Wireless provider TowerStream now has the Empire State Building as a point-of-presence. I think we'll see it from the top of the Girls Club. It's a possible source for our backhaul. They'll be ready when 802.16 is ratified this year.
TowerStream Takes the Empire State Building
Manejo y conservacion de la Cuenca del rio Usumacinta
Latest Apple update to GarageBand apparently has an undocumented feature - you can use instruments in the Soundfonts format. Instructions and links to free sounds on the web can be found here:
MacJams.com - GarageBand 1.1 and SoundFont/DLS Support
Killing time in the Guatemala City airport. Here at the internet cafe, I ran across this description of the unwiring of a small apartment complex. Missteps and all. I`ll have to look at it again when I get back to a similar project.
Forever Geek - Apartment Complex Unwiring
Modernist prefab dwellings. Just jumpstarted my brain. I needed that. Not sure I need another house. Thanks to Boing Boing.
Also from Boing Boing:
Eye-Contact Sensing Glasses and eyeBlog. Creepy.
Another big spread in Prensa Libre about the situation in Laguna del Tigre Park, where organized and financed invaders have operated with impunity for years. In part due to Roan McNab`s work, the Guatemalan congress last Thursday declared it a national emergency and allocated 5 million Quetzals for immediate action.
Roan is quoted in this story:
And there is more information in these:
En busca de control en Laguna del Tigre
EDITORIAL - Asunto de actitud más que de leyes
Movable Type is moving to a version that costs more. Some people are complaining. Here`s a Slashdot post that airs their gripes:
Bloggers Assail Movable Type's New Pricing Scheme
Me, I like it, I paid them for it when it was cheap, it does what I need, I`m not even using the latest version. Other people are changing to something like this:
Come to think of it, their approach to comments editing would be a nice way to deal with comment spam...
I`ll think about it when I get back home.
As I look forward to returning to a land with bookstores and broadband, I note this post by Cory Doctorow, linking to more science fiction published on the web.
Boing Boing - All Hugo-nominated short fiction now online
I am back in Flores for, what, the fifth time this spring. I went back to the Usumacinta, with the help of the Defensores, to rejoin Charles Golden and his team. I had missed Tecolote the first time - we dropped folks off there and continued to the site of Esmeralda, then hiked to Piedras Negras. So it was great to see the camp they have there, to see Charles and crew after their 3-day trek to Tecolote (exhausted but ready for more), and to use the last of my energy to hike straight up and over the ridge to the site.
Tecolote has the best preserved building of any I have seen that have not been restored by archaeologists. The team is just beginning to map the site and do test-pitting. They will be working another two weeks this season, as they begin to puzzle out the role the site played on the frontier between Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan.
My thanks to the Defensores de la Naturaleza, especially Javier Marquez and Rudi Del Cid, for all their help, and to the guides and guardians of the Sierra del Lacandon Park, who helped keep us oriented, alive, and well-fed.
Back in civilization for a moment, after a week with archaeologist Charles Golden and his team in the Sierra del Lacandon, along the Usumacinta River. They are surveying new Maya sites along the frontier between the ancient cities of Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras.
Highlight of the week was a trek from the small site of Esmeralda to PN, 18 kilometers through a jaguar habitat (we saw tracks), led by guides who are ex-guerillas, now employed by Guatemala´s Sierra del Lacandon Park. At Piedras Negras we were welcomed by Stephen Houston and his crew, who have returned to the site after a couple of years´absence, to continue excavations. We spent the night at the El Porvenir guards´camp, which was a safe haven for our group of rafters last month, then hiked back the next day. Charles and his folks were to start a 3-day trek to the site of Tecolote, but I caught a boat upriver (not as young as those guys) and decide to continue back to Flores to rest and do some communications. I also caught a preview screening for Guatemalan folks of this week´s National Geographic Special on the Maya, which will air on PBS on the 12th.
I´m heading back in with the next group of park guards tomorrow, to see Tecolote and continue shooting a documentary on the river. Then I am on a homeward trajectory after a strenuous and satisfying journey.