Web Site of The Week

[bits_blogger]

This week's pick is from our friends across the pond:
The British Wind Energy Association
http://www.bwea.com/offshore/index.html

Given today's energy situation, utilizing Wind Power seems logical and green!

We all know wind power has been around for a long time.

Offshore wind power is a popular topic of discussion in England.

___





The British government has recently announced plans
for a huge increase in offshore wind power.

Up to 7,000 new turbines are hoped to be built by 2020.
The British want to see the delivery of up to 25 gigawatts of electricity by wind power in 12 years.

However, there is some controversy
While offshore wind farms have been welcomed by green groups, others have been concerned about the consequences of wildlife, spoiling coastal landscapes and the interruption of shipping routes.

Below are some photographs from a BBC newsroom
of these "Off Shore" types of wind powered generators:




It should be noted that MINNESOTA has many Wind Farms also!

Above is an aerial view of a Minnesota Wind Farm.
Source: Science Museum of Minnesota


Wind turbines at Buffalo Ridge, near Lake Benton, Minnesota—one of the
our state's highest and windiest locations. The area features 450
wind turbines and produces up to 300 megawatts of energy, making
it one of the nation’s leading producers of wind energy.
Source: Science Museum of Minnesota

What happens when the wind isn't blowing?
Well, you "store"the energy from the Wind
Farms using, yep... batteries!

Japan recently installed this sodium-sulfur
"Wind Storage" 16- foot bank of batteries
built by NGK Insulators Ltd.

Even our Canadian friends have come up with a technology could make wind power a more reliable source of energy. VRB Power Systems Inc. http://www.vrbpower.com of Vancouver has developed a large-scale storage unit which can hold significant amounts of wind power. It is shown below:

The unassuming exterior of the King Island (off the coast of Australia) VRB facility houses a bank of batteries that more than triple the island's wind capacity.
Source: VRB Power Systems, Inc.

Inside the "vanadium redox-flow batteries" (VRB)

Whereas a conventional battery, like the one in your car, stores chemical energy within an electrolyte solution, a VRB contains two different electrolytes solutions, each in a separate tank. In a charged VRB, one electrolyte is positively charged, and one is negatively charged. In order for the battery to provide power, the electrolytes flow through a fuel cell stack on opposite sides of a proton exchange membrane. Their opposite charges create a gradient that powers an external current.

Several characteristics unique to VRBs enable them to sustain utility-scale storage and power at potentially competitive prices. First, unlike conventional batteries, power output is independent from energy storage capacity—power output depends on the size of the fuel cell stack, while the energy storage capacity depends on the size of the electrolyte tanks. Neither constrains the other, although the ratio of storage to power determines how long the batteries can run without recharging. Power can flow undiminished as long as there is fresh electrolyte to circulate through the stack.



________
"Have a Great Week!"
>>> bits_blogger <<<

[bits_blogger]

I hope you like Light Houses. Here is this week's web site pick:http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/srl/index.htm


Located on 3713 Split Rock Lighthouse Road in Two Harbors MN, the Split Rock Lighthouse never ceases to
fascinate me with its majestic prominence and history.

The Lighthouse was completed in 1910 and helped sailors to navigate in the waters of Lake Superior.


____Above photo of the Split Rock Lighthouse during the recent renovation

The following Information is from the Minnesota
Historical Societies web site about the Split
Rock Lighthouse renovations.

As part of a bonding allocation to the Minnesota Historical Society from
the 2006 state legislature, the lighthouse will receive a new coat of black paint to the
inside and outside of the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse.

To prepare the cast iron lantern for painting dry ice blasting will be used to remove
the old peeling paint. As part of the restoration the twenty-seven curved glass windows,
called storm panes, will be removed, resealed and replaced to stop leaking during Lake
Superior’s worst storms. Other buildings at the famous light station will also received
attention including the three brick lighthouse keeper’s houses, the fog signal building,
and two wooden storage barns, all built in 1909.

Completion of the construction project is scheduled for mid-July, 2008.

At that time the lighthouse, the restored light keeper’s home and the fog signal will
reopen to the public.

The building of the Split Rock Lighthouse

The construction of Split Rock Lighthouse was an engineering feat in an organization
already known for building structures in remote locations.

The first challenge in the spring of 1909 was erecting a steam-powered hoist and
derrick for lifting supplies off the supply boats on the lake, more than 110 feet below.

A construction crew of 35 to 50 men had to be supplied by boat through the entire
construction period using this method. Three hundred ten tons of building materials
were hoisted over the length of the construction period without a major accident.
The construction workers stayed in canvas tents on the open cliff top as construction
proceeded. The construction firm of L. D. Campbell & Son of Duluth supplied all the
construction labor necessary - carpenters, brick masons, demolition men for dynamiting
the hard rock of the cliff for foundations, and common laborers collected from all over
the Great Lakes region —to assemble a light station at one of the most remote places
one had ever been built.

By the time Split Rock Light Station was completed in mid summer 1910, workers had
spent 13 months on the desolate cliff, with only a break during the worst months of winter.
They were exposed to the elements and connected to civilization only by occasional supply
boat visits.


Photograph taken during the
construction of the lighthouse
in 1909



__________________The Split Rock Lighthouse beacon was first lit on July 31, 1910.

Here is an upcoming event at the Split Rock Lighthouse:
Beacon Lighting and Commemoration of the Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Date:_Nov. 10, 2008
Time: Noon to 6 p.m.

This annual event commemorates the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.
A film about the Fitzgerald will be shown in the Visitor Center theater throughout the afternoon.

The lighthouse and fog signal building will be open and staffed from noon to 6 pm. The lighthouse
will close temporarily at 4:30 and the names of the 29 lost crewmembers will be read to the tolling
of a ship's bell. Following the ceremony, the beacon will be lit and the tower once again opened for
visitors to tour.

This is the only time during the year to see the lighted beacon from inside the lighthouse.

Split Rock Lighthouse
3713 Split Rock Lighthouse Rd.
Two Harbors MN 55616
Phone: 218-226-6372
Email: splitrock@mnhs.org

Directions:_On Hwy. 61, 20 miles northeast of Two Harbors. Map link: http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/srl/highwaysitemap.htm

Admission:_$8.00 adults, $6.00 seniors and college students, $5.00 children ages 6-17.Free for children age 5 and under and Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) members.

Hours:_May 15 through Oct. 15: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Visitor Center and Museum Store open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays.

___________________________BELOW ARE SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SPLIT ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

* The name "Split Rock" may first have been used by the French voyageurs and Jesuit explorers to describe the appearance of the high cliffs from certain positions on the lake.

* In Lake Superior's western basin, magnetic attraction due to iron ore deposits on the lake bottom caused ships' compasses to be extremely unreliable.

* In spring of 1910, the first warning apparatus - a lantern and two steam-compressed air foghorns that had an official audio range of five miles - was installed. The tower houses a third-order, bivalve Fresnel lens, which stands six feet high. Due to the location of the apparatus - 168 feet about the lake level - the beacon had an official range of 22 miles, but the aura given off by the light could reportedly be seen from as far away as 85 miles. The original lens is still in place in the lighthouse and the clockwork mechanism, which rotates the lens, has been restored. Split Rock Lighthouse operated from 1910-1969.

* Lake Superior is 602 feet above sea level. The Split Rock cliff is 130 feet tall, and the lighthouse tower is 54 feet tall.

* Artist Loyal Chapman created a fictitious "Split Rock Golf Course" with a hole pictured on the sloping surface of the nearby island. Only birds and boats can get to the island!

* "The Good Son," a 1993 film starring MacCaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood, was partially filmed at Split Rock using cliff-top vantage points to simulate a New England Atlantic coast. The actors actually dangled off a fiberglass cliff built atop the real cliff!

* Bear-proof garbage cans were installed in 1997 to discourage the pesky bears that were known to show up on busy afternoons crowded with visitors.

* Visitors seeking recreation occasionally arrive at Split Rock Lighthouse with fishing poles and tackle boxes, perhaps expecting to cast off of the 130-foot cliff. They are kindly directed to the nearby State Park for their fishing adventures.

* Peregrine falcons, bald eagles, herring gulls, snowshoe hares and white-tail deer are regular "non-paying" visitors to the historic site. Moose, wolves, coyotes, fox, pine marten and black bears also make occasional visits to the site.


__________THE SPLITROCK LIGHTHOUSE TIMELINE

1905_ A November 28th gale damages 29 ships on Lake Superior.

1907_ Congress appropriates $75,000 for a lighthouse and fog signal in vicinity of Split Rock.

1910_ Split Rock light station is commissioned and completed.

1910-1928_ Orren "Pete" Young serves as head keeper.

1916_ Elevated tramway replaces original hoisting engine and derrick.

1924_ Lake Superior International Highway is completed past Split Rock Lighthouse. First tourists visit site by car.

1928-1944_ Franklin J. Covell serves as head keeper.

1932_ Fog signal gas engines are replaced by diesels.

1933_ Lighthouse tenders make last visits to Split Rock Light Station.

1934_ Tramway is dismantled. The station receives a truck to haul supplies. A second assistant is hired as the designated laborer and truck driver.

1936_ Fog signal siren is converted to a diaphone (two-tone, rather than single tone).

1939_ Lighthouse Service is absorbed by the U.S. Coast Guard.

1940_ Split Rock receives electricity. Incandescent oil vapor lamp in lighthouse is replaced by 1,000-watt bulb. Lens rotates by electric motor, and fog signal operates by electric motor.

1942_ U.S. Coast Guard is taken over by U.S. Navy for balance of World War II. Lightkeepers become "commanding officers."

1947-1961_ Robert E. Bennetts serves as the last civilian keeper.

1961_ Fog signal discontinued.

1969_ Split Rock Light Station is decommissioned. Site is placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

1971_ Site becomes part of Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.

1976_ Minnesota Historical Society takes over administration of the Split Rock station site.

1980_ Historic site area is expanded from 7.6 acres to current 25-acre size. Restoration of the head keeper's dwelling is completed.

1986_ Visitor Center opens.

Today The Minnesota Historical Society continues to carry out the dual goals of preservation and interpretation of the Split Rock Lighthouse Station.


__
Have a Great Week
---bits_blogger---

[bits_blogger]

This week's pick is: The Disney WALL-E website!

DISNEY'S "WALL-E"http://tinyurl.com/yq3wdm


The above is a "snapshot" from the Disney-WALL-E website. When you are actually on the WALL-E website you can click on any of the picture links.


Below is a movie synopsis from the Internet Movie Database:
In a distant, but not so unrealistic future, where mankind has abandoned earth because it has become covered with trash from products sold by the corrupt and powerful multi-national Buy N Large corporation, WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot has been left to clean up the mess. Mesmerized with trinkets of earth's history and show tunes, WALL-E is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, Eve, a sleek (and dangerous) reconnaissance robot, is sent to earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with Eve. WALL-E rescues Eve from a dust storm and shows her a living plant he found amongst the rubble. Consistent with her "directive" Eve takes the plant and automatically enters a deactivated state except for a blinking green beacon. WALL-E, doesn't understand what has happened to his new friend, but true to his love, he protects her from wind, rain, and lightening, even as she is unresponsive. One day a massive ship comes to reclaim Eve, but WALL-E, out of love or loneliness hitches a ride on the outside of the ship to rescue Eve. The ship arrives back at a large space cruise ship, which is carrying all of the humans who evacuated earth 700 years earlier. The people of earth ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting.

Speaking of robotics, NASA scheduled the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, (LRO) which is a robotic
spacecraft to launch sometime this fall.

This robotic spacecraft will orbit the moon, and
its six different instruments will take images and
gather information about the moon's surface.


In this weeks Bits & Bytes column, I mentioned how the eyes
and face of WALL-E reminded me of the one in the 1986 kids
movie “Short Circuit.”

Ok, maybe it doesn't fully resemble “Number 5” but how
many robots does your humble bits_blogger know about?


Well, I do know about this
robot from "Lost In Space"


OK, OK and the robots C3PO and R2D2 from "Star Wars"
too!


Anyone remember
Robby the Robot??


---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[bits_blogger]

Your humble bits_blogger created the above picture using "Paint Shop" for this weeks pick, which
is about a forgotten person who did not actually invent the Internet, but should be recognized for his
contributions and futuristic contemplations and dreams of making all the worlds information available
to all the world.

Starting in 1895, Paul Otlet began work on creating a means of making available all of the worlds knowledge to
be available to everyone from "the comfort of their armchair" with the information being viewed "projected on
an individual screen."
This Week's Pick: http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~wrayward/rayward.html
BONUS WEB PICK: http://informationvisualization.typepad.com/sigvis/2005/07/visualizations_.html

Paul Otlet’s pursuit to connect people to knowledge actually stared in 1895, when he met the future Nobel Prize winner Henri La Fontaine.

Fontaine shared in Otlet’s vision of producing one master “bibliography” of the entire world’s published knowledge.

They both set out to collect data on every book, newspaper, magazine, photograph, poster and pamphlet ever published, along with a vast collection of written articles that libraries back then usually disregarded.

Otlet persuaded the Belgian government to support their project and to provide them operating space within a government building.

Using the “state-of-the-art” in storage technology available at the time (3-by-5 index cards); they went on to create an enormous gigantic paper database called a “universal catalog of all that had been written.”

This universal catalog had more than 17 million individual entries.



Thousands upon thousands of boxes containing these indexed cards were stored in wooden card holder
drawers which lined the walls of the Mundaneum.

In 1904 Otlet and Fontaine utilized Melvil Dewey’s 1876 creation of the “Dewey Decimal Classification” to create a “map” to all of this collected written knowledge and where it was located inside the Mundaneum.

Otlet and Fontaine hired people who were trained “catalogers” to help them sort the massive amount of documentation.


The Year was 1934: Above are Paul Otlet’s “Internet” like drawings linking (networking) the individual to the “City of Mundaneum” where all the worlds recorded knowledge would reside. Source: Mons, Belgium Archives Mundaneum.

Otlet foreshadows a network to which access is to be had by a screen and a telephone, all that the scholar would ultimately need, he believed, on his work desk. In his Encyclopedia "Universalis Mundaneum" Otlet visualizes a form of teleconferencing involving the "gramophone," film, radio and television. Otlet was anticipating what we would today call hypermedia. Otlet’s version of the Internet or World Wide Web, has only recently been achieving the multi-media and interactive dimensions that he foreshadowed. He imagines an arrangement of multimedia machines illustrated in the above middle image as having an important interactive capability that in effect could create a "virtual" reality.
Otlet wrote in 1934 how "...motion pictures, phonograph, radio, television - these instruments considered to be substitutes for the book have become in fact the new book, the most powerful of means for the diffusion of human thought." Otlet's writings include: "By radio not only will one be everywhere able to hear one will everywhere be able to speak by means of television not only will one be able to see what is happening everywhere, but everyone will be able to view what he would like to see from his own vantage point. From his armchair, everyone will hear, see, participate, will even be able to applaud, give ovations, sing in the chorus, add his cries of participation to those of all the others." Taken from writings of Paul Otlet, "Traité de Documentation" Year: 1934.


Paul Otlet's biographer, W. Boyd Rayword, steps inside of the
"Mundaneum Museum" and is greeted by the museum's curator.


Standing in front of boxes containing indexed cards stored in
wooden card holder drawers, W. Boyd Rayword explains how in
1904, Otlet and Fontaine utilized Melvil Dewey’s 1876 creation
of the “Dewey Decimal Classification” to create a “map” to all
of this collected written knowledge and where it was located
inside the Mundaneum.


Mr. Paul Otlet in his Mundaneum and a photo
of Henri La Fontaine,who was born in 1854 and
died in 1943.

Paul Otlet was interested in the ways in which images could be used to simplify and display complex information. "Documentation," a term he coined in 1904, for him involved the organization not only written documents but documents of all kinds and he placed a special value on images, schematics, charts, tables and more. In Otlet's view, book's were an inconvenient and inefficient carrier of information that had to be decomposed and dissected in order to draw out its essential and most valuable "bits" of information. Recorded separately according to what Otlet called "the monographic principle," each individual item of information could then be reprocessed in various ways for more effective dissemination and use.

Late in his life, Otlet's preoccupation with visualization intensified. He began to develop what he called an Atlas Mundaneum (Encyclopaedia Universalis Mundaneum), in which he sought to express the ideas on knowledge organization, visualization and dissemination. The Atlas Mundaeum was also intended to visualize his views on the emergence of a global society that he had summarized in the sometimes cryptic text of his last book "Monde." For the various sections of Atlas Mundaneum, and as he experimented with visual ideas generally, images ranging from scribbles on tiny pieces of paper, to larger pieces more fully developed, sometimes multicolored, to large formal final images in standardized "tablets" or charts are to be found in the thousands in the Mundaneum Museum in Mons, Belgium. In the latest of these images, Otlet started to experiment with 3D and 4D “mobile” visualizations of information and came up with solutions that were actually coming close to presentations of changing relations between data in interfaces designed for the computer.

A documentary film created and directed by Ijsbrand van Veelen for the Dutch science series, "Noordelicht," was shown on Dutch TV on Sunday, November 1,1998. The film is based on an account of the ideas of Paul Otlet and the history of the Mundaneum,which was intended to be a great new center for international life, that Otlet and his colleagues created in Brussels at the end of the First World War and which recently has been re-created as a museum and archive in Mons. The film was built around W. Boyd Rayward's visit in the period October 10-17, 1998 to and comments on sites in Brussels important in Otlet's life and work.
Here is the link to this video. I hope you take the time to watch it: http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet

Unfortunately, the ending of the story about Paul Otlet is a sad one. Just as Paul Otlet’s vision began to be realized, his Mundaneum was lost when the Belgian government withdrew its support. Otlet then moved to a smaller location. After a financial struggle, he was forced to close his operations to the public.
Now only a small group of people worked with him and when the German Nazi army marched through Belgium in 1940 it all ended. The German army gutted the Mundaneum building and filled it with art from Germany’s Third Reich. Thousands of boxes filled with Otlet’s 3-by-5 index cards were removed or destroyed – resulting in much of Otlet’s work being lost.
Today, the curators of the present day Mundaneum museum are actively finding and returning these lost documents to the museum to be stored as a memorial to Otlet and Fontaine’s work.

In 1944 Paul Otlet died at the age of 76.

What would Paul Otlet’s reaction be to today’s Internet and the global amount of information accessible on it?
Otlet would be “. . . rejoicing at the creation of the Internet and the Web, although he would be terribly upset about the lack of organization on it,” said W. Boyd Rayward, who wrote the biography on Paul Otlet.


---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[bits_blogger]

This week's ~Web Site of The Week~ is located at: http://tinyurl.com/5u85dd



Pretty neat, isn't it?
What you’re looking at here is NASA’s new Resolution Visualization System.
It is made up of a wall of LCD display screens which forms one large display. It is
callled "Hyperwall-2" and is 23 feet high and 10 feet wide and consists of 128
display screens driven by 128 graphic processing units with a total of 1,024 processor
cores capable of displaying a quarter billion-pixel graphics! With a direct,high-speed
connection from the supercomputers at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division,
including the Columbia supercomputer, Hyperwall-2 will enable NASA to meet
its increasing needs for advanced visualization and analysis of large, high-dimensional
simulation results.
Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James



Developed by scientists and engineers in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS)
Division at Ames, the 128-screen Hyperwall-2, capable of rendering one quarter billion
pixel graphics. It is the world’s highest resolution scientific visualization and data
exploration environment. The new tool enables scientists to quickly explore datasets
that otherwise would take many years to analyze.



A nice photo of NASA's Hyperwall-2 display which shows how large it
really is.


California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and
NASA Ames Research Center Director S.
Pete Worden examine NASA's Hyperwall-2.
Gov. Schwarzenegger was given a "behind-
the-scenes" update regarding NASA’s
assistance to firefighters battling
California wildfires. With amazing clarity,
the Hyperall-2 can display the location of
the fires, and will even project their path.
Governor Schwarzenegger said the number
of fires makes it all the more important to
use every tool at the state’s disposal to
protect property and save lives.



“It is great to be here today at NASA, at
the NASA Ames Research Center to see one
of the most exciting new weapons in our
firefighting arsenal.”
-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger


Imagine the fun of playing video games on a 23 foot wide by 10 foot
tall liquid crystal display wall powered by 1,024 processor cores, with
74 teraflops worth of calculating power at your disposal!


Going back to 1995, there was one computer display screen I thought was the best ever made.
Well, I suppose my eyes were better back then too! It was the display screen on my trusty old
HP OmniBook notebook computer. The OmniBook used a high-tech “Thin Film Transistor”
or TFT “active-matrix” display screen which turned out some vividly crisp colors along with
clear and sharp images. Reading text on this screen was very easy on the eyes, too. I wish I
still had my ol’ OminBook notebook today. I think one of my kids is using it as a base for a
flower pot or some other noteworthy purpose.



---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[bits_blogger]

"WE HAVE WATER!"
Three words we have been waiting to hear for so many years were finally spoken by William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA at the Mars Exploration Program. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

With exciting results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ended last week. The mission extension adds five additional weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission. The discovery of water no doubt has some scientists excited!

"Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.


Web Site of The Weekhttp://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php


"We expected to find water in this landing site. That's why we came here," said Mars Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona.

NASA restarted its robotic exploration of Mars with the landing of the Pathfinder rover back in 1997.

The agency since then has been hunting for water, a key ingredient in the recipe for life. Liquid water combined with an energy source and organic material yields life even in the most inhospitable places on Earth.

The stationary Phoenix Lander is equipped to detect organic material but not primitive life. Its mission is to determine whether the Martian arctic might once have been - or might still be - hospitable to microbial life (micro organisms).

Michael Meyer, chief scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said the Mars Science Laboratory will be equipped to detect life. It is scheduled for launch in 2009.


Computer designed image of the Mars Science Laboratory Rover which will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet's "habitability." The Mars Science Laboratory rover is larger and can travel farther than Spirit and Opportunity, NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers that began exploring the Martian red planet in early 2004.


Above is a HIGH-RES photo and the white material in the trench is ICE! Yes, Ice was found
just under the Martian soil.
This color image acquired by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager shows one
trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" after two digs on June 12, by Phoenix's Robotic Arm,
which exposed what is now confirmed to be frozen ice. Don't slip on the Martian ice now!

Researchers were able to prove the soil had ice in it because it melted in
the onboard oven at 32 degrees - which is the melting point of ice --and released water
molecules. Plans called for baking the soil at even higher temperatures next week to
sniff for carbon-based compounds. If they find these compounds . . . it means there could be life!

Message to future Minnesota Earthlings going to Mars: . . . .
BRING YOUR SKATES and also bring along an auger, fishing pole & minnows, just in case we find
out the ice is on top of a frozen lake!



A lake on Mars may have looked like this. . . Umm . . . Is that a Martian in the boat?


---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[LyndaJensen]

I love your web sites of the week

[bits_blogger]

Your investigative "bits_blogger" has gone all the way to the United States Department of State for this weeks: Web Site of The Week:
http://www.state.gov/m/irm/c23840.htm


The Diplopedia web site is housed on U.S. Department of State’s sensitive but
unclassified intranet and is accessible only by State department employees.

THE FOLLOWING IS TAKEN FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE WEB SITE:
Diplopedia wiki
"Launched in September 2006, Diplopedia is the State Department's internal
unclassified online encyclopedia. Just as people create and edit articles on
public wikis on the Internet, Department personnel are using Diplopedia to
create a broad, informative and expanding reference tool for knowledge-
sharing about the Department, its programs and offices, and other inter-
national affairs subjects."




This month's US Department of State magazine front cover



Below is the link for the US Department of State magazine (pdf file):
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/107806.pdf


Eric M. Johnson is the team lead for the Knowledge Management Action Team at the U.S.
Department of State. Diplopedia is a project of the Office of eDiplomacy , located in the
Bureau of Information Resource Management within the Department of State. Billed as
the Encyclopedia of the United States Department of State, it is a wiki running on the
State internal Intranet, called "OpenNet." It houses a unique collection of information
pertaining to diplomacy, international relations, and Department of State tradecraft.
The program is part of a larger effort created by Secretary Condoleezza Rice within the
concept of Transformational Diplomacy. Under this plan, personnel will utilize Web 2.0
technologies such as wikis, blogs, communities, and virtual work environments to provide
diplomacy to areas that have been underrepresented. Johnson gave a video presentation in
July at the 2008 Wikimania Conference held in Alexandria, Egypt.

VIDEO LINK: http://tinyurl.com/6rdbq7

Official Web Site of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
(August 8-24 2008) in Beijing, China: http://en.beijing2008.cn/


---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[bits_blogger]

WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.artsmia.org/

We know about it, but how many of us have visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts?

I have visited MIA a few times now. My son attends the Minneapolis College of Art Design - MCAD - (which just happens to be right next door and is connected to the MIA). Honestly, I wish I would have visited sooner. The paintings, displays of original pieces, the truly "works of art" are all here.

In 1883, twenty-five citizens of Minneapolis founded the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, committing them to bringing the arts into the life of their community. More than a century later, the museum they created, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, stands as a monument to a remarkable history of civic involvement and cultural achievement.

Designed by the preeminent New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, the original building opened its doors in 1915. A neoclassical landmark in the Twin Cities, the MIA expanded in 1974 with an addition designed by the late Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. In June 2006, the museum unveiled a new wing designed by architect Michael Graves.

The MIA's internationally acclaimed collection of paintings contains nearly 900 European and American works from the 14th century to the present. It offers a comprehensive survey of both celebrated schools and individual artists and is notable for its concentration of masterworks.

The present paintings collection has been expanded in varied and often delightfully unpredictable ways by a succession of astute trustees, donors, directors, and curators. It includes Claude Lorrain’s Pastoral Landscape of 1638, Nicolas Poussin’s Death of Germanicus of 1627, and Rembrandt van Rijn’s Lucretia of 1666. In addition to many wonderful French 19th-century pictures, the museum has rich holdings of Italian Baroque, 17th-century Dutch, and Fauve, Cubist, and German Expressionist works. The American collection showcases a range of artistic accomplishments from Gilbert Stuart to Larry Rivers and contains exceptional paintings by John Singer Sargent and Georgia O’Keeffe.

The department houses the MIA's collection of sculpture created after 1900, which includes masterworks by Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, and Henry Moore. Recent acquisitions in this area include Raymond Duchamp-Villon's "Head of Baudelaire" of 1911, and Alberto Giacometti's "Diego" of 1962.




Designed as a non-partisan view of the American presidency, this special exhibition features
a selection of original works of art from the MIA’s permanent collection and various historical
material from an important private collection that focuses on presidential themes.

The display exhibition comprises more than 70 objects in a range of mediums, including paintings, sculpture,
drawings, original prints, posters, photographs, manuscripts, glassware, porcelain, and metalwork.

Among the objects on display are presidential portraits, including a marble bust of George Washington
in classical garb by American artist Hiram Powers, candid photographs of former presidents and
presidential candidates, including Richard Avedon’s celebrated portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower.


Dwight David Eisenhower
Former President of the United States
January 31, 1964
By Richard Avedon


Marble bust of George Washington
c. 1853 by Hiram Powers (American, 1805-1873)
Gift of the Minneapolis Tower Company


Portrait of George Washington (1732–1799)
by Thomas Sully
c. 1820
Oil on canvas
This painting is a copy of one of Gilbert Stuart's
best-known portraits of George Washington, which
was finished in 1800 and formerly owned by the New
York Public Library. Sully made many copies of Stuart's
portraits of President Washington for government
buildings and historical societies because Stuart could
not meet the astonishing demand for them. In this portrait,
Washington's right hand rests on a copy of the Constitution.
The sword alludes to his military heroism.


Christmas card signed by John F. Kennedy, November 1963, paper.
Collection of Kim and Gloria Anderson

The MIA's hours are:
Tuesday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Wednesday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Thursday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Friday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Monday Closed
The museum is closed:
Thanksgiving
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
July 4

The MIA's Location:
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Toll Free: (888) MIA ARTS (642-2787)
The museum is located one mile south
of downtown Minneapolis at the
intersection of 3rd Avenue South
and East 24th Street.

The North "Seasonal Entrance" to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts - MIA

Photographing or videotaping of the museum's collection without a tripod and for personal use is permitted; however, flash photography of textiles is not allowed. Objects in changing exhibitions may not be photographed or videotaped.
Visitors to the MIA often post their photographs on public Web sites like Flickr. Photographs are also uploaded to the Photobucket Web site - if you're the bits_blogger!

Link to Upcoming MIA Exhibitions: http://tinyurl.com/5md8mg




---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!

[bits_blogger]

WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml

This is the "Official information and services from the U.S. government" Web Site!

USA.gov allows visitors to find information on its site in several ways: through a search engine; an index of links organized by audience, by topic, and by organization; a database of frequently asked questions; RSS feeds; e-mail alerts; and live chat.

Search Engine
USA.gov's search engine crawls an unprecedented 50 million web pages from Federal, State, local, and tribal governments and U.S. territories. Powered by MSN Search and Vivísimo, the search clusters the results into categories and accesses many kinds of official Government sources such as government podcasts, citizens’ frequently asked questions, and about 12 million government images. It also highlights information from Forms.gov, Fueleconomy.gov, USAJobs.gov, and MyMoney.gov.

Index
USA.gov offers an index of more than 10,000 links to official Government information. The index is categorized by services and common topics, and can be accessed through five audience gateways: Citizens, Businesses and Nonprofits, Federal Employees, Government to Government (for state, local, and tribal governments), and Visitors to the U.S.

The index links to diverse, useful, and timely citizen-centered Government information and services that can help website visitors apply for a Government job, register to vote, e-file their taxes, find Government benefits, reserve a campsite at a national park, prepare for disasters, shop at Government auctions, learn about visiting the United States, or report an unsafe product, among many other activities.

The site's policy is to link to websites of the Federal Government, quasi-government agencies, and those created by public sector/private sector partnerships; state and local governments; and recognized Indian tribes. In rare instances, the sites link to websites that are not Government-owned or Government-sponsored if these websites provide Government information and/or services in a way that is not available on an official Government website.

USA.gov's Frequently Asked Questions
USA.gov's frequently asked questions database contains thousands of answers to the questions the public asks most via USA.gov or the contact center at 1 (800) FED-INFO. For more than 30 years, the contact center has been a source for answers to questions about consumer problems and Government services.

Visitors to USA.gov can click on the link to FAQs to see what the public is asking and to find their answers.

If visitors still cannot find the Government information they are looking for, they can call 1 (800) FED-INFO, e-mail USA.gov through the "Contact Us" link on USA.gov (e-mail inquiries receive a response within two business days), or get help through a live web chat service.

RSS Feeds
USA.gov offers RSS feeds to help the public stay up to date on useful Government information. "USA.gov Updates: News and Features" announces the new content added to the USA.gov website, while "RSS de GobiernoUSA.gov: News and Updates" announces the new content added to the GobiernoUSA.gov website. "Popular Government Questions from USA.gov" features the most popular questions and answers related to the U.S. Government from USA.gov’s frequently asked questions database. Website visitors can sign up for USA.gov RSS feeds, the GobiernoUSA.gov feed, or visit USA.gov’s RSS library for other Government RSS feeds.

E-mail Alerts
Visitors to USA.gov can sign up for free e-mail alerts in both English and Spanish to learn when new content is added to the site’s most popular pages. The pages' subjects range from benefits, seniors, and Internet fraud to hurricane recovery, the arts, and parents.

Live Chat
USA.gov offers live chat in English, where service representatives can answer website visitors' questions about Federal agencies, programs, benefits, or services.

Blog
Gov Gab, USA.gov's new blog, will give consumers a fresh and interactive perspective on how they can use government resources to make their every day lives better, easier, and more fun. The five bloggers have diverse interests and points of view and post daily entries on a wide variety of topics.

From saving money and visiting National Parks to finding out about the latest government auction, if there’s a government resource or service that the bloggers use in their daily lives, consumers will find it in a Gov Gab entry.

Awards
USA.gov has won numerous awards and media endorsements, including Time Magazine's 2007 "Top 25 Sites We Can't Live Without," listing among the "Best of..." by Money Magazine, "Favorite Places on the Web" by the Chicago Sun Times, "Hot Sites" by USATODAY.com, and "Top 100 Classic Sites" by PC Magazine. It also has won "#1 in Global E-Government Readiness" in the United Nations' Global E-Government Readiness Report 2005; "#1 in Overall Federal e-Government" by Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy; and the "Innovations in American Government Award" by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Source: Wikipedia

Here is a link from the USA.GOV web site to a PDF file that explains
the Great Seal of the United States:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/27807.pdf









To see more images like the above and to read more about this rich online
resource that is free to all all of us, please visit the WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml


---bits_blogger---
Have a Great Week!