Twitter and GIS
Fred Dominguez was able to attend the recent URISA conference in Anaheim, and passed a very nice presentation along discussing the integration of Twitter and GIS.
Thanks Fred!
Here is the presentation.
Archive for Links
Santa Clara County releases its Geodata
This is a fairly major resolution of this case – it concerns GIS practitioners and governments maintaining GIS data across California.
Santa Clara County Releases Its Geodata
September 16, 2009
After a three year legal battle, Santa Clara County finally provided a copy of its GIS parcel basemap data to the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) in compliance with California’s Public Record Act (PRA). Decisions from both the California Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal clearly affirmed that public agencies must provide their geodata in accordance with the PRA (California Government Codes §6250-6259). Generally, agencies can not charge a requestor of their geodata more than the direct cost of duplication, and they can not restrict how a requestor can use or redistribute the data. Santa Clara County had been selling its geodata for $ 158,000; the cost CFAC finally paid was $ 3.10 per disk, plus shipping.
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California’s “Unofficial” Stimulus Map
Here is a link to California’s “Unofficial” Stimulus Map…but it does sit on one of their websites, with this disclaimer:
This representation does not satisfy federal reporting requirements and is not the state’s official, comprehensive reporting mechanism for Recovery Act funding. It has been created and displayed as a service to the citizens of California.
It’s pretty straightforward and easy to use…so that is good.
Click here or go to: http://www.recovery.ca.gov/HTML/RecoveryImpact/map.shtml
GIS Industry Growth Down to 1% in 2009
According to an article in Directions Magazine the GIS industry is projected to grow only 1% in 2009. But CEOs’ outlook for 2010 is positive. Link to article http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/?duty=Show&id=36318.
- Roman A.
Mapping the Unemployment Situation
This was interesting…from the Wall Street Journal late last week. Of course, flash based so it looks great (but downer information!).
Click here for the article.
Click here for the direct link to the Wall Street Journal.
Mapping a Better World (from the Economist Technology Quarterly – June 6th)
My favorite magazine ran a couple of articles recently that touch on the benefits of GIS. I am including the text here, and recommending that everyone subscribe!
Link to a printable article here: Economist – Technology Quarterly – June 6th 2009 – Mapping a Better World.pdf
One interesting note – the map in the article suggests that childhood obesity may be a consequence of limited access to parks. David Kwan from our Department of Public Health did an analysis of this, and the tale is much more complex. Correlation is not causation ….
Mapping a better world
Jun 4th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Software: Interest groups around the world are using mapping tools and internet-based information sources to campaign for change
Areas with fewer parks (lighter rather than darker green) have higher rates of childhood obesity (larger red circles)
CONVINCING people about the evils of housing segregation can be tough, says Barbara Samuels, a campaigner for fair housing at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland. “People say, ‘What’s so bad about living in an all-black neighbourhood?’ ” she explains. But using a map that displays all the vacant houses in a segregated neighbourhood, how few jobs exist there and how little public transport is available, “you can show graphically how people are segregated from opportunity,” she says. “Maps help you take complex information and portray it in a clear, intuitive manner. You can show segregation in a way that talking about it doesn’t do.”
And compiling such maps is much easier than it used to be, thanks to new mapping tools and sources of information on the internet. Ms Samuels remembers, for example, the tedium of trying to draw basic data on maps by hand in the 1990s. But in 2005 she was able to use maps that displayed 14 indicators of opportunity-created for her by a mapping-technology specialist-to help win a housing-desegregation court case.
For most people it is merely a handy tool to find a nearby pizzeria or get directions to a meeting. But mapping technology has matured into a tool for social justice. Whether it is to promote health, safety, fair politics or a cleaner environment, foundations, non-profit groups and individuals around the world are finding that maps can help them make their case far more intuitively and effectively than speeches, policy papers or press releases.
“Today you are allowed to visualise data in ways you couldn’t even understand just a few years ago,” says Jeff Vining of Gartner, a consulting firm. Along with web-based resources, coalescence around more advanced tools has also helped, such as the emergence of ESRI, based in Redlands, California, as the market leader in mapping software. And the rise of open-source projects such as MapServer, PostGIS and GRASS GIS have made sophisticated mapping available to non-profit groups with limited resources.
Sensors and Sensitivity (from the Economist Technology Quarterly – June 6th)
My favorite magazine ran a couple of articles recently that touch on the benefits of GIS. I am including the text here, and recommending that everyone subscribe!
Link to a printable article here: Economist – Technology Quarterly – Julne 6th 2009 – Sensors and Sensitivity.pdf
Sensors and Sensitivity
Jun 4th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Data collection: Mobile phones provide new ways to gather information, both manually and automatically, over wide areas
Figure 1 - InSTEDD
IF YOUR mobile phone could talk, it could reveal a great deal. Obviously it would know many of your innermost secrets, being privy to your calls and text messages, and possibly your e-mail and diary, too. It also knows where you have been, how you get to work, where you like to go for lunch, what time you got home, and where you like to go at the weekend. Now imagine being able to aggregate this sort of information from large numbers of phones. It would be possible to determine and analyse how people move around cities, how social groups interact, how quickly traffic is moving and even how diseases might spread. The world’s 4 billion mobile phones could be turned into sensors on a global data-collection network.
They could also be used to gather data in more direct ways. Sensors inside phones, or attached to them, could gather information about temperature, humidity, noise level and so on. More straightforwardly, people can send information from their phones, by voice or text message, to a central repository. This can be a useful way to gather data quickly during a disaster-relief operation, for example, or when tracking the outbreak of a disease. Engineers, biologists, sociologists and aid-workers are now building systems that use handsets to sense, monitor and even predict population movements, environmental hazards and public-health threats.
A good example is InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters), a non-profit group based in California, which promotes the use of mobile phones to improve developing countries’ ability to respond to disasters. Launched with seed money from Google’s philanthropic arm and the Rockefeller Foundation in late 2007, it has just released a suite of open-source software to share, aggregate and analyse data from mobile phones. Its first test-bed is Cambodia, where health-workers can send text messages, containing observations and diagnoses, to a central number.
GIS Day Planning Status – 7/8/2009
Martha Selig
I have just sent out the above update to my contact list. If you have not received a copy and would like to see it, please send me a note and I’ll get it out to you. Thanks.
Thomas Brothers – Better than MapQuest!?
Thomas Guide - better than MapQuest
Quick picture from Joel Myhre – thanks Joel!
For those of you born in LA, the Thomas Guide is a standard. We all had a few of them. The picture, to me, is so indicative of where we are all heading right now with our technology. At the same time, there is nothing like having a good map in your hands!
Question – how many of you still have Thomas Guides in your cars?
Federal Stimulus Money Maps
The federal stimulus package contains HUGE amounts of money. For citizens, a map interface can be a unique and understandable way to figure out WHERE (literally) their money is going. I have found been linked to a couple of maps, which I think are a good start to where we can can go.
- From Mike Byrne, CA State GIO: Maryland Recovery Site
- From the AP: Transportation Projects by County
If you find any more, please add them via comments!
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