Archive for November, 2014
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Acculation SM ranked among most influential in Los Angeles
Social media influence firm Magnific has listed our corporate Twitter among Los Angeles’ most influential social media accounts. Thanks guys for the Shout Out! Thoughts from readers? A version of this article originally appeared as a photo post on our Instagram feed. (more…)… Read the restAstrolabe: data and ancient ship GPS navigation
The historical navigation device in yesterday’s post was too newfangled for the conquistadors.This is what they would have used: a historic astrolabe from 1400, just in time for the conquistadors. This historical model isn’t quite intended for use on a boat at sea, but the ones used by sailors were similar if less visually appealing. The concept is the same as yesterday’s sextant. This is essentially an ancient GPS, except this device is harder to get an accurate reading from. As we learned with some early problems with Apple Maps, then, as now, accurate data is required to convert the measurements into a position at sea. For use at sea, the astrolabe needs to be suspended by a string so that it stays level on a heaving ship deck, which creates problems on windy days. Just as with yesterday’s sextant, the idea is to measure the angle between the sun or stars and the horizon, and then use the current day/time (if you know it accurately), mathematical tables, and/or multiple measurements to get a position through a complex mathematical recipe.… Read the restSextant: data and historical old ship GPS navigation
Continuing from our last post on models of historic civilizations and data, we’re drawing a line from Carl Sagan to the Conquistadors (and modern TV documentaries’ theories about them). This historic photo is an antique sextant from 1890. This historical navigation device worked by measuring the angle between the sun (or stars) and horizon using two mirrors. It was the GPS (or Apple Maps) of its day. And, as we learned from Apple Map’s initial glitches, then as now, successful navigation required a lot of information (or data) to work correctly! Since the Internet didn’t exist, this data had to arrive by some other means, which we’ll talk about in a future post. (So we’re also continuing on our earlier mirror theme.) The use of two mirrors’ reflection to align the image of the object with the horizon (when the sextant was set at the correct angle) enabled accurate measurements when on a moving platform, such as by a sailor on a boat at sea.… Read the restSpanish conquistadors, armies, aliens, history, war, and data science?
How is a painting about conquistadors from Spain related to information or data science? And, by extension, armies or war? What about Sagan’s fear of advanced civilizations in the form of alien or extraterrestrial conquistadors from space? How can data science be used to study history? Avid readers of our recent posts will have a clue, but it’s been covered in some recent popular books and TV documentaries. (Hint: it also relates to our Sagan posts. This includes our discussion of the Kardashev scale as extended by Sagan, which measures a civilizations progress in terms of energy and information. It’s interesting to contrast these ideas with mathematical models of civilization collapse such as those proposed by Tainter. These topics directly address our own, as one civilization’s progress can be another’s collapse. Sagan was concerned about what might happen if advanced space-fearing civilizations found us; would it be a replay of the conquistadors?… Read the restRecent Posts
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