing-based journalist and founder of the environmental group Green Earth Volunteers. This article is an abridged version of one originally published on www.threegorgesprobe.org, which monitors the impacts of (and alternatives to) China’s big dams and water projects.

Hong Kong Google Maps Mashups

a post written for me as i'm going to Hong Kong in less than 2 weeks...

Google Maps Mania: Hong Kong Google Maps Mashups [Anonymoused]: "Pongu's Travel Community is a Google Maps mashup of notable Hong Kong attractions and locations and nearby hotels to these sights. As you hover over a pin the location name is given with options to zoom to that location or link off to a page to read more detail and photos. It's a nice little mashup to browse around on if you are traveling to this area."

link not anonymoused (if you are outside China, you'd better use this link)

MDP dans le sud-ouest de la Chine, avec la France

Radio Chine Internationale: "La France a signé mardi, à Beijing, avec le ministère chinois des Sciences et des Technologies, un projet de Mécanisme de Développement Propre (MDP) dans les quatre provinces du sud-ouest de la Chine, à savoir le Sichuan, le Yunnan, le Guizhou et le Guangxi. Avec, à la clé, un investissement de 1,1 million d'euros."

"Ce projet MDP sera particulièrement centré sur l'efficacité énergétique du charbon ? ce qu'on appelle le « charbon propre » -, l'énergie hydraulique, la biomasse et l'assainissement municipal liquide et solide."

"La France, pour sa part, estime ne pas s'être trompée puisqu'elle mise beaucoup sur l'essor économique de cette zone"

"leurs régions inhabitables"

Déplacement d'un million d'habitants démunis des minorités nationales: "Depuis 2001, la Commission d'Etat pour le Développement et la Réforme a consacré 4,8 milliards de yuans au déplacement des habitants d'ethnies minoritaires démunis, soit 85% du total des fonds de déplacement destinés à lutter contre la pauvreté, a indiqué Zhang Mao.

Un millions de nécessiteux de neuf provinces, dont la Mongolie intérieure, le Guangxi, le Sichuan, et le Nixia ont bénéficié de cette assistance, quittant leurs régions inhabitables. Leurs conditions de vie et de production se sont sensiblement améliorées, ce qui leur a permis de se débarrasser de la pauvreté."

"la grande région autonome tibétaine"

Un article signé réfute "la voie intermédiaire" du dalaï-lama: "Après la fondation de la République populaire de Chine en 1949, ont été créés huit départements autonomes tibétains, un département autonome tibétain et Qiang, un département autonome tibétain et mongol et deux districts autonomes mongols et tibétains dans les provinces du Qinghai (ouest), du Gansu (nord- ouest), du Sichuan (sud-ouest) et du Yunnan (sud-ouest), en plus de la région autonome du Tibet. On a également établi des districts autonomes d'autres nationalités dans des départements autonomes tibétains. "