Brain Contour

Blogger Interface

The title of this post is weird. Yes, I placed the link http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif right on top. If you are reading this post, most likely you have the same problem as mine. You are trying to look for an answer as to why the “http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif” keeps appearing on your Blogger post.

Plan B book by Pete Wilson

What do you do when your dreams are shattered? What do you do when your life isn’t turning out the way you thought? What do you do when you have to turn to Plan B? These are questions author Pete Wilson asked and tried to answer in his book “Plan B.”

Everyone in the GIS Center received an email requiring us to undergo the online harassment training. The training took about 20 minutes to complete, and it was worth it. Let me share to you some of the things I read from the South Dakota Board of Regents document.

Online Harassment Training

NASA provided satellite images of Sendai, Japan before and after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit and devastated the region on March 11, 2011. The images vary in spatial resolution. One set of images came from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellite. MODIS provides daily reflectance data of the entire Earth’s surface that are specifically designed for land and water applications with spatial resolutions as small as 250 m. The other set of images came from the imaging instrument Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) flying on Terra. ASTER has a much higher spatial resolution of 15 m, which means you could see more details of the earth’s surface.

NASA Image of Tsunami Damage near Ishinomaki, Japan

The World Economic Forum’s “Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report” 2011 has been released with Switzerland topping the latest global survey among 139 countries. The top 10 countries overall that are considered the most competitive in travel and tourism are Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Canada and Singapore.

What is the rank of my dear Philippines? It placed 18th out of 26 countries in Asia Pacific. Overall, it slipped to 94th place from 86th in the 2009 rankings. Read how the Philippines fared:

The title refers to the 4-piece chicken I ordered last night at Boss Pizza and Chicken in Brookings. Having tried different chicken recipes all my life and, the fact that I came from a “chicken-eating” country, I had high expectation that my order will be served perfectly seasoned, hot and crisp, and with a twist. The chicken came hot, but overly fried. It stayed too long in the deep fryer that I could even smell the burning aroma.

Boss Pizza and Chicken

The South Dakota road conditions right now (Monday, Feb 21, 9.30am/c) are nothing but normal to me. Alright, a winter storm warning was issued yesterday and the roads are currently covered with thick snow, but what else is surprising about South Dakota? It has always been like this, as far as I can recall in all the years I have lived in this central State.

Brookings, South Dakota

I have reread the book “The Craft of Scientific Presentations” by Michael Alley. The first time I read it was four years ago when I was still starting to appreciate scientific research and writing. Fast forward: Now that I often find myself presenting my own research results to the scientific community, I realized that I still haven’t learned the basics and that there are still tons of things to know and avoid when presenting. So I scanned the pages of the book once again and listed all the critical mistakes usually committed in a scientific presentation.

Book Cover: The Craft of Scientific Presentations

1. Giving the wrong speech
This has something to do with not orienting yourself on the various fields of expertise your audience is into. Before any presentation, make a quick background information of the attendees. This way, you will have at least a general idea of whom you are talking to.