The Worst Mapping Website?

Reader Jeff shared this blog post on what might be most useless mapping website ever. The writer provides specific examples of why the website does not do what users might expect - help them get from here to there - by avoiding meaningful names (like “airport”) and allowing one to search for a bus route only if one knows the number. As promised, the post did make me laugh.

Did the U.S. Military Invent GIS?

An article in the June issue of Technology Review called “Do Maps Have Morals?” is mistitled. It should be called: “Did the U.S. Military Invent GIS?” Daniel Charles visits Jack Dangermond and Nick Crisman to understand one version of the history o the technology, then Jack Cloud (historian for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Larry Ayres for a second one, from the military side. I think it’s pretty interesting that our industry doesn’t discuss this topic, nearly at all, and Tech Review chooses to cover it, over say the whiz bang stuff in mapping going on at Google and Microsoft.

Disasters Live!

Ok, so the data are not exactly live, but they are real time, in a new website (click on Launch Viewer on the left) from USGS does show the latest earthquakes, fires and other severe events in the U.S. and some other areas. The app looks just like the National Map and likely uses the same engine. I have a sneaking suspicion that once GOS 2 is done, all of these website will run off of it.

ArcGIS 9.1 Ships

Hard to believe but I learned ArcGIS 9.1 is shipping in a blog. There is no press release (or maybe there is; it’s dated 5/25 on the ESRI website, but we don’t have it yet), but details are here, and there’s an ArcNews article, too. The best news for many folks: “We’ve also bundled some of our extensions products with the core desktop runtime (ArcView, Editor and Info) for free. This means that you’ll be able to use StreetMap, ArcPress, and ArcScan for free. If you’re running an ArcInfo license you’ll be able to use Maplex for free. If you’re on Engine and Server you can now use Streetmap for free as well.” Full detail on that here. There’s some pretty interesting discussion about how ESRI should implement EDN in the blog, too.

Tilting the UK Weather Map

There’s been a bit of disgruntlement by Scottish viewers of the BBC’s new weather map. Many maintain that the new high-tech angling of the map is biased to the southern part of the Island. There were other complaints about new symbology as well, but only the Scottish question made it to Parliament. After a motion on the topic and some questions, the BBC agreed to look at re-tilting the map. If you want more on weather - in particular how weather people should be trained as journalists - read this piece from Poynter.