November 7, 2017 / Le 7 novembre 2017
Association News / Nouvelles des associations
ALSA Webinar - Avoid Being Hacked, Protect Your Clients' Data
Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association

ALSA is hosting a two part IT related webinar to help you avoid being hacked and to protect your clients’ data:

Part 1 – November 30, 2017
Part 2 – December 14, 2017
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Mountain time
Please connect at 11:45 a.m. so the webinar can start at noon.

For details and to register please visit here.

Part 1 – November 30, 2017
  • Secure backups of personal data
  • Securing client information
  • Safe web browsing and online transactions.

Part 2 – December 14, 2017
  • Data intrusion avoidance
  • E-mail attachments and what to do with them
  • Passwords and how to create them
  • Viruses vs. malware, know the differences in available protection.
In the Media / Dans les médias
Author Barbara Mitchell's new book Mapmaker a personal journey of discovery
The Peterborough Examiner
Local writer Barbara Mitchell says she's "an unadverturous canoeist" who happens to be descended from an Englishman who traversed some of this country's most treacherous rapids by canoe, with Cree guides, in the late 1700s.
Philip Turnor was the first inland surveyor for the Hudson's Bay Co. who travelled 25,000 kilometres by canoe and by foot with his Cree wife between 1778 and 1792. Read more
Public, private land boundaries blur in rural Central Ore.
Bristol Herald Courier
ALFALFA, Ore. (AP) — In the juniper forests east of Bend, the landscape becomes a chaotic checkerboard of private property and public land, with rural subdivisions butting up against land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Sometimes, the lines between public and private property get blurred.
In one such instance, an unnamed dirt road has served several homes in the Juniper Acres area, east of Alfalfa, for around 50 years. But thanks to an incorrect survey, the road was graded a few feet away from where it should have been. As a result, the road, and possibly portions of some of the homes, are private property built on public land. Read more
The Compass Meridian Stones of Frederick, Maryland
The American Surveyor
The Past Is Prologue
This motto of the National Archives of the United States is particularly significant to the profession of Land Surveying. In our daily work, Land Surveyors search for previous Surveyors' evidence. We use it in our surveys and designs, which then stand as introductions to some future surveyor's efforts. Because we routinely straddle the present with one leg in the past and the other in the future, we tend to take the importance of what we do for granted, often not realizing its significance.
But Lawrence Brengle and Thomas Woodrow knew. Brengle first served as Frederick County Surveyor and as a Commissioner in 1817, becoming Mayor of "Frederick Town" in 1820. While surveying the squares, streets and range of lots of the Town back in 1817, it became apparent to Brengle that, despite his careful efforts, mismeasurements were present. Read more
Why Bill S-229 needs to be amended
La raison : d’apporter des modifications au projet de loi s-229
Une panne majeure a touché 270 000 clients à Montréal
maPresse
Un câble sectionné ou détaché par un employé d'Hydro-Québec ou de l'un de ses fournisseurs est à l'origine d'une panne majeure qui a touché environ 270 000 personnes sur l'île de Montréal mardi matin.
La panne a frappé des résidants de Pointe-aux-Trembles, Rivière-des-Prairies, Ahuntsic, Montréal-Nord, une partie du Plateau Mont-Royal, Rosemont ainsi que Villeray, en plus de provoquer un arrêt de service prolongé sur la ligne bleue du métro de Montréal. Lire plus

Communiquez avec Helen Derry pour voir comment vous pouvez appuyer fermement le point de vue de Géomètres professionnels du Canada et milite pour que des modifications soient apportées au projet de loi S-229, la Loi visant à accroître la sûreté des infrastructures souterraines.

Contact Helen Derry to see how you can support the position of Professional Surveyors Canada, advocating for amendments to the Underground Infrastructure Safety Enhancement Act, Bill S-229.

Power restored after widespread outage leaves thousands of Montrealers in the dark
At the height of the outage, 275,000 customers were without electricity
CBC News
Power has been restored to all but a handful of thousands of Hydro-Quebec customers who were left without electricity in Montreal this morning after a widespread outage
The outage began around 8:50 a.m., when a worker cut a cable at one of the island's main power distribution stations, according to Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Serge Abergel.
It's still unclear whether a private contractor or Hydro crews on the ground cut the cord, though Abergel said preliminary information indicates it was the former. Read more
Water board official says underwater maps of Valley lakes would be helpful
The Daily Courier, Kelowna, BC
New and highly accurate underwater maps could help with flood control and weed mitigation in Okanagan lakes, officials says.
The underwater imagery, captured with sophisticated radar and sonar systems, would show the subsurface contours of the lakes, identify concentrations of Eurasian milfoil and aid in calculating precisely how much water is in the Okanagan drainage system. Read more
Rare surviving 17th-Century wall map of Australia discovered, is one of two
A RARE map of Australia that is only one of two left in the world has been found in an attic after it was thought to be lost.
news.com.au
A “PRICELESS” rare map of Australia that was understood to be lost forever has been discovered in an attic and returned to its permanent home.
Unearthed in 2010 in storage in Sweden where it spent most of its life, the 350-year-old map, Archipelagus Orientalis (Eastern Archipelago), was created by renowned cartographer, Joan Blaeu, in 1659. Read more
Vancouver defers decision on contentious Chinatown development
The proposed condo at 105 Keefer Street was pitched by the Beedie Development Group in 2013
CBC News | British Columbia
After five attempts over three years, a proposal to build a mixed-use tower in the heart of Vancouver's Chinatown has been delayed for a week.
The city's development permit board deferred its decision on the project — which would be on land owned by the Beedie Group — following a public hearing Monday, during which dozens of speakers voiced their opinion on the project. Read more
The cartographers
small questions
The Chronicle
This week’s small question: how far can I stretch the definition of a column before my editor stops printing me? Let’s find out. Here’s a story a stranger once told me in Lilly library. I was waiting on a surprisingly comfortable wooden bench for a librarian to see if they had any copies of a book I was interested in in the stacks, when a man in a t-shirt sat down next to me. He looked young enough to be a student, but could have been anyone, really. After a moment of polite silence, he asked me if I wanted to hear a story. I don’t remember replying. I do remember the story: Read more
Mason-Dixon festival in W.Va. celebrates 250th anniversary of survey's completion
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon ended their survey of the southern border of Pennsylvania 250 years ago in October, built a modest monument on top of Brown's Hill, and then returned to Philadelphia.
Largely through the efforts of one man, Pete Zapdka, this event was celebrated this year at the Mason-Dixon Historical Park in Core, W.Va., with a very impressive festival.  Read more
Update from Horizon September 5 issue:

Surveyor could go to jail if he doesn’t testify at Bibb, Monroe border hearing
The Telegraph
A judge has ruled that the surveyor in the Monroe County and Bibb County border case is required to testify in next month’s hearing.
The Fayette County judge’s court order says surveyor Terry Scarborough can be found in contempt if he fails to honor the subpoena issued by Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Scarborough apparently ignored a subpoena to testify at an August evidentiary hearing on the boundary lines between the two Middle Georgia counties. Read more
International News / Informations internationales
Craven curiosity
Craven Herald & Pioneer
BOTH Philip Cox and Rita Hindle correctly suggested last week's Craven curiosity was a measuring chain. Philip added it measured 66 feet, or 22 yards, while Rita said ten chains would have equalled a furlong.
Experts at Craven Museum, where it is on show, tell us it is a surveyor’s measuring chain which was used for surveying land that was to be used in the lead mining industry.  Read more
Why South Australia's borders are anything but straight
There are dog-legs, curves and even boundaries that do not line up in the borders of South Australia.
ABC Radio Adelaide
South Australia's surveyor-general Michael Burdett said although a little wonky by today's standards, the accuracy of the borders was pretty impressive given the tools used to create them.
"Back in the mid-1800s, the technology was a long way from where we are today," he said.
"They were using sextants, circumferentors and low-level theodolites to try and do their work."
And the conditions the surveyors had to work in were brutal. Read more
Tech News / Nouvelles techno
Paiement mobile: un système de sécurité sous-estimé
maPresse
Depuis quelques années, on peut inscrire sa carte de crédit dans une application et ainsi payer ses achats avec son téléphone chez les commerçants qui utilisent des systèmes comme PayPass et PayWave. De grandes entreprises, comme Air Canada, commencent aussi à intégrer dans leurs applications ces solutions de paiement mobile. Or, seulement 29 % des utilisateurs de téléphone intelligent au Canada utilisent ces technologies. C'est que plusieurs consommateurs se disent encore méfiants, mais ont-ils raison ? Lire plus
Une technologie pour véhicule autonome
laVoixdel'Est
L'idée : développer un système de détection optique capable de fonctionner dans n'importe quelles conditions avec une interprétation des données en temps réel.
Les mots Leddar et LiDAR ne vous disent rien. Vous ne prendrez probablement jamais un des modules de cette technologie dans vos mains, mais votre prochain véhicule pourrait bien être doté de la technologie développée et brevetée de l'entreprise LeddarTech, basée à Québec.
Il s'agit d'un système de télédétection optique basée sur des logiciels et des algorithmes ou comme l'indique le site web de l'entreprise c'est «une technologie de détection et de télémétrie LiDAR (light detection and ranging) qui peut détecter, localiser et mesurer des objets, y compris des liquides et des personnes dans un champ de vision donné».  Lire plus
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Please contact Helen Derry, Administrative Coordinator for information.

Pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez communiquer avec Helen Derry, Coordinatrice administrative.