Atanas Entchev – Donate to help

I’ve lifted this directly from his blog:

A Plea For Help

After living legally in the United States for over 20 years, I was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on an immigration charge, and am currently facing deportation. My son Eni, 21, who came to the United States at the age of two, is also detained and wears an orange jumpsuit through no fault of his own. We continue to pursue all possible legal avenues to remain in the US – our home.

However, our 18-year immigration ordeal has depleted our resources. My detention is about to cripple my small IT consulting business. We cannot keep up with our growing expenses, and I have no other choice but to turn to the community for help.

I ask friends and sympathizers of our cause to donate to our legal fund. No donation is too small. Please spread the word.

Thank you for your kindness, and God bless you.

Posted for Atanas Entchev, by his daughter, Christina

Atanas Entchev

It is disturbing to hear this happen to Atanas.  There is a Paypal donation link on his blog to fund his legal defense and I’d urge everyone reading this to give at least a few dollars.  What I do know about Atanas is that he would be the first to give to anyone else’s cause so we should pay him back in kind.

ArcGIS software for $100

You may be interested to know that ESRI, developer and supplier of one of the most popular commercial GIS software, also offers a home use licence for a suite of its products. For a $100 annual fee, the ArcGIS for Home Use 12-month term license includes:

  • ArcView
  • ArcGIS 3D Analyst
  • ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst
  • ArcGIS Network Analyst
  • ArcGIS Publisher
  • ArcGIS Schematics
  • ArcGIS Spatial Analyst
  • ArcGIS Tracking Analyst

This offer is available to anyone. The catch is that the software is supplied only for non-commercial, self-education purposes. For any other use, you have to pay many thousands of dollars to acquire the software.

This is a similar program that Microsoft introduced a long time ago for its Office suite of software products. For example, if your employer has purchased Microsoft Office for use within the organisation, you can obtain the same software package for home use for under $50.

The ArcGIS for Home Use program is available worldwide. Customers in the United States can order it online. Customers outside the United States should contact their local distributor .

The Hurricane Irene did more than $10 billion in damage

 

While Hurricane Irene didn’t strike the United States with as much force as many had predicted, it was still a substantial storm that claimed 54 lives and did more than $10 billion in damage.

GEB reader Noel has taken some of the imagery from NOAA’s Hurricane Irene Project Index Page and assembled them as image overlays in Google Earth. Some of the the imagery is quite striking, such as this image of a section of Highway 12 being washed away on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

 

road.jpg 

Highway 12 is the only road that connects Hatteras Island to the mainland, and this destruction has left 2,500 residents stranded on the island. There is an emergency ferry now in place to shuttle emergency personnel to and from the island, and no injuries have been reported.