2009-04-08
I love heat maps, and I think OpenStreetMap.org is an amazing idea. This is a heat map of the tile usage. It’s cool to see bright spots in South America and Africa. I’m curious as to why there isn’t a bright spot near Perth, and I guess I’ll need to sign in to get info on New Zealand, Eastern Australia, and Alaska. What’s with these maps that are always cutting on the Water Hemisphere anyway?
m.k.ge•o•mat•ics |ˌjēəˈmatiks| › CloudMade Tile Request Graphics.
2009-03-17
Some places on earth have different gravities. Gravity roughly decreases with altitude, and many things can affect it. The linked article explains that the European Space Agency are trying to get a better image of the earth’s gravitational pull. There is also some talk about how this study can help us understand climate models better.
Probe launches to map Earth’s gravity in best detail yet. (via New Scientist)
They have a disclaimer right on the webpage about copying content, so I used an image from NASA. Click through to see their video on the subject.
Some more links for you:
2009-03-12
It may seem obvious that the maps stored on GPS devices is not always correct. Not only is the data collection itself prone to error, but they are a static snapshot. Maps change overtime, new roads are built, natural disasters take out roads, and civil projects can lead many roads and towns to be at the bottom of a lake.
There was an episode of the office where one of the characters drives his car into a lake, because his GPS told him so, a clip can be found here.
The linked article doesn’t take into account error with the GPS itself. GPS error is very common, especially in areas where the signal can reflect or be distorted. A popular example of this can happen in an Urban Canyon. I have seen a GPS estimate its location as being on a major highway, when a vehicle was traveling on a frontage road, as well as some very peculiar effects biking through New York City.
While not as readable as a USA Today article, Wikipedia has a very good article up on errors in GPS reception.
Caution: GPS devices aren’t always right. (via USA Today)
2009-03-11
(T = 9:20 EDT, March 11, 2009)
If it’s not too cloudy tonight, we should be able to see the Shuttle Launch!
Weather permitting, people within about a 500-mile (800-kilometer) radius of the central Florida coast will be able to see the flare from the shuttle’s solid-fuel rocket launchers two seconds after launch for about two minutes.
From two to eight minutes after launch, Discovery’s main engines will make the shuttle seem to burn like a flickering, yellow-orange star.
People with binoculars may even be able to make out the shuttle’s V-shaped tail.
Shuttle Launch to Be Visible to Most of U.S. East Coast. (via National Geographic)
2009-03-03
RiskyRoads.org is providing maps of Fatal Accidents and DUIs. A lot of useful information!
I’ve been looking up clusters in my area. It seems that Union Blvd in East Allentown is pretty dangerous. It is a four lane road roadway with a lot of businesses and intersections.. really it seems like a pretty deadly scenario.
RiskyRoads.org Maps Fatal Accident Hot Spots. (via prweb.com)
2009-03-03
It looks like even Microsoft is picking up on the current momentum of Neogeography. This product seems to be pretty similar to its already existing MapPoint software, which is targeted at marketing and business uses, as well as some low-end GIS uses. Microsoft’s Single View Platform is targeted more to goverment applications. Microsoft has partnered with IDV Solutions to make this application, so I expect some decent results.
According to a write-up about the Single View session, SVP is designed to provide users with “a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations, and user interfaces.”
I’m curious to see how this affects the government GIS applications market.
Maps + business data = Microsoft Single View. (via zdnet microsoft blog)
2009-02-26
Those of you who talk to me on a regular basis know that I love touting Scribd as the best new document sharing service. They have a service called iPaper that lets you embed your documents anywhere.
I love Scribd for sharing documents that would otherwise sit on my hard drive unused. By serving up documents that I created, I am able to share information with people and hopefully reduce the amount of research that people need to do.
On example of a document I uploaded is below. I created a Powerpoint presentation for GIS day 2008 to help a group of students understand how Google Maps works with external data. After the presentation, the document would just sit on my hard drive. So I decided to upload it to Scribd to help out the growing GIS community on Scribd.
Anyway, Scribd was nice enough to send me an Amazon.com gift card, so I feel I should officially promote them. I don’t work for them or expect to be getting any more money, but I will definitely continue to use their service!
2009-02-19
The Vulcan project brings us a map of the US and the amount of pollution that can be found. The Vulcan project is a collaboration of a few universities, NASA, and the US D.O.E. Check out their site for more information, they do a lot of good work.
They have released a CO2 emissions map that looks like a pretty interesting application. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the right plugin for Firefox on my MacBook Pro to run this, but it looks like it is very well done, and I hope to get it up and running on windows at some point soon. Please comment on this if you are able to get it to work.
Google Earth maps carbon dioxide emissions (via LATimes.com)
UPDATE:
I reinstalled The Google Earth Plugin, and now this works! I think the problem was that I reinstalled Firefox since the last time I updated Google Earth. Anyway, it works now, and the information is very impressive. This is a screenshot from my local area. Carbon County is one of the worst polluters, and it’s all from industrial uses. So Carbon county is still aply named even after all these years! (This is Pennsylvania’s Coal region, as well as the Slate Belt, and home to many Cement Factories.)
Gurney, K.R., D. Mendoza, Y. Zhou, B. Seib, M Fischer, S. de la Rue du Can, S. Geethakumar, C. Miller (2009) “The Vulcan Project: High resolution fossil fuel combustion CO2 emissions fluxes for the United States”, http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/research.html.
2009-02-19
It looks like the Google Street View car took a detour through Bloomington, IL, and it has caught the attention of the local media
Although Google only covered a few major roads, the local newspaper is encouraging readers to go out and look for people they know, and try to figure out when the car came through.
It’s kind of a cool idea to use Google Maps as a town-wide Scavenger Hunt. I’d like to see how this turns out!
Pantagraph.com | News | Mysteries abound as Bloomington finally shows up on Google Street View. (via Pantagraph.com)
2009-02-18
Ok, so this has got to be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen made out Pipe Cleaners:
It’s the Boston T map! I think they should hang these on the trains. Please click through below for more information on this awesome creation:
|
