thoughts on spatial tools and practices
A few days ago, Michael Shean of the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) announced the availability of videos of 3-D terrain models created to support Planning Board activities in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The videos have been made available via Google+ here: https://plus.google.com/105701421300090504528/posts.
A couple of weeks ago, I took some gentle razzing from some quarters for admitting I still have a land line:
As actual voice communication devices, mobile phones still suck. This why I still have a land line. #oldtechthatworks
— Bill Dollins (@billdollins) August 13, 2011
This tweet was the result of yet another dropped call, which is annoying, but the unreliability of cellular networks can be more than just annoying, especially given the fact that they are now the primary communications medium for many people.
Almost ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, I was being evacuated from the building I was in and was trying reach my wife via cell phone. I heard a few garbled words about my parents and our dog before the line went dead. The mobile phone network was down for quite a while and my old analog cell phone was a paperweight during that time. We met up at my parents house later and she had our son and dog with her.
I went on to spend the next several years closely involved with critical infrastructure protection efforts and, specifically, the application of geospatial tools to those efforts. A lot of time, effort and money has been invested to make sure infrastructure works better in such situations.
I read with interest this article that was brought to my attention by @gis_Todd on Twitter. I have been playing with Foursquare for a few weeks now and I think this article is in sync with some observations I have had about it but also misses the mark on one key point.
Update: “The GIS Forum” mentioned here is no longer online. If you haven’t seen Allan Laframboise’s excellent presentation from the DevSummit on the GeoWeb Community, I highly encourage you to check it out. It includes some poll results with very surprising data about the use of social media (or lack thereof) by GIS developers. One … Read more