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The lush rainforests of Indonesia are home to many Indigenous peoples, as well as stunning endangered creatures like rhinos, orangutans and Sumatran tigers (the smallest tiger in the world of which there are only 500 left). Indonesia also has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, which is displacing these local people and threatening the lives of countless species already on the edge of extinction.
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Friday, July 2, 2010
From the Inbox: Saving Rainforests one Publisher at a time
Monday, June 21, 2010
Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data Through the Eyes of Experts
Visualization is the graphic presentation of data -- portrayals meant to reveal complex information at a glance. Think of the familiar map of the New York City subway system, or a diagram of the human brain. Successful visualizations are beautiful not only for their aesthetic design, but also for elegant layers of detail that efficiently generate insight and new understanding.This book examines the methods of two dozen visualization experts who approach their projects from a variety of perspectives -- as artists, designers, commentators, scientists, analysts, statisticians, and more. Together they demonstrate how visualization can help us make sense of the world. Explore the importance of storytelling with a simple visualization exercise Learn how color conveys information that our brains recognize before we're fully aware of it Discover how the books we buy and the people we associate with reveal clues to our deeper selves Recognize a method to the madness of air travel with a visualization of civilian air traffic Find out how researchers investigate unknown phenomena, from initial sketches to published papers.
Friday, June 11, 2010
From the Inbox - What's destructive about children's books?
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Indonesia's rainforests are some of the most important ecosystems on earth for biodiversity, forest peoples and preventing climate change. Right now these rainforests are being clearcut by corrupt paper companies to make ever cheaper paper--paper that is finding its way into America's bookstores. We believe that Americans don't want to destroy rainforests for books that could be printed in a more sustainable way. That's why RAN is launching its new Rainforest Free Paper campaign. Join the campaign now by signing a letter to America's top publishing companies. Recently, Rainforest Action Network released a report uncovering clear links between children's picture books and the rapid destruction of Indonesia's rainforests. This spring, we commissioned independent testing of 30 books from the top U.S. children's book publishers. We found that a shocking 60 percent of books contains fiber connected to the decimation of Indonesia's rainforests! Tell U.S. publishers to stop buying paper made from rainforest destruction and to start choosing recycled and sustainable materials instead. Many of these same top children's book publishers are printing books illustrating how we should all care for rainforests and the environment, yet to cut costs, they are buying paper which is either made from rainforest trees or monoculture plantations created by completely demolishing the rainforests. We don't think that kids should have to choose between loving books and loving rainforests. Sign our petition to tell the U.S. book industry that you love books and rainforests and don't want to choose one over the other. U.S. book publishers have the power to help save some of the world's last remaining rainforests. Help them make the right decision.
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Thursday, June 10, 2010
Coast Lines: How Mapmakers Frame the World and Chart Environmental Change
The shells she sells are seashells, I'm sure
So if she sells seashells on the seashore
Then I'm sure she sells seashore shells.
Whether for sailing charts or property maps, Monmonier shows, coastlines challenge mapmakers to capture on paper a highly irregular land-water boundary perturbed by tides and storms and complicated by rocks, wrecks, and shoals. Coast Lines is peppered with captivating anecdotes about the frustrating effort to expunge fictitious islands from nautical charts, the tricky measurement of a coastline’s length, and the contentious notions of beachfront property and public access.
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Coast-Lines-Mapmakers-Environmental-Change/dp/0226534030/
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It
Read more: http://books.google.com/books?id=DL3rx393NIQC
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Rethinking the Power of Maps
Review
"In an age when mapping is sexy again, Wood explains why it should matter to everyone, how maps came to be deployed by states, and how the authority of the image is now being used by many different voices. This is a passionate humanist argument for a critical approach to mapping, strongly academic but reassuringly accessible. Wood’s work always challenges; the style and panache of his scholarship carry the reader along and persuade us to listen to his original ideas. Mapping and counter-mapping are brought together for the first time. Researchers and students across the social sciences, and indeed from all disciplines, should read this book and take its lessons to heart!"--Chris Perkins, Senior Lecturer, Geography, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Product Description
A contemporary follow-up to the groundbreaking Power of Maps, this book takes a fresh look at what maps do, whose interests they serve, and how they can be used in surprising, creative, and radical ways. Denis Wood describes how cartography facilitated the rise of the modern state and how maps continue to embody and project the interests of their creators. He demystifies the hidden assumptions of mapmaking and explores the promises and limitations of diverse counter-mapping practices today. Thought-provoking illustrations include U.S. Geological Survey maps; electoral and transportation maps; and numerous examples of critical cartography, participatory GIS, and map art.
Buy: http://www.guilford.com/cgi-bin/cartscript.cgi?page=pr/wood.htm&sec=toc&dir=geo/tech&cart_id=344516.11727
Monday, May 3, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Geospatial Web: How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society
Editorial Reviews
Review
From the reviews:
"The Geospatial Web is an edited volume of 25 chapters, which attempts to bring together the academic research on Geospatial web technologies and provide an up-to-date review of this fast moving discipline. … would suit postgraduate students who have the knowledge to be selective: picking out chapters of particular relevance." (Ed. Parsons, GIS Professional, Issue 17, 2007)
Product Description
The Geospatial Web will have a profound impact on managing knowledge, structuring workflows within and across organizations, and communicating with like-minded individuals in virtual communities. The enabling technologies for the Geospatial Web are geo-browsers such as NASA World Wind, Google Earth and Microsoft Live Local 3D. These three-dimensional platforms revolutionize the production and consumption of media products. They not only reveal the geographic distribution of Web resources and services, but also bring together people of similar interests, browsing behavior, or geographic location.
This book summarizes the latest research on the Geospatial Web’s technical foundations, describes information services and collaborative tools built on top of geo-browsers, and investigates the environmental, social and economic impacts of geospatial applications. The role of contextual knowledge in shaping the emerging network society deserves particular attention. By integrating geospatial and semantic technology, such contextual knowledge can be extracted automatically – for example, when processing Web documents to identify relevant content for customized news services.
Presenting 25 chapters from renowned international experts, this edited volume will be invaluable to scientists, students, practitioners, and all those interested in the emerging field of geospatial Web technology. Updates and additional resources are available at www.geospatialweb.com.
Foreword by Patrick J. Hogan, Program Manager of NASA World Wind.
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1846288266/
Monday, April 5, 2010
You Are Not a Gadget
Hvad og hvem skaber vores samfund, individets tanker og massernes bevægelser? Hvad kommer først: menneskehedens behov for teknologi eller teknologiens behov for mennesker?
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Who and what is shaping society, individual thought and mass behaviour? What comes first: mankinds need for technology or technologys need for mankind?
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Book
A Q&A with Author Jaron Lanier
Question: As one of the first visionaries in Silicon Valley, you saw the initial promise the internet held. Two decades later, how has the internet transformed our lives for the better?
Jaron Lanier: The answer is different in different parts of the world. In the industrialized world, the rise of the Web has happily demonstrated that vast numbers of people are interested in being expressive to each other and the world at large. This is something that I and my colleagues used to boldly predict, but we were often shouted down, as the mainstream opinion during the age of television’s dominance was that people were mostly passive consumers who could not be expected to express themselves. In the developing world, the Internet, along with mobile phones, has had an even more dramatic effect, empowering vast classes of people in new ways by allowing them to coordinate with each other. That has been a very good thing for the most part, though it has also enabled militants and other bad actors.
Question: You argue the web isn’t living up to its initial promise. How has the internet transformed our lives for the worse?
Jaron Lanier: The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called "Web 2.0" designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. There are so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize them. Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor. This is why newspapers are dying. It might sound like it is only a problem for creative people, like musicians or writers, but eventually it will be a problem for everyone. When robots can repair roads someday, will people have jobs programming those robots, or will the human programmers be so aggregated that they essentially work for free, like today’s recording musicians? Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle class and undo centuries of social progress.
Question: You say that we’ve devalued intellectual achievement. How?
Jaron Lanier: On one level, the Internet has become anti-intellectual because Web 2.0 collectivism has killed the individual voice. It is increasingly disheartening to write about any topic in depth these days, because people will only read what the first link from a search engine directs them to, and that will typically be the collective expression of the Wikipedia. Or, if the issue is contentious, people will congregate into partisan online bubbles in which their views are reinforced. I don’t think a collective voice can be effective for many topics, such as history--and neither can a partisan mob. Collectives have a power to distort history in a way that damages minority viewpoints and calcifies the art of interpretation. Only the quirkiness of considered individual expression can cut through the nonsense of mob--and that is the reason intellectual activity is important.
On another level, when someone does try to be expressive in a collective, Web 2.0 context, she must prioritize standing out from the crowd. To do anything else is to be invisible. Therefore, people become artificially caustic, flattering, or otherwise manipulative.
Web 2.0 adherents might respond to these objections by claiming that I have confused individual expression with intellectual achievement. This is where we find our greatest point of disagreement. I am amazed by the power of the collective to enthrall people to the point of blindness. Collectivists adore a computer operating system called LINUX, for instance, but it is really only one example of a descendant of a 1970s technology called UNIX. If it weren’t produced by a collective, there would be nothing remarkable about it at all.
Meanwhile, the truly remarkable designs that couldn’t have existed 30 years ago, like the iPhone, all come out of "closed" shops where individuals create something and polish it before it is released to the public. Collectivists confuse ideology with achievement.
Question: Why has the idea that "the content wants to be free" (and the unrelenting embrace of the concept) been such a setback? What dangers do you see this leading to?
Jaron Lanier: The original turn of phrase was "Information wants to be free." And the problem with that is that it anthropomorphizes information. Information doesn’t deserve to be free. It is an abstract tool; a useful fantasy, a nothing. It is nonexistent until and unless a person experiences it in a useful way. What we have done in the last decade is give information more rights than are given to people. If you express yourself on the internet, what you say will be copied, mashed up, anonymized, analyzed, and turned into bricks in someone else’s fortress to support an advertising scheme. However, the information, the abstraction, that represents you is protected within that fortress and is absolutely sacrosanct, the new holy of holies. You never see it and are not allowed to touch it. This is exactly the wrong set of values.
The idea that information is alive in its own right is a metaphysical claim made by people who hope to become immortal by being uploaded into a computer someday. It is part of what should be understood as a new religion. That might sound like an extreme claim, but go visit any computer science lab and you’ll find books about "the Singularity," which is the supposed future event when the blessed uploading is to take place. A weird cult in the world of technology has done damage to culture at large.
Question: In You Are Not a Gadget, you argue that idea that the collective is smarter than the individual is wrong. Why is this?
Jaron Lanier: There are some cases where a group of people can do a better job of solving certain kinds of problems than individuals. One example is setting a price in a marketplace. Another example is an election process to choose a politician. All such examples involve what can be called optimization, where the concerns of many individuals are reconciled. There are other cases that involve creativity and imagination. A crowd process generally fails in these cases. The phrase "Design by Committee" is treated as derogatory for good reason. That is why a collective of programmers can copy UNIX but cannot invent the iPhone.
In the book, I go into considerably more detail about the differences between the two types of problem solving. Creativity requires periodic, temporary "encapsulation" as opposed to the kind of constant global openness suggested by the slogan "information wants to be free." Biological cells have walls, academics employ temporary secrecy before they publish, and real authors with real voices might want to polish a text before releasing it. In all these cases, encapsulation is what allows for the possibility of testing and feedback that enables a quest for excellence. To be constantly diffused in a global mush is to embrace mundanity.
Read more: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307269647
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Ocean Globe
Vi tror vi kender verden geografisk, men størstedelen ved vi faktisk intet om ...
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So far so much so unknown ...
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Buy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1589482190/
Friday, February 19, 2010
New bing maps book helps developers
Bing på fransk: Bing!
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Parlez vous francais ...
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Ce livre sur Bing Maps (anciennement Virtual Earth) s'adresse à des développeurs débutants à confirmés, curieux de la cartographie interactive et des nouvelles technologies orientées Web. Le livre couvre l'ensemble des possibilités de l'API Bing Maps for Entreprise de Microsoft, à travers des cas concrets, rencontrés en entreprise, pratiques et réutilisables. Ces exemples illustrent comment intégrer des données géolocalisées de manière simple mais proposent aussi des fonctionnalités de recherche interactive et surtout, intègrent les dernières technologies pour un rendu multimédia riche. La richesse de ces cas d'utilisation permet au lecteur de bien cerner l'importance que peut prendre la cartographie dans les développements orientés web, les RIA, les périphériques mobiles et même les interfaces de demain comme la table Microsoft Surface. Les exemples proposés sont particulièrement adaptés au langage C# dans la plate-forme .NET. Le code source est en téléchargement sur cette page. Les chapitres du livre : Introduction - Historique et évolutions - Description technique de Bing Maps - Bing Maps et le contrôle JavaScript - Bing Maps et Silverlight - Le service web Bing Maps 1.0 - La mobilité et le service Bing Maps - Un service interopérable - Projets libres - Analyse concurrentielle : Microsoft Bing Maps et les autres APIs. [...]
Read more: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bing-Maps-complet-cartographie-interactive/dp/2746052989/
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Largest book in the world goes on show for the first time
Gad vide hvordan hylde ser ud ...
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And then you should see the shelf ...
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Klencke Atlas, which is 350 years old, will be displayed as part of British Library exhibition on maps
The Klencke Atlas has never been publicly displayed with its pages open before. Photograph: British Library
It takes six people to lift it and has been recorded as the largest book in the world, yet the splendid Klencke Atlas, presented to Charles II on his restoration and now 350 years old, has never been publicly displayed with its pages open. That glaring omission is to be rectified, it was announced by the British Library today, when it will be displayed as one of the stars of its big summer exhibition about maps.
The summer show will feature about 100 maps, considered some of the greatest in the world, with three-quarters of them going on display for the first time.
At the exhibition's core will be wall maps, many of them huge, which tell a story that is much more than geography. Many of them, said the library's head of map collections, Peter Barber: "Hold their own with great works of art." [...]
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/26/klencke-atlas-british-library-exhibition
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Geovisualization: Geovisualization, Interactive visualization, Scientific visualization, Geographic information system, On the fly, Animated mapping
Like the related fields of scientific visualization and information visualization geovisualization emphasizes knowledge construction over knowledge storage or information transmission.To do this, geovisualization communicates geospatial information in ways that, when combined with ?human vision and domain expertise?, allow for data exploration and decision-making processes.Traditional, static maps have a limited exploratory capability; the graphical representations are inextricably linked to the geographical information beneath. GIS and geovisualization allow for more interactive maps; including the ability to explore different layers of the map, to zoom in or out, and to change the visual appearance of the map, usually on a computer display. Geovisualization represents a further development in cartography that takes advantage of the ability of modern computers to render changes to a map in real time, allowing users to adjust the mapped data on the fly.
Read more: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6130275455
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Mapping New York
Following on from the success of Mapping London, Mapping New Yorkis a richly illustrated survey of the urban and social history of New York City. From early woodblock engravings to the latest satellite images available of Manhattan, these maps show the intricate story of the development of one of the world’s most populous cities.
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A beautifully illustrated book with distinctive maps dating back to the 16th Century, when New York was known as New Amsterdam and founded by the Dutch as a commercial trading post, right up to the present day. Mapping New York provides a pictorial history of the city – both documenting it being both a leader in commerce and one of the most built up urban areas in the world.
Mapping New York focuses on maps from the 20th and 21st century, arranged thematically featuring maps on population, military, water, transport, commerce, crime as well as planning and developing maps and boundaries of the five boroughs. Featuring well known maps such as the New York City subway map, artists’ representations include Claes Oldenburg’s Soft Manhattan #1: Postal Codes from 1966 and the poem, Manhattan, in the shape of the city by Howard Horowitz.
Including the latest satellite images and fantastic projections on the growth of the city, Mapping New York provides a complete and detailed picture of the unique progression of America’s oldest major city. [...]
- Aerial View of Ground Zero, 2001
- Map of New York, 1952
- Supervue of New York
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-New-York-Black-Publishing/dp/1906155828/
Monday, November 30, 2009
Organizational Facets of GIS
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/184821085X/
Friday, October 2, 2009
Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain
You've used their products. You've heard about their skyrocketing wealth and "don't be evil" business motto. But how much do you really know about Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin?
Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain skips past the general Google story and focuses on what really drives these men and where they will take Google in the future. Richard L. Brandt shows the company as the brainchild of two brilliant but individual men and looks at Google's business decisions in light of its founders' ambitions and beliefs.
Larry is the main strategist, with business acumen and practical drive, while Sergey is the primary technologist and idealist, with brilliant ideas and strong moral positions. But they work closely together, almost like complementary halves of a single brain. Larry is more socially awkward and rarely volunteers to answer questions. Sergey is more poised but is also shy with outsiders.
Through interviews with current and former employees, competitors, partners, and senior Google management, plus conversations with the founders themselves, Brandt demystifies the secret society that is Google, as well as clarifying a number of misconceptions.
For instance, it may seem more and more that Google wants to be something other than a search company as it expands into e-mail, cell phones, Web browsers, wiki information sites, social networks, and photo editing. But actually, Larry and Sergey just define search a little differently from everyone else. They also like to act as catalysts for change in industries (such as telecommunications) that affect their business.
Theoretically, any of half a dozen competitors could have gotten where Google is today. But in reality, none of them could have been Google, because they didn't have Larry and Sergey.
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Larry-Sergeys-Richard-Brandt/dp/159184276X/
Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities
Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, this collection of 138 unique graphics combines beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. The result is a distinctive illustrated guide to the world. Categories of cartographic curiosities include: • Literary Creations, featuring a map of Thomas More's Utopia and the world of George Orwell's 1984
• Cartographic Misconceptions, such as a lavish seventeenthcentury map depicting California as an island
• Political Parody, containing the "Jesusland map" and other humorous takes on voter profiles
• Whatchamacallit, including a map of the area codes for regions where the rapper Ludacris sings about having "hoes"
• Obscure Proposals, capturing Thomas Jefferson's vision for dividing the Northwest Territory into ten states with names such as Polypotamia and Assenisipia
• Fantastic Maps, with a depiction of what the globe might look like if the sea and land were inverted
The Strange Maps blog has been named by GeekDad Blog on Wired.com "one of the more unusual and unique sites seen on the Web that doesn't sell anything or promote an agenda" and it's currently ranked #423 on Technorati's Top 500 Blogs.
Brimming with trivia, deadpan humor, and idiosyncratic lore, Strange Maps is a fascinating tour of all things weird and wonderful in the world of cartography.
Buy: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Strange-Maps/Frank-Jacobs/e/9780142005255/?itm=1
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Rethinking Maps
Maps are changing. They have become important and fashionable once more. Rethinking Maps brings together leading researchers to explore how maps are being rethought, made and used, and what these changes mean for working cartographers, applied mapping research, and cartographic scholarship. It offers a contemporary assessment of the diverse forms that mapping now takes and, drawing upon a number of theoretic perspectives and disciplines, provides an insightful commentary on new ontological and epistemological thinking with respect to cartography.
This book presents a diverse set of approaches to a wide range of map forms and activities in what is presently a rapidly changing field. It employs a multi-disciplinary approach to important contemporary mapping practices, with chapters written by leading theorists who have an international reputation for innovative thinking. Much of the new research around mapping is emerging as critical dialogue between practice and theory and this book has chapters focused on intersections with play, race and cinema. Other chapters discuss cartographic representation, sustainable mapping and visual geographies. It also considers how alternative models of map creation and use such as open-source mappings and map mash-up are being creatively explored by programmers, artists and activists. There is also an examination of the work of various ‘everyday mappers’ in diverse social and cultural contexts.
This blend of conceptual chapters and theoretically directed case studies provides an excellent resource suited to a broad spectrum of researchers, advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in human geography, GIScience and cartography, visual anthropology, media studies, graphic design and computer graphics. Rethinking Maps is a necessary and significant text for all those studying or having an interest in cartography.
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415461529
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wired for Thought: How the Brain Is Shaping the Future of the Internet
Eller hvorledes nettet påvirker den måde vi tænker på ...
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Or how the Internet is shaping the thoughts in our brains ...
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To leverage its power, you first need to understand how the Internet has evolved to take on similarities to the brain. This engaging and provocative book provides the answer. Stibel lays out:
-How networks have changed and what that implies for how people connect and form communities
-What the Internet-and online business opportunities-will look like in the future
-What the next stage of artificial intelligence will be and what opportunities it will present for businesses
Stibel shows how exceptional companies are using their understanding of the Internet's brainlike powers to create competitive advantage-such as building more effective Web sites, predicting consumer behavior, leveraging social media, and creating a collective consciousness.
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422146642