A week of extremes! It began down in sunny San Diego, where warm weather, huge surf and beautiful sunsets all came together for three days. With temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s, shorts and t-shirts were the order of the day.

Jump forward just a few days and we’re getting hit with a 2 foot snow-storm up here in New Hampshire – burying everything in a blanket of perfect white snow. You ask me which one I prefer? No contest! I’ll take the the fireplace and snow any day of the week because I get to be with my most wonderful wife and little Jake. Smile. 🙂

So you know that it is very rare that I talk about work related research that I do on my website … However, I’ve been researching a hot topic for security purposes recently called AJAX (part of the Web 2.0 initiative). I’m not going to get into what it is and the potential vulnerabilities associated with it, but I thought I would share some of the visuals of the mapping technology built using AJAX. You’re familiar with Google Maps, yes? If not, you can see that you can zoom, drag things around, and generally have fun with it.

So in my research on this topic, I was comparing the usage of AJAX between Google and MSN by using some data points from the danberall world. Take a look at the following maps:

I like the way that MSN presents the data. For example, take a look at the Satellite photo of the apartment in Waltham that Heidi and I lived in. It’s so incredibly detailed that I can know exactly whose cars those are in the parking lot.

Typical for MSN however, you can’t host the pictures on the client side like you can with Google. Secondly, you are limited to only pushing a pin in 10 spots because of URL length restrictions. Still, it’s a neat way to bookmark locations and send them to people.

If you want to go whole hog, you really need to use Google. Check out this map which shows all the domestic airports I’ve flown into in the last few years. That’s a lot of flights! Smile.

Some new pictures there from an interesting event that Heidi, Jake and I were at this past weekend. Every year here in New Hampshire, they have a massive conference called Birka. It’s put on by the Barony of Stonemarche and everyone is in costume relative to a certain pre-18th century time period. A friend of ours introduced us to the group and is a very accomplished fighter in the Heavy List. Fighters are allowed to fight with their choice of weapon with the greatest numbers wielding sword and long shields. Very fascinating …

Attendance is more than 500, with everyone dressed in very authentic looking period clothing. In fact, you’re not even allowed to attend the event without making a “reasonable attempt” at the correct garb. People pay very close attention to even the most minute details of embroidery and style.

When it comes to fighting, people wear helmets of more than 15 pounds and armor totaling an additional 20 – 30 pounds. It’s incredible to see the style and effort that goes into into both the form and dress. This particular event only featured individual fighting in the “Bear Pit”, but some other annual events re-create particular battles with battle formation and fighting groups of several hundred.

Thankfully, there were no fatalities, only minor wounds. 🙂