VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

“Spooks, like scientists, need to keep an eye on the future. So when a veteran researcher at the CIA extols the virtues of the latest tools on the Internet, it is worth tapping in to his thoughts. Calvin Andrus, head of the CIA’s unit for collaboration technologies, set out his stall in September’s Studies in Intelligence with a paper entitled ‘The wiki and the blog: toward a complex adaptive intelligence community’. Intelligence officers, he argues, should have access both to online (though obviously restricted) blogs on which they can record their experiences and insights, and to wikis – websites that can be edited by a community. Such tools could transform the responsiveness of the intelligence community, helping isolated officers to comment on each other’s ideas and to collate rapidly breaking data and information.

“This week’s News Features look at what wikis, blogs and other technologies may mean for the future of scientific beyond the confines of scientific journals. These tools offer fresh opportunities both before publication, when people are debating ideas and hypotheses, and after, when they are finding and discussing published results. They also provide scientists with exciting new possibilities for communicating with policy-makers and the public…”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438547a.html

OUR BLOG AND YOURS

Do you keep a blog? We hope so, for you read the things we write about and are therefore interested in the subjects that interest us. We are flattered, and we’d also very much like to read what you write about.

We don’t register on big globes of blogs for it may take us all day to examine all of them, and we might not understand much of it. Therefore, we hope you will send us the address of what you’ve written even remotely connected with the forest economy of the eastern United States. We’d also like to have permission to quote you, and we promise not to argue with you, in print or otherwise.

“HOW DO GPS DEVICES WORK?”
by Alfred Leick, author of GPS Satellite Surveying

Our title and quotes below are from an answer posted on the Internet site of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN on 11/28/05:

“The Global Positioning System (GPS) consists of 24 operating satellites and several spares. Some of these spares satellites are also in use or can readily be activated once an operating satellite becomes dysfunctional. Taking the specific orbits of this many satellites into consideration, an observer can see at least four satellites at any time from any location on the earth…

“A closer look at the underlying theories and techniques readily reveals that GPS positioning is not at all simple. This may be of little interest to hikers and motorists who use GPS to get from here to there. But for scientists, GPS is a utility with an endless list of applications, ranging from ionospheric and tropospheric studies to earth crust deformations. The list is equally long for engineering applications. GPS has truly become a national utility.”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?chanID=sa005&articleID=000349D4-D6FC-1CFC-93F6809EC5880000&topic_id=5

“ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SHOPPERS”

Our title and quotes below are from The Economist 12/3-9/05 print edition:

“The reason for corporate America’s new-found interest in religion is simple: the market is booming. Packaged Facts, a market-research company, estimates that the ‘religious products’ market was worth $8.6 billion in 2003 and will grow to $8.6 billion in 2008. Christian radio has seen its market share expand from 2.2% in 1999 to 5.5% today. The Association of American Publishers reports that the market for religious books grew by 37% in 2003. The definition of religious books is vague – but religious publishing is undoubtedly growing much faster than the industry as a whole. “Even if the religious bit of the media industry is still relatively small, it accounts for a disproportionate share of the ‘mega-hits.’ The ‘Left Behind’ series of novels on the end of days has brought in $650m. Bantam Dell, a mainstream publisher owned by Germany’s Bertelsmann, has reportedly paid Tim La Haye an advance of $45m for the next series. ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren, an evangelical preacher, is the best-selling hardcover book in American history, with more than 25m copies sold. Christian blockbusters are dragging a huge flotilla of other Christian products in their wake – from ‘praise the Lord backpacks’, in camouflage colours, to Christian dieting books such as Don Colbert’s “What Would Jesus Eat”…

“The religious market comes with a ready-made distribution channel in the form of churches (America has more than 330,000 of the Protestant variety alone). Larry Ross, the head of A. Larry Ross Communications in Dallas, Texas, which specializes in the religious market, points out that films based on the “Left Behind” series became hits without ever being screened in cinemas; churches showed them. Religious Americans also do much of the marketing themselves, spreading the message by word of mouth. Mr. Gibson promoted “The Passion” by talking to prominent religious figures, who then encouraged their flocks to purchase large blocks of tickets. “The Purpose Driven Life” became a best-seller because it became a staple of church sermons and church study-groups…

“One company warmly approved of by Evangelicals is Chick-fil-A, a chain of chicken restaurants whose management is so devout that it closes all its restaurants on Sundays. This is not a strategy that would be recommended at the average business school. But it has proved no bar to the success of Chick-fil-A, which racked up sales of $1.74 billion last year across the United States. The company is now one of the fastest-growing chains in America, but proclaims that its ‘first priority…has never been just to serve chicken. It is to serve a higher calling.’ Its story is explained by the company founder S. Truett, in his book Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People…

To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=5259490

“CHANGING SCIENCE”

Our title and quotes below are from an article posted on The Economist Internet site on 12/7/05:

“The climate changes. It always has done and it always will. In the past 2m years the temperature has gone up and down like a yo-yo as ice ages have alternated with warmer interglacial periods…

“Detection is, nevertheless, important, because the climate seems particularly changeable at the moment. Moreover, forming sensible policies towards climate change, as this week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal aspires to do, depends on knowing what is going on. Fortunately, the past year has seen the publication of a series of results that help to disentangle signal and noise…

“…One other carbon-sequestration technology exists, and it is a tried and tested one – photosynthesis. Plants form themselves literally out of thin air, combining carbon dioxide, water and the energy of sunlight to give themselves substance. Photosynthetic carbon sequestration is a game that anyone, rich or poor, can play.

“According to David Kaimowitz of the Centre for International Forestry Research, an intergovernmental organization, 15-20% of greenhouse-gas emissions caused by human activity are the result of the degradation and destruction of forests. Simply replanting the equivalent of what is being lost would thus make a useful subwedge. Indeed, an annex to the Kyoto agreement allows rich countries to pay poor ones to do just that, instead of cutting their own emissions. Not every good idea has to be a new one.”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/agenda/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=5277673

USED BOOK SALES

We offer for sale all books listed at http://www.vardaman.com/booksale.php.

OUR SYSTEM FOR BUYING OR SELLING LAND OR TIMBER

For the details, click on http://www.vardaman.com and then on the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” You can offer to buy or sell timber or land. You must post the general area of your interest; be sure to include the state. You must also post your E-MAIL ADDRESS and the URL of your Internet site. Our tracking report will not report the number of visitors UNLESS you enter your URL. If you are selling, you should post the name of the tract. When you have entered all details, click on “Submit,” and what you just entered will appear on our Internet site at the bottom of the page under the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” Be sure to check for and correct errors.

For each tract posted after 05/12/05 and whose owner posted his URL, we charge $0.25 for each visit his ad receives. On each Friday at 0900 Central Time, we will e-mail him a bill for $0.25 for each visit his ad received during the week just ended. You can pay us by e-mailing the money to “Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company” at PayPal or mailing it to P.O. Box 12293, Jackson, MS 39236. We will delete your ad when your payments cease. The new fee schedule does not apply to tracts marked with asterisks::

SELL LAND OR TIMBER

For 107-A. tract in GA, click on http://www.Buythisfsbo.com/pineplantation/
For 2071A. tract in TN, click on Doktortombstone@aol.com

BUY LAND

*For tracts in SC, send e-mail to loblolly@surfbvi.com
For tracts in SC, send e-mail to rich@CHRISTOPHERRADKO.COM
For tracts in MD, send e-mail to meyerstm@comcast.net
For tracts in MA, send e-mail to leonelmtz65@hotmail.com
For tracts in OR, send e-mail to 7200moore@charter.net
For tracts in OR, send e-mail to ptodd@orclinic.com
For tracts in FL, send e-mail to hot63vdub@hotmail.com
For tracts in TX, send e-mail to reedkimbley@hotmail.com
For tracts in TN, send e-mail to Doktortombstone@aol.com

BUY TIMBER

*For tracts in AR, send e-mail to dyork@digitalpassage.com
*For tracts in IL, send e-mail to psftimber@hotmail.com

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VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

All Friday Reports are posted at www.vardaman.com/friday.php