Author: ageographer

Crete Field Trip

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ageographer

The field trip to Crete (June 16-23rd 2009) involved three staff (Dr Alan Howard, Richard Tegg, Ken Beard) and 28 students registered for the degree in Human and Physical Geography at the University of Reading.

We were based in the village of Chora Sfakion in the Sfakia region of south west Crete. Fieldwork was undertaken in the village, at Loutro and in the Samaria Gorge.

Daytime temperatures ranged from 28 to 36 degrees and, whilst not in the sea, work was undertaken to model the extent and impact of a major flood in December 2000 in the Ilingas Gorge and the potential impact of tourist development on society in this area (Sfakia remains largely untouched by the mass tourism associated with northern Crete).

Group Photo - 22/6/2009, Chora Sfakion
Group Photo - 22/6/2009, Chora Sfakion

 During the field trip our students made use of various Web 2.0 technologies in order to produce group blogs and videos of their experiences. These were completed in the field utilising ubiquitous wireless internet access available in the village of Chora Sfakion and the mini Dell laptops we provided. The students did an excellent job and the process of writing daily entries on their group blogs (hosted on WordPress.com) enabled them to reflect upon the educational experiences they encountered. The blogs have been compiled here:

http://www.cretefieldtrip.com/sfakia/

where you will also find all the light hearted videos each group produced while in the field. A random choice of video is displayed here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwB-uqkc-w&w=425&h=344]

Return to Reading

ageographer

We arrived back at the University of Reading at 10.00pm to clear blue skies and an air temperature of 20 degrees, which one in the party described as “freezing”.

Even during the journey home the students were remarkable in their enthusiasm and commitment – posting final blog posts from the less than inspiring Gate 8 at Chania airport thanks to ubiquitous Cretan wireless Internet access.

Meanwhile staff did their best to spend the night in alternative Cretan accommodation as Ken challenged the logic of charging for excess baggage when his and Richard’s luggage came in 7 Kg over weight – a discussion closely observed by local armed security.

As we waited for our flight we reflected on the size and shape of tourists queuing to board other UK-bound flights which led one of us  to advocate ticket pricing based on combined luggage/passenger weight…

Chania

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As our flight to Gatwick was leaving fairly late in the day at 6.00pm we took the opportunity to make a last minute change to the field class programme and arrange a four hour visit to the old town of Chania. This proved an interesting contrast to unspoilt Sfakia. Indeed one student noted  ‘you took us to a gem, now you’ve brought us to a **** hole.’ A little unfair but indicative of the contrast.

Chania is in fact a fairly attractive place with an excellent location on a beautiful coastline and a rich history. However even in mid-June it is very busy and after a week in Sfakia the hustle and bustle of mass tourism and all that goes with it was a shock to the system.

GHS 3 NHS 0

ageographer

Minor medical drama this evening as one group member suffering from a recurrence of tonsilitis required prompt medical attention after a worrying rise in body temperature. Access to the local doctor was secured within 5 minutes via the hotel and the patient was rushed to the local GP surgery.

Not bad for a Sunday evening in a remote Cretan village.

Treatment was prescribed without charge and put the patient on a rapid road to recovery.

This level of medical service would be difficult, if not impossible, to secure in the UK under similar circumstances.

A triumph for the Greek Health Service…

delphini fire

ageographer

I appear to have missed the big event of 2009 despite the drama unfolding only yards from my hotel room balcony. I can only assume I had punctuated the 8am to midnight working day with a mid-afternoon deep sleep as the nearby delphini restaurant went up in flames causing uproar and commotion across the village.

News of this event caused a flashback to 2007 when an ablaze car came to rest under my balcony.

On both occasions, and in particular at the delphini restaurant, bravery and rapid reactions of locals  avoided tragedy.

health and safety part II

ageographer

Busy day for field class staff in Loutro today necessitated our return journey via small motor boat cruiser, the driver (I hesitate to say ‘captain’) of which appeared unwilling to enter the main harbour at Chora Sfakion. Instead the ferry jetty was deemed suitable landing for three ageing university ‘academics’, the youngest of whom narrowly avoided ricocheting into a watery early grave as he and the boat parted company a fraction too soon.

Coastal footpath

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Our students (and staff) spent the day walking the coastal footpath between Loutro and Chora Sfakion observing and analysing the geomorphology and biogeography to provide additional context for the more deterministic work undertaken in Ilingas gorge the previous day.

We arranged to meet as a whole group at 2pm on Sweetwater Beach for debriefing. This was an academic commitment that all students made and, unusually, appeared unwilling to terminate.

There was much debate over whether to take the 5.30 boat back to Chora Sfakion or complete the walk over a particularly exposed stretch.

DSC00146

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Photos from the coastal footpath walk

36 degrees and 9 kilometres

ageographer

all the students and staff walked from loutro to chora sfakion on the coastal footpath today. with temperatures surpassing 36 degrees most took the opportunity to lounge on sweetwater beach and swim in the sea during their well earned mid afternoon break.

36 degrees and 9 kilometres

ageographer

all the students and staff walked from loutro to chora sfakion on the coastal footpath today. with temperatures surpassing 36 degrees most took the opportunity to lounge on sweetwater beach and swim in the sea during their well earned mid afternoon break.

arrival

ageographer

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We arrived safely in Chora Sfakion at about 6.30pm after a smooth journey from Reading. As in 2007, we’re staying at Nikos and Georgia’s harbour front taverna, the “Hotel Livikon”. The rate of 24 euros B&B remains a bargain even if the exchange rate is awful at present.

Less of a bargain is the cost to students of flights  booked through the university’s approved travel company – some £80 per person more than in 2007 when we were permitted to book direct with Monarch Airlines.  The logistical benefits of involving an expensive third-party appear unclear (or should I say ‘appear non-existent’) and the university should really review and justify its policy on these matters.

That said, the field trip still promises to be good value for money.

How blogging may help students deepen their learning

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ageographer

If you would like to find out about how and why weblogs (‘blogs’) might be used to enhance learning watch this interesting video: http://lindsayjordan.edublogs.org/2009/05/29/blogging-with-students-how-and-why/ or read Lindsay’s full paper at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddj42whm_48g4n924f6

I will soon be undertaking a field trip to Crete during which students will maintain a blog to enable individual and collaborative reflection on events and issues they experience.

Exploration is fundamental to Geography and Geographers have a long history of sharing their travel observations with the public through publication in books and journals. Blogging provides a new outlet for this oldest geographical tradition and the blogs written in Crete will feature other Web 2.0 technologies including photo sharing, video and twitter.

Results to follow…

Song Contest outcome

ageographer

No surprise that Norway were run away winners on Saturday night and I would have liked Azerbaijan and the UK to have been 2nd and 3rd. The model correctly predicted the winning entry but, overall, there was a less strong correlation (r2 value 0.46 compared to 0.75 – 0.85) than in previous years between predicted placing and actual ranking. As usual, the winning entry was judged by most people, irrespective of geographical or political affinity, to be the best in terms of song and performance and it is unlikely that the modified voting system made any difference.

Our website songcontestvoting.com crashed during the contest due to unprecedented visitor numbers. We will be moving to a dedicated server for next year’s contest and accepting advertising!

Song Contest 2009

ageographer

The outcome of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest taking place in Moscow tonight, May 16th, will be (according to our computer model):

1. Norway 0.7
2. Greece 1.7
3. Turkey 4.5
4. Ukraine 5.8
5. Azerbaijan 6.4
6. Bosnia Herzegovina 7.0
7. United Kingdom 9.6
8. Iceland 16.2
9. Finland 17.3
10. Armenia 19.6

With the number indicating the country’s “odds” of actually winning the contest.

Norway is a widely tipped favourite, but they have sometimes done less well on the evening than anticipated in the run-up. Out of the projected top-10 Norway has benefited least from “bloc” or friendly voting patterns in the past five contests. Iceland, Bosnia, and Turkey top the list in this regard. Also, in terms of doing well in recent contests, Norway is well below average with only Iceland and the UK with worse records.

Combining track record and friendly voting, indicates a top-4 of Greece, Ukraine, Armenia, and Turkey.

The British bookmakers have a projected top-3 of Norway, Greece and the UK. The UK tends to achieve a top-3 finish when they enter a deserving song. Anything less than a top-10 finish would be a disappointment (and evidence that Europe, rightly or wrongly, really do hate us right now).

Interestingly our word analysis (see below) of recent posts to the 20 top Eurovision sites has the UK and our entry, Jade, as one of the most talked about entrants. This is a feature of “Eurovision week” and  had not been the case in previous weeks and combined with the relative surge in bookmaker support, maybe there will be a big surprise tonight… However also keep an eye out for Azerbaijan, Turkey and Ukraine challenging Norway and Greece to the top-2 spots.

Clearwater and Pete Seeger

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ageographer

Pete Seeger will be celebrating his 90th birthday on May 3rd 2009 with a benefit concert in aid of the Clearwater Organisation.

Seeger was responsible for promoting the project to build and launch a boat that continues to navigate the Hudson River every summer stopping at every town to disseminate information about the environment and the perilous state of the Hudson River. Don McLean was a member of the first Clearwater Sloop crew in 1969.

McLean says: “This boat is an example of the Seeger genius because it combines the fun of boating with the seriousness of environmental degradation and gets everyone involved at the same time while also being a public relations dream.”

McLean’s work as the Hudson River Troubadour in 1968 and his experiences with the Clearwater Sloop in 1969 proved inspirational learning experiences for him.

He is particularly proud of “Tapestry”, a song he wrote while aboard the Sloop and which became the title track to his first album. The powerful lyrics remain relevant today as they provide a warning of the consequences of humanity’s exploitation of the environment. “If man is allowed to destroy all they need. He will soon have to pay with his life, for his greed.”

Despite its powerful message, the song is one of Don’s lesser known compositions, overshadowed on the Tapestry album by the giants, “Castles in the Air” and “And I Love You So.”

Don McLean has never seen himself as any type of ‘environmental activist’ and has avoided becoming a spokesperson for the environmental movement. He says, “Political people bore me, and I don’t want to be one. I’ll settle for being a decent citizen.”

After the first Clearwater Sloop voyage in 1969, McLean left the crew. Before he left, Pete Seeger told him, “Don, I think you’re a genius. You’re like a wonderful chef who serves a great meal once and never repeats it.”

Don returned from time to time to perform at Sloop concerts. He also recorded a version of “Tapestry” for the 1974 Clearwater album and edited a book entitled Songs and Sketches of the First Clearwater Crew, with sketches by his friend Thomas Allen.

Later, in 1984, McLean played Carnegie Hall with the Jordanaires for a Greenpeace benefit. After the show, David McTaggart, the Canadian co-founder of Greenpeace, came backstage and told Don that his song, “Tapestry,” was one of the factors that got him involved in the environmental movement.

Adapted from The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs by Alan Howard
Copyright © 2007 Starry Night Music, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of any part of this work without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Used by permission.

 

Don McLean sings “Tapestry” on Australian television

Norway 12 UK 0

ageographer

The first run of our “Eurovisionomics” model for 2009 indicates that Norway are clear favourites to win the Eurovision Song Contest next month in Moscow. The model predicts another disappointment for the UK with a finish in the bottom half of the results table suggested. The model takes into account various factors including performance in the last five contests and the extent to which countries benefit from “bloc” or friendly voting patterns.

Norway 12 UK 0

ageographer

The first run of our “Eurovisionomics” model for 2009 indicates that Norway are clear favourites to win the Eurovision Song Contest next month in Moscow. The model predicts another disappointment for the UK with a finish in the bottom half of the results table suggested. The model takes into account various factors including performance in the last five contests and the extent to which countries benefit from “bloc” or friendly voting patterns.

Tag clouds – data visualisation

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ageographer

A tag cloud or word cloud is a visual representation of the relative word content of a website or feed. The word cloud displayed in this post is computer-generated every 6 hours to display the most frequently appearing words in headlines concerned with the ‘environment’ from 12 international news organisations. Each organisation is likely to have some bias in its reporting of environment-related news but word cloud analysis helps reveal the predominantly important issues or stories of the day. Another simple word cloud is implemented at Eurovision Song Contest Voting, where over 100 sites are polled every 30 minutes. These are simple implementations of a much larger project we are currently involved with.

WordPress – headers already sent error

ageographer

Annoying problem sometimes encountered when installing WordPress software and running the installation routine:

"Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at…"

Means there is a blank line at the start or end of a php file but this is highly unlikely with a fresh WordPress install. So I think your files were corrupted when uploaded to the server. Try uploading them all again – filezilla always seems to work well.

Skycam map using OS Openspace AJAX

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ageographer

We have been doing some work with AJAX methods provided by the OS Openspace API. To help anyone else out there working on this we have provided a simple example that loads a list of coordinates and URLs from a text file and uses these to add markers to a base map. In this example the marker, when clicked, reveals a live “sky cam” image, usually provided by a personal weather station website.

The application is created using the Ordnance Survey OpenSpace API including their loadurl AJAX method. Zoom in on the map and you’ll see it’s a real OS map! We also have a version using Google Maps.

Fuel costs in the UK

ageographer

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would have us believe that his Government has done the car-driving British public a favour by suspending a proposed 2 pence per litre increase in fuel duty. The rise, announced in the 2007 Budget statement, was originally scheduled for April 1st 2008 but had already been put on hold for six months. At Prime Minister’s Questions on July 16th, the Oppostion leader, David Cameron, asked if this had “anything to do with the Glasgow East by-election”.

But Gordon Brown said the move, coming just before Parliament starts its four-month summer break and amid rising oil prices, would help people facing high food and fuel bills [ BBC ].

The price of fuel in the UK is currently running at about £1.20 per litre for unleaded petrol and £1.30 per litre for diesel. At the start of 2008 prices were around £1.05 and £1.10 respectively. The increases have been blamed on the soaring price of oil and general economic malaise sweeping vulnerable economies such as the UK.

Yet at £1.20 per litre most of the money goes direct to the Government. Even fuel duty (currently 50.35p) is taxed at 17.5%! The Government has therefore enjoyed an income boost with each incremental rise in forecourt fuel costs – fuel duty may be fixed but income from VAT increases every time the cost of a litre rises. In fact the Government is earning about an extra 2 pence per litre in VAT today compared with January 2008 when fuel was 15-20 pence per litre cheaper. The Prime Minister could therefore well afford to suspend the official 2p rise in fuel duty!

How much fuel is sold by UK filling stations each year?
In 2006 9832 operational filling stations sold on average 4081904 litres [Energy Institute].

How much tax per litre do we pay?
For a £1.20 litre of petrol or diesel the breakdown of cost is:

Fuel Duty: 50.35p
VAT: 17.9p
Cost of fuel + forecourt charge: 51.65p

In total, given an average sale price of £1.20 the UK Government will receive over £20207 million per year from fuel duty plus at least £7300 million from VAT on fuel, which in total equates to about £872 per second…

Eurovisionomics

ageographer

Following Russia’s victory in the Eurovision Song Contest our prediction proved surprisingly correct and was picked up by various media outlets as further evidence of neighbourly voting ruining the contest and the chances of nations like the UK from ever winning again.

The Eurovisionomics analysis had looked at those countries who’d received unusually high scores from the same country on at least four occasions in the past 6 years. Such occurrences were less likely to be attributed to chance and indicate that other factors may motivate voting. Based on this it was concluded that if Russia’s entry was half-decent then their strong showing in this Eurovisionomics analysis should see them through to victory. Further details here.

However the Eurovision Song Contest Voting website has always taken the view that neighbourly voting does not determine the song contest winner. We therefore excluded all votes cast in the 2008 contest that were above the country’s average (+ the standard deviation). This removed former Soviet states votes for Russia and other nations who’d apparently scored a song well above its true value as determined by the majority of the other competitors. The outcome made little difference to the ranked results with Russia still being the clear winner. The exercise was repeated for every contest since 1957 and revealed that without voting bias Russia may well have won in 2007 (they actually finished second).

As for the UK, removing “friendly” votes from the 2008 contest left us with “nil points” – probably well deserved considering we entered a talent show runner-up with a song that managed number 67 on the singles chart.

Using wordpress through a proxy server

ageographer4 Comments

Where the web server hosting the WordPress site is located behind a proxy server, the WordPress admin and user may experience technical problems. Symptoms include:

– very slow loading of the dashboard
– askimet not working

These can be resolved by first setting proxy credentials in wp-includes/class-snoopy.php and then editing the akismet_http_post function in wp-content/plugins/askimet/askimet.php along the lines suggested at:

http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-trac/2006-August/003435.html

Where your proxy server requires authentication you will need to provide this in askimet.php using the line:

$http_request .= 'Proxy-Authorization: ' . 'Basic ' . base64_encode _
('username:password')."rn";

remembering to substitute in your actual username and password.

The new akismet_http_post function should therefore be:

function akismet_http_post($request, $host, $path, $port = 80) { _
 global $wp_version;

// $http_request  = "POST $path HTTP/1.0rn";
// $http_request .= "Host: $hostrn";
 $http_request  = "POST http://$host$path HTTP/1.0rn";
 $http_request .= "Host: http://$hostrn";

$http_request .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; _
charset=" . get_option('blog_charset') . "rn";
 $http_request .= "Content-Length: " . strlen($request) . "rn";
$http_request .= 'Proxy-Authorization: ' . 'Basic ' . base64_encode_
 'username:password')."rn";

 $http_request .= "User-Agent: WordPress/$wp_version | Akismet/2.0rn";
 $http_request .= "rn";
 $http_request .= $request;

 $response = '';
// if( false != ( $fs = @fsockopen($host, $port, $errno, $errstr, 10) ) ) {
 if( false !== ( $fs = @fsockopen('your_proxy_address', your_proxy_port, _
$errno, $errstr, 10) ) ) {

  fwrite($fs, $http_request);

  while ( !feof($fs) )
   $response .= fgets($fs, 1160); // One TCP-IP packet
  fclose($fs);
  $response = explode("rnrn", $response, 2);
 }
 return $response;
}