Date archive for November, 2009
November 18, 2009 Ordnance Survey Data to be Made Freely AvailableDataA press release from the British government entitled “Re-mapping the future for Ordnance Survey – making public data public” has announced that the Ordnance Survey will “will open up its data relating to electoral and local authority boundaries, postcode areas and mid scale mapping information.” The announcement comes after a protracted battle by groups such ... read more November 17, 2009 Senators’ STATEmentsGeographyNational Geographic as part of their kick-off for this year’s Geography Awareness Week, asked all one hundred senators from the fifty United States to draw a map of their state by hand. The request dovetailed into this year’s theme of Get Lost in Mapping: Find Your Place in the World. Each senator was only asked ... read more  ESRI Launches a GIS WikiCommunityESRI has launched a wiki today at http://wiki.gis.com. The effort is fairly new and the wiki hasn’t been promoted much yet by ESRI, I found out about the wiki from a Tweet by @mikehogan who works at ESRI. A visit to the GIS.com home page doesn’t reveal the existence of this wiki. I would assume that’s ... read more November 15, 2009 GIS Day 2009 – Happy Geography Awareness WeekCommunityEach year since 1987 thanks to a presidential proclamation, the third week of November has been celebrated as Geography Awareness Week. The main sponsor of Geography Awareness Week has been the National Geographic Society which uses the week as a vehicle to promote geographic literacy in schools and communities. This year, the theme is “Get Lost ... read more November 14, 2009 Map-HoleMapsDesigner Jiae Kwon has proposed an alternative to using personal navigation devices for making your way around a locale: Map-Hole is a new road guidance tool designed to direct pedestrians and travelers to their final destination using existing elements in the urban landscape. It locates the pedestrian with a starting point and provides information on ... read more November 13, 2009Geography of Money CountingGeographyEver stop to think about how other cultures count paper money? This video reveals a fascinating range of money county styles, some of which seem to require some serious dexterity to manage. Unfortunately there’s no information about how the video was produced or what research was done to determine how money counting varies by region. ... read more November 12, 2009 Thematic Mapping at the US County Level with Free ToolsCartography, Free GISThe FlowingData site has a post with instructions from Nathan Yau on how to create “a simple map without all the GIS stuff“ of the United States at the county level using free tools. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on unemployment rates, Yau provides the steps necessary to use a SVG map showing ... read more PolicyMap Now Offers WidgetsDataPolicyMap is now offering widgets which will allow users to embed fully interactive maps into their web sites (read the press release here): PolicyMap has the unique ability to display data at a variety of geographies like block groups, census tracts, zip codes, congressional districts, cities, counties, MSAs, school districts and, of course, addresses. As ... read more November 11, 2009 Totem Map Maker Shutting DownMapsMost have never heard of Totem Publications which produces maps for the Western Washington state area. The small map maker shut their storefront location and is selling off all of their stock. What makes the closure of such a small enterprise and others like them notable, is the loss of knowledge about the local geography. ... read more BattleCellGIS NewsBattleCell is a social wargame that is built on top of Google Maps. The world is divided into 55 million cells. When you sign up to play the game you are given just one of those cells. Conquer more cells around you to build your empire. There’s a 5 minute video presentation that sets the ... read more |
