Unformation
The RCMP issue what might otherwise be a very useful graphic, a map showing the latest situation with regards to local states of emergency in areas hit hard by Hurrican Igor.
They just don't publish it to their own incredibly information-sparse website.
John Gushue reproduces it on his otherwise useful CBC blog, but without the vitally important colour key.
The Telegram reproduces map and legend both... but at a painfully low and entirely illegible resolution.
And VOCM also lowers the resolution of the original graphic, but if you clip and paste their version into a graphics editor, and zoom in on the text, you can just barely make out that the purple dots mark communities with declared states of emergency, while the red dots — Grand Bank, Marystown, Catalina, and Port Rexton — are described as having depleted food stocks.
It has been almost 17 years now since Al Gore invented the World Wide Web.
Labels: media monitoring
posted by WJM @ 1:58 PM
7 Comments:
Enough with the Gore myth!
That was an Al Gore joke, not an Al Gore myth.
But glad to see your mythbusting senses are finely honed. They can come in handy.
Al Gore didn't invent the Internet?
Sheesh. Next thing you'll be telling me Obama didn't copy his economic policy from the Old Man.
All jokes aside, this map is an interesting one for other reasons.
First, it comes from a federal source not the provincial government. Emergency response is a provincial responsibility.
Second, it looks like part of a GIS system that the province should have in its emergency operations centre. (BTW, where is the provincial EOC, just out of curiosity?)
This sort of tehcnology allows decision-makers to gain a very quick picture of what is going on. Each of these points should reveal (on a mouse-over perhaps) all sorts of other details. With a good GIS set-up you can add pictures, video and all sorts of links to other data.
This is the sort of information one would usually get from an emergency operations briefing rather than the sort of thing the provincial government likes to hand out (they did the same thing in 9/11 too). Their website, as Wally notes should have tons of basic info readily accesible. The fact that it doesn't reveals they still haven't sorted out very basic aspects of emergency ops nine years after The Big One. Great work gets done but it seems to happen despite upper management.
Not only did Gore not invent the Internet, but he didn't SAY he invented it either.
You both know what I meant. Don't play dumb ( as challenging as that may be).
Still not getting the joke, eh?
Sigh.
It was a jocular reference to the perception that Al Gore had claimed to invent the internet.
But I am really, really, REALLY relieved that your mythbusting radar is so finely honed. It seems to be a bit wonky in how consistently it works, though; you might to shake wipe the flux capacitors down with rubbing alcohol (the 99% kind.)
Saucy pup!
I'm glad you and EH can be so perceptually perfect all the time. Perceptually challenged folks like me can use all the help we can get. Meanwhile, I'll get working on that flux capacitor, and maybe change the quark plugs while I'm at it.
Re Al Gore, your average reader is not likely to realize the "invented the Internet" line is a muyth. Thus, your joke only reinforces that notion.
Jeez, I don't even like Gore all that much. I sound like his press agent.
No, Peter, it is just a matter that sometimes one cannot detect the humourous tone in comments, yours or mine.
You make a good point though about average readers and mythology. Too bad those of us who work diligently to explode much more damaging myths get attacked by some people.
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