All the emerging standards for simple markup and syndication of location are Earth-centric (and sometimes just US/North American-centric). Granted, most people are probably only interested in locations that they can actually go to anytime soon.

However, with the increasing number of interplanetary rovers, observations of moons, and perhaps future excursions, it is still useful to define how to properly handle these other reference frames. Luna and Mars are two suggested Microformats that are starting the discussion on how one might mark locations on the two bodies. Additionally, the OGC is working now on determining standards for scientists and developers to publish and share data sources of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, ‘oh my’.

And why does the Earth have to be the only one with cool, “slippy maps”. I quickly put together a map of Mars. It uses the powerful OpenLayers Javascript mapping library to display the tiles from a NASA WMS server.

To produce the locations for the map, I put up a Space Blog, using WordPress and a slightly modified GeoPress to publish Mars lander locations and landing dates. I altered the published Microformats produced by GeoPress to make the class “geo mars” as a suggested way to markup Mars coordinates. The published GeoRSS feeds from the Space Blog then produce the locations and layers automatically on the OpenLayers Mars Map.

To Do: CRS and You

So this is all very neat, and in the end, really easy to setup. However, this is just a demonstration and in no way should be construed as “the way to do it”. Specifically, there are these questions left unanswered:

1. How to define the Microformat and GeoRSS for non-Earth (and non-WGS84) reference frames
2. How to define the Microformats and GeoRSS/Geonames location for non-Earth locations (like “Ares Vallis”)
3. More sources for interplanetary map servers
4. Ways to syndicate, and subscribe to, specific bodies
5. Support for publishing, consuming, and drawing lines – in order to plot out mission profiles
6. Support for publishing, consuming, and drawing areas – in order to plot out mission profiles, landing sites, and expected areas of “mission failures”

I’m sure there are more issues, so please speak up. You know who you space geeks are.

I’m learning the power that is TextMate (like Emacs, but prettier). TextMate really is setting itself up to be a rather decent OS for editing. From within TextMate I can blog, keep a todo list, program in any number of languages, WYSIWYG webpage editing, and calendaring. Heck, mix TextMate and Quicksilver and who *needs* Finder. I picked up the new Pragmatic Programmer’s TextMate book to learn more of the underpinnings and how to stop repeating myself with simple tasks.

Like my thoughts on why plugins make, TextMate has excellent support via bundles (over 124 of them). However, the only way to get to these is via subversion. This is nice because it keeps me up to date, but is a little annoying having to get the subversion command right and path all the time.

So I wrote a small shell script to grab a bundle, get_tmbundle:

#!/bin/bash
svn --username anon --password anon co http://macromates.com\
/svn/Bundles/trunk/Bundles/$1.tmbundle ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/$1.tmbundle

I can then $ get_bundle AppleScript to get a new bundle installed.

You could also use the getBundle Bundle, but that seems like cheating. Of course, getBundle also has an AutoUpdater and is baked into TextMate as a bundle itself (how deep does the Rabbit Hole go?)

Technorati Tags: mac os x, macosx, programming, subversion, textediting, textmate

Andri Snaer talks about how last night, all the lights were turned off in INSERT_ADDRESS. Then a famous astronomer talked about the night sky over the radio for people to enjoy the natural beauty of the cosmos.

I think this is a simply marvelous idea. I’ve been in several European cities when they’ve had “Car Free days”, most recently in Brussels during EuroOSCON. The idea is one day of the week that everyone will go car free, and enjoy the relative quiet and easy biking/strolling about town.

Overall, I am an idealistic technocrat. I really enjoy technology, gadgets, programming, etc. However, I also enjoy natural beauty and the environment as it is. I hope that towns here in the US start promoting these sorts of activities. I mean, what’s the worse that can happen, people actually think its a good idea and turn off their lights at night?

For your Friday Enjoyment: CSS Solar System (is that CSS again as a recursive Acronym?)

This was done with the increasingly popular jQuery, an up-and-coming javascript framework/library. (via Dr. Nic)

By popular demand (ok, one request), I am putting up instructions on how to have your del.icio.us links posted daily to your blog.

I like this, as feed readers then have a succinct list of interesting sites to show (rather than a sidebar, who goes to a blog anymore?). A list of links is often more interesting than some half-written paragraph of diatribe just to get to the point. (case in point).

How to setup del.icio.us to post daily links

1. Log into del.icio.us
2. On the right-side, under “experimental”, choose “daily blog posting”
3. Click “add new thingy” (yes, it really says “thingy”, those crazy del.icio.users
4. Fill in the form as appropriate, here is an example:
   • job_name: DailyLinks
   • out_name: (blog user – e.g. delicious)
   • out_pass: (blog password for that user)
   • out_url: http://highearthorbit.com/xmlrpc.php
   • out_time: 3 (approx time to post, in GMT)
   • out_blog_id: (leave this blank)
   • out_cat_id: (category id, look at the id in your blogging software)
5. Click “Submit Query”

Sometime within the appointed hour (they’re spaced out so neither del.icio.us’s servers, or ping services, are flooded ‘on the hour’) your new links will be posted.

For this blog, I created a new user, gave that user Author privileges, and created a specific category, bookmarks