Sundials and Map of Green Startups

Sundials in Google Earth Blog

Get coords of sundials in Google Earth

Map of Green Startups
by a Company called Earth2Tech-sounds similar to my company, Earth Tech, but no relation.

Microsoft and ESRI

Microsoft Virtual Earth and ESRI integration is making great strides. Virtual Earth, which arguably has some of the best aerial data out there (including oblique Pictometry imagery), will have interesting functionality within ArcGIS Server 9.3. Check out their demo's linked above and check out this image of a mock plume analysis in New York City. Looks like I'd be safe at work but should not venture home.

Environmental Materialism? & Radiohead Remixed

No Impact Man often comments on materialism as it exists in a 'use and throw away' society. He references a blog commentor's post - "How we treat the creation reveals how we feel about the creator."

Ideally, all products would have a longer lifespan and technological devices would be upgradeable. This is not the case. But which products are more harmful to the environment, the plastic packaging that almost all our food comes in or our personal devices, like phones, GPS, etc.? Should we not buy new toys like the iPhone? But what if the iPhone reduces our paper consumption?

These questions are not easy to answer.

The new Radiohead album (In Rainbows) was remixed by Amplive and believe it or not there was some hoopla regarding copyright etc. etc. On my first listen, though interested, I was not overly impressed. Sounds like something I might have liked way back in '03. Check it out.
http://www.myspace.com/amplive

Random Geography Facts: The man behind Everest

From Wikipedia
Colonel Sir George Everest (4 July 1790 – 1 December 1866) was a British surveyor, geographer and Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843.

The Welshman was largely responsible for completing the section of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India along the meridian arc from the south of India extending north to Nepal, a distance of approximately 2400 kilometres. The survey was started by William Lambton in 1806 and lasted several decades. Mount Everest was named in his honor and surveyed by his successor, Andrew Waugh.

In 1818, Everest was appointed as assistant to Colonel William Lambton, who had started the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the sub-continent in 1806. On Lambton's death in 1823, he succeeded to the post of superintendent of the survey and in 1830 was appointed Surveyor-General of India.

Everest retired in 1843 and returned to live in the United Kingdom, where he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was knighted in 1861 and in 1862 he was elected Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society. He died at Greenwich in 1866 and is buried in St Andrew's Church, Hove, near Brighton. His niece, Mary Everest, married mathematician George Boole.

Sir George pronounced his last name "EVE-rest" (IPA: /ˈiːvrɪst/), although the popular pronunciation has since become the same as that of the mountain named after him; "EV-er-est" (/ˈɛvərɪst/).

• John Keay. 2000. The Great Arc. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-257062-9.
• J. R. Smith. 1999. Everest - The Man and the Mountain. Caithness: Whittles Publishing. ISBN 1-870325-72-9.

Satellites Exploding and Maps and Atlases

Satellite Debris Visua-
lization
"Bulls-eye!"
So we shot down a satellite the other day and now there's all this debris all over the place. The folks at Analytical Graphics, Inc. (image courtesy of their website linked above) decided to model where the debris is winding up. Pretty cool Millhouse, pretty cool.

What's also cool is this sweet band name I found that is playing with the National and Phosphorescent at NYU:

NYU Program Board presents The National with Phosphorescent & Maps and Atlases

Thurs, Feb 28, 2008 at Kimmel Center, 8pm
$8 for NYU students, $10 for public

Maps and Atlases - what a great band name! I'm still not quite sure what math rock is. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Math rock is a rhythmically complex, guitar-based style of experimental rock music^[1] that emerged in the late 1980s. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), angular melodies, and dissonant chords.^[2]

A closely-related genre is post-rock, into which some of the same bands are classified; post-rock, though, tends to be characterized by a "jazzier" drumming style.^[1]

Lunar Eclipse last night.

Last night we watched a lunar eclipse from my building's roof in Chinatown, NYC. It was exciting but we couldn't brave the cold past 10:30 pm. Here's some NASA diagrams and a link to a weather channel video of the eclipse:

Lunar Eclipse Video

"There is no dark side in the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun." - Eclipse (heard in background of song from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon)

End of No Depression Music Magazine & Jeff Tweedy of Wilco Interview

Pitchfork: End of No Depression Music Magazine

The No Depression Music Magazine era has come to an end. I was never a big reader of this publication but I've always heard it was super influential in promoting many of the bands I like.

Jeff Tweedy Interview on WXRT
One of the key figures from the No Depression Magazine recently interviewed at WXRT Chicago.

Google Spatial Links

Google Maps API Group
Link to google maps api group forum where there are questions and answers to all your google maps needs.

Google Earth Spreadsheet Mapper
Link to google spreadsheet mapper that looks really cool but haven't tested out - still waiting for some reason to.

Click Here To See It In Action (I didn't change template coords just threw NYGeog in some sample names)

James Fee has been posting about the future of open source gis recently. I'm pretty torn on the issue as I know ESRI products inside and out and trying to install GeoServer or other open source materials at work is impossible because of no admin rights (what's up wit dat corporate!).

That is one reason I'm considering more and more web-based (app's and servers hosted by entities such as Google) data storage, geoprocessing, display etc. OR what if there was a GIS application ubiquitous as Microsoft Office that was open and integrated with all programs and servers (future of QGIS?).

Brooklyn Brewery Tour

After several trips to the Brooklyn Brewery I finally went on the factory tour. I was a little disappointed as I expected it to be as exciting as a trip to Stew Leonard's or something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The guide explained the history of the brewery. She also said that 2/3 of the beer is actually brewed upstate in Utica, NY.

Got my Levon Helm tickets to for March 8th, 2008 at the Beacon Theatre! My first chance to see a member of The Band in concert.


In other interesting news the company I work for, Earth Tech, Inc., has been purchased by AECOM .

Not sure how things will pan out but most of us are optimistic since our last owner, Tyco was not really in the engineering business. We went for a cool $510 Million.

Nuetral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea is 10 years old. Looking for a new apartment? Try craigslist listings as a map.

nuetral milk hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea is ten years old. Pitchfork shares some stories on it.
Pitchfork Article


housingmaps.com

I sure would have utilized this application when looking for apartments last year. Real estate folks stress how important location is. "Location, Location, Location" But traditional web real estate sites have displayed single properties on maps and generally missed the boat displaying apartments databases. Combining this missing feature with craigslist, the free forum for posting apartment adds, is a great way to bring geographic housing searches en masse. In the NYC area this is particularly useful since brokers charge such high fees.

http://www.housingmaps.com/

Benefits of Web Mapping Applications

I was a skeptic of web mapping. Not long ago I assumed that data generated from web mapping applications would be of little value. I envisioned web mapping as an unregulated playground. I was wrong. It may lack precision but it can generate large volumes of data with low overhead. Perhaps public mapping has a viable future.

Check out Christian Spanring's recent posting at: http://spanring.eu/blog/2008/02/14/public-api-impact/

Maybe in the near future places can develop volunteer mapping groups to help collect data from their home pc's based on GPS points or heads up digitizing from aerials.

Just what everyone wants for Valentine's Day! Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Sweet Beer Distributor Store in NYC

View in Google Earth -- Get Google Earth
Powered by YourMap from Google Earth Hacks.

Just found this place - super nice & informed staff and great beer selection

Sunday's Chinese New Year Fest & BK Bridge

Took some pictures on Sunday during the snowy Chinese New Year street festivities. We missed the majority of the event but caught the last few hours. There was some snow and plenty of confetti in the air. Chinese New Years is one of the perks of living in Chinatown. Very few other areas of Manhattan have such exciting street fairs (San Janero takes place north of Canal St. in Sept. which was also fun) The sun came out after and we treked over the Brooklyn Bridge so I posted a few of those pics as well.

Bonnaroo Lineups 2008

The 2008 bonnaroo lineup is in. Still undecided for 2008 as the cost $$$, heat ))), and vacation days are up for consideration. 2005 (?) was the last time I made the trek. It was worth every penny but I returned exhausted. I may just hole up in NYC and maybe hit up moe.down or some local fests. The artists in bold italics are the acts I would like to check out.

Pearl Jam

Metallica

Jack Johnson

Kanye West

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnette

Phil Lesh & Friends

My Morning Jacket

The Allman Brothers Band

The Raconteurs

Willie Nelson

Death Cab for Cutie

B.B. King

Sigur Ros

Levon Helm and the Ramble on the Road

Ben Folds

O.A.R.

The Bluegrass Allstars Feat. Luke Bulla, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck,

Edgar Meyer and Bryan Sutton

M.I.A.

Umphrey's McGee

Iron & Wine

Yonder Mountain String Band

The Swell Season

Talib Kweli

Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Soul Stew Revival

Gogol Bordello

Broken Social Scene

Robert Randolph's Revival

Rilo Kiley

Mastodon

Lupe Fiasco

Against Me!

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

Pat Green

Ozomatli

Tegan & Sara

Solomon Burke

Drive-By Truckers

!!!

The Avett Brothers

Israel Vibration

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck

A Very Special Acoustic Performance by Larry Campbell, Jackie Greene, Phil Lesh & Teresa Williams

Aimee Mann

Ladytron

The Fiery Furnaces

Orchestra Baobab

Ghostland Observatory

Jose Gonzalez

Dark Star Orchestra

Minus the Bear

Donavon Frankenreiter

Lez Zeppelin

State Radio

Battles

Jakob Dylan

Two Gallants

The Sword

Vampire Weekend

Little Feat

Nicole Atkins

The Felice Brothers

Mason Jennings

MGMT

The Lee Boys

Black Kids

Serena Ryder

Steel Train

Grupo Fantasma

Back Door Slam

Bonnaroo Comedy:
Bonnaroo Late Night Chat About with David Cross

Janeane Garofalo

Zach Galifianakis

Jim Norton

Brian Posehn

Mike Birbiglia

John Mulaney

Michelle Buteau
More artists to be announced!

Awesome lineup. I'd like to see more big festivals in the Northeast so I don't have to use too much gasoline if I want to check something like this out.

Year of the Rat - Happy New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! Pic's from last night's parade in Chinatown will be up shortly.

Arbor work & cool links

Late post - out in the field helping out with some Arborist work to keep the trees from falling down like in this picture of Brooklyn after the Tornado.
Here's a few cool links I found last night from Ropeadope Record's website.
One is of people standing still in Grand Central for 5 minutes...believe me its cool.
The second is a list of 100 cool things from google map mashups. Check it out.

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2008/01/31/frozen-grand-central/
http://gmapsmania.googlepages.com/100thingstodowithgooglemapsmashups

GIS Professional Job Satisfaction

Checking out this one job posting (see below-what a sweet desk!) and general hectiness/lack of organization at my own place of employment has got me thinking about job satisfaction for GIS folks. The reality is that GIS can be exciting and one can embrace new concepts and techniques. However, much like working in other occupations, a GIS Technician or Specialist can often fall into a rut of some sort or take a long time to complete repetitive tasks.

More often than not it is likely due to lack of investment in new software/hardware/or research & development that leads to unsatisfaction. That or employees may be hearing the plotter printing very loudly all day!!!

Companies that appreciate their GIS employees are more likely to invest whereas companies that don't think spatially are slow to change. For example, Excel has been around forever! But GIS software and capabilities change rapidly. I never even used ArcGIS lower than 9.0 (except when they forced us to in grad school). Yet there are still ArcView 3 organizations out there.

Right now I don't consider myself a web developer or desktop developer but I have gotten involved in some projects and school work involving these tasks and my advice for younger (below my 24 years) GIS folks would be to concentrate on one of these two routes.

For example, check out this job description...
http://blog.davebouwman.net/2008/02/05/LookingForAChangeWereHiring.aspx

Oh yeah, as I look for different beer ingredient stores online I'm beginning to learn that there is a hops shortage supposedly due to an increase in investment in biofuels. If anyone has any useful links or anecdotes from this dilemma please let me know!

Giants Win!!! & Spatial Data

Giants Win Super Bowl!!!

What a great game last night.

Low-scoring but exciting none the less. Eli was poised and the G-men's defense was relentless.

How bout that Tom Petty too!? The Super Bowl is really migrating away from crappy half-time shows and that's definetely a good thing. 86 the American Idol pre-game nonsense though. After the game Pam Oliver spoke to Plex, it's rumored that afterwards he went on to speak about the future of spatial data. Rather than quote this unsubstantiated claim I'll point you too a recent blog on this topic:

Jeff Thurston's Vector One blog discusses the plaguing questions about data quality, the problems with it and why it may be necessary to invest in high quality data sooner rather than later

http://vector1media.com/vectorone/?p=293

-A project is really having problems and causing them to realise that “oh-oh, something is not working right here and our data is part of the problem.”
-An outside source working with the project says, “hey you guys, your data is really not up to par and our data is - get your data in order” (politely to begin with).
-Certain outside parties are impacted by bad data (like cars running off roads, pipelines that don’t quite meet and Airbus A380 wiring that simply causes headaches and delays - errrum).
-The server keeps going down. It can’t seem to compute the way it is supposed to compute and give answers, because the data is not properly stored within it to allow it to be processed. Not only that, it takes forever.

Automated Percussion Ensemble Art & LETS GO GIANTS!!!!!

This video is awesome. This guy builds 'player-piano'-like percussion art.

Anyone with youtube blocked at work wont' be able to check this out ( I can't! ) watch it later, its worth it. I found out about it from http://www.ropeadope.com/

And here's an interesting Super Bowl article from ALL POINTS BLOG at Directions Magazine

From Foxboro to Giants Stadium...Giants, Patriots Fans Stuck in the Middle
HBO's sports program hosted by Bob Costas reported that Durham Connecticut is equidistant and therefore the geographic center on the road between Foxboro Stadium, home of the New England Patriots and Giant's Stadium, home of the New York Giants. So, of course, I didn't believe them and went to some of my resources.To start, the distance between the two stadiums as calculated for the quickest route is exactly the same at 209 miles using either Microsoft MapPoint or Google Maps. Just for reference, the straightline, "as the crow flies," distance is about 190 miles.If you add Durham to route calculations for both methods of calculating the fastest route, the distance comes to 225 miles for both MapPoint and Google Maps...that's a good thing, of course if you believe the HBO progam. But clearly, the HBO program wasn't using a route calculation. If you use the quickest route, my calculations puts the center around Westbrook, CT along Route I95.What do come up with?

GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!