Sometimes people tend to mistake weather (a short-term phenomenon) for climate (the long-term average). I recently came across this video in which astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the difference between the two. I think it’s a brilliant example of conveying complex concepts using a simple analogy. In this case that of walking a dog on the beach: … Continue reading On weather and climate change
Wired has a slideshow of NASA’s best images of Earth that I’d recommend you to check out if you enjoy images from space! Below is a picture of the spectacular Bowknot Bend of the Green River in Utah (USA), as taken by an unnamed astronaut on board the ISS using a Nikon digital camera and 1000mm lens. … Continue reading Best images of Earth in 2014
I will abstain from compiling my own list of “The best …”. Instead, I give you a small list of lists to be consumed at your pleasure: The Best Data Visualization Projects of 2014 by FlowingData All of Nathan’s picks “are interactive or animated or both”. “Telling for where we’re headed.” as he puts it. Among others, this selection contains … Continue reading The best in cartography and infoviz of 2014
Have you heard of the Geohipster blog? It’s the self-described place for people who ‘grow their own organic vertices, use gluten-free topology or only geocode by hand, in small batches’. And I give at a big recommendation, put it into your feed reader. And relax, you don’t need to be a fixie aficionado/-a in order to appreciate the Geohipster movement. Atanas … Continue reading To all you Geohipsters out there
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with some Twitter-oriented hacks together with my friend Tom. A very preliminary result of these activities is what I call the #SwissGIS map. Some, just a little, history: Over the last few years, I have been collecting Switzerland-based Twitter users that talk about topics around GIS, cartography, webmapping and geomatics on a list called SwissGIS. Find … Continue reading Geocoding Twitter users – The #SwissGIS map
Sysadmin Appreciation Day was exactly two months ago, but this gem shared by Bill Morris is too good to pass up on: (source) Then there’s of course also this classic by Randall Munroe: (source) Continue reading Be nice to your sysadmin
This article is a re-post of an article that first appeared on www.geo.ebp.ch. Last week I gave a talk at the 8th instalment of the GeoBeer series on EBP’s Zurich-Stadelhofen premises and sponsored by EBP and Crosswind. It was titled State of the Union: Data as Enabling Tech‽ You can check out the whole slidedeck on my private … Continue reading The Data Worker’s Manifesto
I was in L.A. the first time this March, before Esri’s Business Partner Conference and Dev Summit in Palm Springs. So this time-lapse film of L.A. by Sunchaser Pictures came as a nice diversion: (via BoingBoing) Continue reading Sunchaser Pictures: Angel City
A while ago, Alan McConchie and Beth Schechter of Stamen held a presentation titled Anatomy of a Web Map at Maptime SF, a weekly map hack-night hosted at Stamen Design. The slides can be viewed at maptime.github.io/anatomy-of-a-web-map (allow some seconds for loading). Click through for a thorough refresher and some innovative web map technologies. Even if you are familiar with the topic, you … Continue reading Trends in web mapping
Big honour: my interactive visualization Information Imbalance: Africa on Wikipedia for the OII Internet Geographies blog has been featured by Smart Hive under the heading Non-traditional data mapped to geography. Thanks for the mention! Continue reading Wikipedia cartogram mentioned by Smart Hive
I’ve mentioned it before, but now the official links have arrived for my latest work in user-generated content research: Together with Arzu Çöltekin and Gennady Andrienko I have published a paper titled Towards (re)constructing narratives from georeferenced photographs through visual analytics in The Cartographic Journal. You can find this official version here. Similarly, the article Uneven geographies of user-generated … Continue reading First two publications of 2014
Recently, I’ve stumbled across Noah Iliinsky’s Where 2012 talk When To *Not* Use Maps. The title immediately intrigued me. As a geographer and data consultant I’m convinced, an important part of my work lies in the question what tools best fit a purpose or a goal I want to achieve. But this is only one side of … Continue reading When NOT to use maps
