A duet of petroleum shows in London

AGI GeoComm16

AGI #GeoCom16 twitter report

[Update: LinkedIn Pulse post inspired by this: A non-anthropomorphic robotic future]

The AGI’s Annual Conference was held at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS IBG) in London yesterday. Here is a report by way of my twitter feeds, most recent ones first, from #GeoCom16:

"They call me the cleaner"

[Update: a mirror article on LinkedIn Pulse expands on historic and business background]

I refer to the character Victor played by Jen Reno in Luc Besson's 1990 film "Nikita".

Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - More

[Update: another thorough review and insider's view of same on LinkedIn Pulse
Update2: and a follow-on Pulse post also, prompted by a comment on yet another]

This is one more follow-on to the Pokémon Go series, which suggested we cool our jets. In my previous post, I compared Pokémon Go to sandbox video game MineCraft, online game Foldit that helped crowd-source the resolution of complex protein structure and Sim City the granddad of virtual worlds. Here are juxtaposed in Google Trends their search hits as a measure of interest in these.

A question of business models in webmap offerings

Eighteen months ago, Google quietly deprecated its Maps API, and ESRI offered and alternative with ArcGIS Earth, then Mapbox and Carto in quick succession: I blogged then Esri, Google and if the shoe fits... Part 1 and Part 2, mirrored on LinkedIn here and here, respectively. Safe Software, LINQ Ltd. and I basically saw it as the next phase in the battle for The Internet of Things (IoT), which has been gaining traction of late.

Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - Fin

[Update: interesting tweet exchange w @0mgould at bottom]

I wrote over the past weeks why Pokémon Go is not what it seems:

• from being hailed as the next big thing in geospatial (neither open nor intended to be)
• to hiding the access / marketing in&outs its hosts indulge in (internet privacy anyone?)

Massive online activity - all is not as it appears - Cont.

[Update: Caveat emptor, lawsuits already started on Pokémon Go trespassing - BBC
Update 2: follow-on posts here & here on geo-ramifications to virtual reality mapping]

I posted last week re: spatial ownership issues Pokémon Go raised, from the personal (visiting family the weekend it was released in France)

Twenty years... and five generations on the web!

Hard to believe I started my first website in hand-written HTML code in Dallas 20 yrs ago! The original impetus was that at Landmark I had an intranet page using a hand-crafted index bar along the top, not unlike this glossary or my life and work pages thru 2000 and 2004 respectively.

When is a map not a map, Part II

I just posted on LinkedIn Pulse Opinions are free, but Facts are sacred, taking off from Simon Rogers ex of Guardian Data now at Google Data by way of Twitter. This was spurred by the EU Referendum, and setting aside debates raging around it, this is my contribution in my field of petroleum geology in general and mapping / GIS in particular. UN Comtrade has a fabulous collection of statistics, which are so easy to search & discover, that I simply copy&pasted screenshots into this video.

When is a map not a map

Friends of mine lived in London, then LA and now in Wellington, NZ. I wondered where their peripatetic moves might take them, in a purely geographic destination sense?

Andrew's GIS Platforms reloaded

A GIS group discussion prompted me to update this list of selected desktop & web platforms by delivery and cost - note that it excludes commercially serviced FOSS, as well as web & mobile apps - and the usual caveats apply, see details on last page.

CoDE Conference 2016: Creative Communication

Just attended a conference crossing over art and science at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge Culture of Digital Economies CoDE. It ranged from the impact of video games, through a master class in drone cinematography and video exhibit The Crossing, to interactive demos and lightning talks. Two items stood out for me: Sonic Pi freeware to help introduce school children to digital music, and Lichen Beacons a Raspberry Pi and beacon interactive display of imagery and poetry:

Fort McMurray (Canada) Wildfires Social Map

[20/05/2016 update: noticed the dearth of social feeds? People are busy fleeing the area!
Also come back often as, sadly, fires that receded last week were returning this week...]

The wildfires around Fort Mc Murray in NE Alberta of W Canada were well covered in the press. Their origin is introduced in the splash screen below, which includes a broader context in the NASA brief. A modified pre-existing DIY Weathermap for Kuwait, especially the wind information, added info for Fort McMurray and MODIS data, whose hotspots are indicative of fires. Features inspired by Esri Disaster Response maps were finally styled with social feeds below. Twitter feeds for #YMM (airport code), #YMMfire and #YMMhelps were added to Flickr, Instagram and Youtube for the previous 5 days.

Gulf of Mexico Wells Reloaded

Story map to wrap a complex technical dataset into easy-to-follow steps. Opening video helps reach out to board rooms or town halls alike.

Helping companies map their processes

FindingPetroleum in London yesterday launched me as early adopter of LINQ Ltd. Here is the companion Digital Energy Journal Apr/May full issue p.14. Also new banner on my home page.

Another Take on Climate Change, Part VI (the last)

2024 update: 'They will flip': Earth's poles are shifting and it is not a good sign for life on our planet 

I previously asked  how current vagaries of climate may relate to earth's magnetic field reversals? One problem was that geological records (ocean bottom magnetic stripes) didn't span well into historic records (volcanic lava deposits)! Well this appears to have been addressed in this video:

Animation of historic Paris building footprints

Bâti Paris is a beautiful suite of maps of the Parisian buildings and listed monuments since the 18th c. posted by Etienne Côme. I gave it an organic twist by rotating and mirroring each time slice, to make it look like a breathing lung, and posted it as a video:

Another Take on Climate Change, Part V

[Update: Part VI, more on geomagnetic reversals]

Parts I, II, III & IV from March 2011 became relevant in a comment yesterday on Euan Mearns post on extreme climate. He pointed to the Laschamp event, and suggests this: that the wandering of the North Pole heralds a impending magnetic reversal, such as happened 4000 years ago evidenced in the French Massif Central near Clermont Ferrand.

Global vector datasets on the web

I described exactly two years ago posting NOAA's global shoreline dataset on my AWS stack - added  recently to personal portfolio for easy access - I discussed here earlier, why post global vector datasets, when web services provided such varieties of backdrops? At issue is that vector data are so large at global scales, that NOAA above and Natural Earth post them as various scales, where details are trade-off against scale.

To teach or not to teach, that is the question

With apologies to The Bard, whilst the internet in general and YouTube in particular are great tools - I use them here and on YouTube myself - there is the danger of posting educational videos uncritically.