Save The Date: The 2nd Six-State Government Information Conference Coming in August 2012

After the success of the first Six-State Government Information Conference in 2010, the University of Colorado Boulder, in conjunction with its partners in the six-state region, is pleased to announce that the 2012 Six-State Government Information Conference will be held virtually August 8-10 of this year.

The 2012 keynote speaker will be Malcolm Byrne, Deputy Director and Director of Research for the National Security Archive.  The National Security Archive is, according to its Web site, an "independent, non-government research institute and library" that specializes in the publication of declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  

Mr. Byrne has worked at the Archive since 1986. In addition to his contributions listed at the NSA Web site, Mr. Byrne "currently directs the Openness in Russia and Eastern Europe Project, and the U.S.-Iran Relations Project, both of which promote multinational and multi-archival approaches to the study of recent, controversial historical events. Previously, he served as co-director of the Iran-contra documentation project, and coordinated the Archive's project on U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War." 

Mr. Byrne's keynote address will be Thursday, August 9th, 11:00 a.m. MST.

Please visit the Six-State Government Information Conference Web site for information about conference registration, use of the Adobe Connect software to participate remotely, and for details on conference submissions, planned speakers, and the integration of social media throughout the three-day event.  Details are being added to the site as they become available.

A Stunning Real-Time Surface Wind Map

Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, leaders of Google's "Big Picture" visualization research group and owners of the hint.fm Web site, have found an ingenious and beautiful use for the real-time surface wind data compiled by the National Digital Forecast Database.

Using the NDFD -- which is explicitly a database "available for members of the public to use in creating text, graphic, gridded and image products of their own"  -- Viégas and Wattenberg created a animated, zoom-able map that displays, in real-time, surface wind speeds across the United States.

The HINT.fm Real-Time Wind Map

The end result has gained positive attention from multiple media outlets, including CNET, MIT's Alumni News site, and io9 and is hypnotizing to watch.

Here is one public user's experience with the site.

The NDFD, a product of the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, consists of "gridded forecasts of sensible weather elements (e.g., cloud cover, maximum temperature)" and "a seamless mosaic of digital forecasts from NWS field offices working in collaboration with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)."


The National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) was designed to provide access to weather forecasts in digital form from a central location. 

NASA's Joke Goes Over Everyone's Head

On Sunday this week, NASA posted details of a new mission involving the craft currently orbiting the planet Mercury called MESSENGER or "MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging."

The mission, PIA 15542, or "Mooning Mercury" to the layearthling, centers on a newly discovered natural satellite (moon) measuring 230 ft. across at a distance of about 8,890 miles above the planet.  The proposed name for this moon is Caduceus.

The very, very, very small moon, Caduceus.

The mission description goes on to say that rather than study this moon, as they might normally do, NASA had another plan.  It goes like this...

...The new plan is to use the remaining propellant to crash MESSENGER into Caduceus. "Our detailed analysis tells us that if we act now, and with the right trajectory, MESSENGER will impart just enough momentum to the moon to break it free of Mercury's gravity well and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite," said Panini.

...If Caduceus is successfully released from the pull of Mercury and placed on a course to reach Earth, we can expect the moon to arrive at Earth by 2014. "The risk to the public is reassuringly small", offers MESSENGER mission design lead Adam McJames. "We have designed a trajectory that will bring the moon to Earth at a remote location on the Wilkes Land ice sheet in Antarctica. This trajectory will avoid all population centers and will put the moon's impact site within reach for retrieval by the scientific staff at the U.S.-operated McMurdo Station."

In other words, something a little like the plot of the 1979 movie, "Meteor."

If you don't think about the odds of being able to map that trajectory so specifically across the minimum 48,000,000 miles between Earth and Mercury, this all sounds well and good, but NASA gives its joke away with in love of acronyms.

If successful, MESSENGER's extended extended MIN-C mission will mark the first instance of the documented arrival to Earth of material from the Mercury system. Moreover, it will serve as the basis for a new Discovery-class mission proposal currently in development by the Applied Psychics Laboratory for a Mercury lander mission for in situ X-ray analysis of surface composition. That mission is to be named the Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays.

That's right.  The mission's name is H.O.A.X.  At least when NASA makes a joke, they do it big.  Happy April Fool's Day.

* * * * 

In related news that is not so enjoyable, NASA has begun the process of decommissioning the Space Shuttles and their overall program.  President George W. Bush first called for the retirement of the shuttle program in January of 2004, in the aftermath of the shuttle Columbia accident and its disintegration over Texas during atmospheric re-entry.  In speaking about a new focus for NASA on the International Space Station, Bush said:

Excerpt of  President Bush's 2004 remarks to NASA, announcing the
retirement of the shuttle program.

The photoblog In Focus, from The Atlantic Monthly, has compiled a series of images from the dismantling and preparation for display of shuttles Discovery and Endeavor as well as of the launching pads, cargo bays, and propulsion systems.  It is good-bye, for now, to American manned spaceflight.

Click on these images to visit the In Focus set.

Reminder: The 1940 U.S. Census to be Released on Monday, April 2

We've written previously on the upcoming release of the 1940 U.S. Census, and we are hardly the only ones excited by the issue.  Staff at the State Library of North Carolina are planning a 1940's themed party around the release, complete with music, clothing, and toys on display from the era.

The State Library staff were also interviewed by their local public radio station for a segment that highlights the kinds of information to be found in the data release.  If you're curious as to why people get so excited about the released of new Census data, click on the image below and stream their interview.  The interview provides an excellent context for the historic importance and value to researchers of this Census data.

And don't forget to visit the National Archives and Records Administration (that's NARA to me and you) April Second to search these records of an America from just before World War II and the subsequent post-War Baby Boom.  The opportunity to compare it to the 1950 Census data is only ten years away!

The Watergate Break-In Turns 40 in May -- Celebrate with The Beastie Boys

The break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on May 28, 1972, was the beginning of a series of events that would culminate in the eventual resignation of then-president Richard M. Nixon -- the first time a sitting had U.S. president had resigned from the office.

Bob Woodward's Washington Post article on the 2nd, June 17, 1972 Watergate break-in.
From ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Since that time, not only has "Watergate" become an adjective synonymous with government corruption, but the standard -- and the standard journalistic phrase -- against which every subsequent presidential scandal is measured. Whether it has been William Clinton's "Lewinsky-gate,"  Hilary Clinton's "Whitewater," Ronald Reagan's "October Surprise,"  or George W. Bush's quest for the "weapons of mass destruction" that initiated the war in Iraq, every political journalist has aspired to uncover a story with as much staying power and cultural impact as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate.

The original cover to the 1974 book.

Wikipedia offers an excellent brief summary of the events and repercussions stemming from the Watergate scandal, and reading the piece offers the opportunity to gauge the weight of events that have become, to a modern audience, commonplace examples of government corruption.  But the writing that broke the story was the investigative journalism of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward for The Washington Post, later re-purposed for a book and film treatment:  All The President's Men.

In a stroke of more cross-cultural brilliance, Vimeo user Jeff Yorke has taken the tense pace of the 1974 film and married it to a soundtrack that speaks to empowerment in the face in injustice, the 1994 track from The Beastie Boys: "Sabotage."  (This video should be played in full-screen mode with the volume up loud to full understand the power of the Fourth Estate.)

JY CINEMASHUP - All the President's Boys from Jeff Yorkes on Vimeo.

Read more about it!
If you are interested in the rich history of the Watergate affair, its effect on contemporary journalism, or how it changed the political climate of the United States perhaps forever, there are a wealth of primary sources and compiled documents relating to the scandal available at Norlin Library, as well as dozens of secondary histories.

The book "All the President's Men," co-authored by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, is available at Norlin Library, as is the screenplay of the film, authored by well-known Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman.  The 1976 film is available through Prospector.  Norlin does hold the 2008 film, Frost/Nixon, which dramatizes Nixon's famous remark "that when the President does it, it's not illegal."

The Gerald R. Ford Library & Museum Web site offers an expansive timeline of events, from the May 28, 1972 burglary of the DNC headquarters through to President Gerald Ford's pardon of the disgraced Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974.

Playable audio files and transcripts of the Nixon White House tapes and the Watergate Trial tapes are available from the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum Web site.

Clearly, this massive topic can be explored, recreated, and remixed in any number of ways.  But mapping it all to The Beastie Boys is a bit of creative genius*.

*The Beastie Boys video came to our attention via a tip by an investigative internet user in Arlington, Va., Sarah Mercure. Thanks for the suggestion, Sarah!