The USGS beta website just went online: http://beta.usgs.gov/ . Public comments can be submitted by clicking on the “SEND FEEDBACK” button floating in the lower right corner.
The main USGS website is still available at: http://www.usgs.gov/ .
Using real food, two artists have created an edible atlas that shows that we really are what we eat.
GeoJSON has emerged as a popular format for sharing location-based information on the web, and the JavaScript Maps API is embracing this open standard. This means, as a developer, you can now pull raw data from multiple data sources, such as the US Geological Survey or Google Maps Engine and easily display it on your website with this bit of code:
map.data.loadGeoJSON(‘earthquakes.json’);
Visit Google’s blog to read more about it.
ESRI has released Collector for ArcGIS 10.2.2. It is available for both iOS and Android. This release introduces support for downloading maps to smartphone and tablet devices so that you can collect and update GIS features in the field where there is no data connection and then synchronize changes when connected. Nice! More information here.
From Scott Gregory, California State GIO:
As you may or may not know, AB1327 is a bill that could potentially impact the work that we do in regards to remote sensing and aerial imagery collection, etc… in the near future. See the link below for more detail. My office is in the process of providing the Legislature a summary analysis of the bill. In our analysis we want to highlight civilian use (non-public safety governmental) cases for UAV technology as a rebuttal to some of the limiting language in the bill.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1327
If this bill will affect your organization’s future data collection needs, please provide me a brief summary to be incorporated into the analysis. Something like the follow would be appropriate:
Dept. of Water Resources
Levee Inspection
The use of civilian accessed UAV technology would greatly enhance our ability to assess the current conditions of the State’s levee system. This would enhance collection efforts saving time and money in the process because it is accomplished remotely without having to send staff and resources to the field for collection. This process would increase accuracy of surveys….
Basically, I would be looking for the organization name, use case and description of that use case. Please circulate to the user community within your respective organizations to solicit feedback. Please email or call if you have any questions. I would like to have these complied by 10am Friday (3/14/14). Thanks for your help.
Scott Gregory
Deputy Director
State Geographic Information Officer
California Department of Technology
Scott.Gregory@state.ca.gov
916.431.5449
10860 Gold Center Drive
Rancho Cordova, CA. 95670
I thought this was pretty amazing showing a river changing course over time, from 1984 to 2012.
Remeber leaning about oxbow lakes in Geography class? Well, you can watch them being formed! I believe this is the Rio Ucayali in Huanuco, Peru.
Hack for Pasadena is two-days of open sourced talks and hands-on problem solving, to re-imagine the way the web, applications, technology, and community participation will shape the future of the City of Pasadena. Hack for Pasadena brings together the tech community with businesses, nonprofits, academia and city officials to work together to solve complex social problems through technology innovation. Anyone can pitch an idea or problem. Ideas may range from coming up with creative ways to address the city’s biggest challenges like homelessness, transportation, crime, affordable housing and public safety, to beautification projects and business ideas that will make the city more livable. From there, small groups form to brainstorm solutions and start tackling the issue with design and code. Publicly accessible data sets will be used to support the solutions. At the end of two days, each group will present a workable solution that improves the daily life for real people in our community.
And here are the prizes!
Hack For Pasadena will be Saturday March 15 to Sunday March 16. For more information and to register, visit www.hackforpasadena.com .
The USGS has release a Wind Farm Mapping Application, which allows users to access the more than 47,000 individual wind turbines contained within the national wind turbine database. You can filter data by total height, capacity, and blade length and also download the wind energy data.
The purpose of the project was to provide a publically available, spatially referenced, national dataset of onshore wind turbine locations and their corresponding facility information and turbine technical specifications. The project compiles wind turbine information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Digital Obstacle File, as well as other manually digitized turbine locations.
Ah yes, Daylight Savings Time is here again on Sunday. Don’t forget to move your clock forward an hour. If you want to be exact, do it at 2am Sunday morning! If you are in Hawaii, Arizona (except the Navajo Nation), and Alaska Aleutian Islands, just ignore it. For some reason animals ignore DST. I try to convince my dog that meal time is an hour later … like a teenager he refuses to understand!
I bought this book a few years ago about DST. It’s really good and explains the detailed history of DST. Get your copy today! (PS – I do not make any money from the sale of this book, I just enjoyed reading it.) -mike
I read this article today and thought how Geography is very important!
Long Beach mayoral candidate sends out mailer with San Diego skyline:
