Monthly Archives: October 2010

8 posts

How good is OpenStreetMap

That is a statement not a question. I have been at the 1Spatial user conference at Homerton College in Cambridge today. Several people commented on the difficulty that they had in finding the conference centre on Google Maps which matched my own experience. Search on Google for Homerton College and you will get directed to the centre of the Addenbrookes Hospital complex famous for heart transplants but not to my knowledge a conference venue. The […]

Sounds off

I am a sceptic about sound maps in general because I can’t normally see any significance in the spatial distribution of sound clips or why you would want to search for sound clips by location. I think there may be a real challenge in linking sound and maps in a meaningful way. Among the silliest in my opinion is the UK SoundMap from the British Library. I doubt that much of value will come from […]

Open Data – the pros, the cons, a bit of FoI and a personal manifesto

A couple of weeks back when I was at W3G and GeoCommunity there was a lot of discussion about Open Data (not sure whether there should be a space between the words or not or whether someone has a (c) to the phrase by now). I sensed that there were two very different perspectives on Open Data and to some degree these views were categorised by whether you were at W3G or GeoCommunity but then […]

Derived Data – simple takes a little longer

The 1st of October, hereafter to be known as Double D Day, will be marked in the annals of the Free Our Data campaign and the those supporting Open Data and the reuse of public sector information and within local and central government and within the world of geogeekery and perhaps even at Google Towers. We now have a Derived Data policy that we can read, understand and most importantly that enables lots of data […]

Anonymous places, the case for PND’s

Last week I was trying to get from Stratford on Avon to meet up with my wife in Glaston, Rutland after GeoCommunity. No PND and no printer available to print out a map and directions but I wasn’t worried I had my trusty iPhone. Not quite so simple. Lets start with the limitations of an iPhone and particularly an old 3G as an in car navigation device – battery life, lack of mounting, low volume […]

Cocktails on the Titanic – the final chapter from #GeoCom

I presented Cocktails on the Titanic to a pretty full room at GeoCommunity on Wednesday. I have been developing my thoughts for this presentation over the last 6-9 months. It started with the AGI Foresight study and my section of the editorial on social and economic trends, it evolved with “Without a business model you are FCUK’d” at wherecamp.eu and then presentations to the ESRI UK user conference, The GeoData 2010 event, State of the […]

CutsMap – another useless survey?

I was pretty scathing about CASA’s Survey Mapper in my “Just because you can put something on a map…” talk at W3G. When I met up with Andy Hudson-Smith after the talk in Stratford we had a very good conversation about Survey Mapper, he made a good case for putting the tools into peoples’ hands and seeing what they could do with them and I argued that self selecting polls on topics that may not […]

Tweeting responsibly at #W3G and #GeoCom – a public service announcement

Some people don’t get twitter, fair enough. Some people don’t like the back channel at conferences, maybe they think it is distracting delegates from listening to the presentations, fair enough. Some people tweet way too much, that’s me. At a conference the tweetstream is a conversation, often irreverent, frequently sharp and observant, sometimes puncturing pomposity (not that I am suggesting any existed at W3G or GeoCom) and nearly always humourous. If you are wondering what […]