FANTOM PLANET

I thought I would give Chandu some coverage for the new MapPoint Web Service version that he has just posted about.

Via Chandu Thota’s Weblog:

MapPoint Web Service, Version 4.0 Features

On September 12th we have released MapPoint Web Service, V4.0 with tons of new features and I totally missed on blogging this (been slammed with work – lame excuse!) So here is an
overview of features:

• Polygon Find and RenderNow you can perform powerful point-in-poly,
  poly-in-area, and property-query finds on user defined polygonal data such
  as their Sales Territories, Delivery Areas, Property Boundaries, etc.
• Traffic IncidentsYou can find accidents, road closures, construction projects,
  and traffic-relevant incidents for over 70 US metro regions.
• New Map OptionsNow you can render Line-Drive maps and Night
  style maps
• Extended International CoverageNow you can find addresses in – New Zealand – Hong Kong – Singapore
• Language ExpansionNewly supported languages include – Czech -
  Danish – Norwegian – Finnish
• Find-related EnhancementsExtended match properties can help detect addresses
  much more accurately than earlier Score numbers and time-zone
  information
• You can find the new SDK online at MapPoint Developer Center. You can also read the “What’s new” section from the SDK for more details.

Finally, this release of the MapPoint Web Service is fully backward-compatible with previous version of the MapPoint Web Service (V3.5); so, your existing applications should continue to function as expected without changing or re-compiling the source code.

Cheers!

My friend Tim recently posted:

“Certainly, one of the major challenges that the world will face in my lifetime is that of development. Perhaps it is time to develop a new model, or at least re-assess the models that we have been using.”

A friend of a friend is currently living in the province of Enga in Papua New Guinea and has been blogging for some time now. Both of these guys offer some opinions on the development models used for developing nations. What they both recognize is the fallibility of humanity in underdeveloped places where resources are stolen from those who need it.

Although both are not geographers, check out both of their blogs. It should provide you with some aspect of the things good people are doing in the world today and extend your geographic knowledge of lesser known places.

Assumption: There will probably be a boom for geographers in areas recently affected by hurricanes Rita & Katrina.

Reason: There are geographers out there with skills to assist in the recovery effort for the entire region, such as geographers with urban & regional planning and environmental backgrounds, to name a few. Yet, across the country I can see transportation engineers and regional planners becoming more important in their roles to create evacuation and emergency plans for states, counties, and cities across the United States.

Imagine trying to evacuate Washington D.C. Actually, right now, you probably couldn’t very effectively. Have you seen the normal traffic around here?

Would you trust the expertise of your Mayor or a city council member to do it? Probably not.

So, to modify a line from Jack at a past UC, “Geography. Managing Our World.” Which it really does and it’s something that more people should take note of.

Sleeping Beauty
Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

Like I said in the “Internship” post, I have “stuff” to take care of.

Well, “stuff” has clearly changed into my beautiful baby daughter who was born on Monday. Clearly the first inhabitant born on The PLANET, she’ll make for a good ruler someday. For now, she’s daddy’s little girl.

“14:59 until in range of the PLANET, sir.” Said the targeting officer on the Death Star.

Odd thing happened today when I checked my freakin’ FeedBurner stats today… “How the hell did I get nearly one thousand hits on Friday? And why have I been receiving over one hundred hits per day for a week now?”

FYI: The band, Phantom Planet, has their website here. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

Unless someone caught wind of my GEOINT gripe. Or, folks out there were looking for hardwood floor. Or, some folks were interested in an internship. Otherwise, I don’t have a clue who would be reading this fecal matter.

There is the possibility that the work I have been doing at the office could be a factor. I created a GeoBlog portlet as resource. It consists primarily of all the blogs that are on the PLANET’s blogroll. So, for those of you from my blogroll who are reading this and looking at your stats from Friday, my office could be a reason.

Still, almost one thousand readers?… Time to get AdSense.

“Fire at will, Commander.”

Jesse at Very Spatial posted an article by Frank, which is exactly what I have at one point or another have tried to post before. The only reason I haven’t posted my same feelings is because of the office.

Most often after re-reading my drafts, I felt like I was sounding mucho bitter and angry. So, I tended to delete them.

To sum up what Frank points out in an outstanding way is that data builders or collectors and tool builders need to freakin’ talk to one another. I tell tool builders in my corporation that we need to work together all of the time. Also, I tell them about what I see and read about the GeoWeb and most of your great advancements in web mapping and geography. Yet, it gets rather frustrating when no one takes you seriously or they’re too busy or too egotistical to listen.

Ugg! It’s making me frustrated as we speak.

I have a theory about data and tools:

“Tools ‘n’ data are like guns ‘n’ bullets.

You could have a pretty nice gun. It may have taken you all your resources to buy the gun. Yet, once you finally get that gun, you need bullets for it to be a working gun. If you spent all of your resources to buy your gun and didn’t have anything left, you couldn’t buy any bullets for your fancy new gun. Or, you had a limited amount of bullets for your gun, but you’re about to run out of bullets for your gun. Or, you keep spending additional unexpected resources over the life of your gun.

Eventually, the bullets become more expensive than the gun originally was.

Finally, after running out of bullets or never having any, what do you end up with? A hunk of metal. Otherwise known as a club.

Now how effective is your gun for your original purpose at that point? Answer: It’s not.”

This is the situation some organizations find themselves in when they commit to creating a “killer app” or “the best tool ever.” They tend to forget 1) about the data, and, 2) the cost of the data over the lifetime of the tool or app.

And people wonder why they’re always complaining about not having data?

Please, take my advice: “Invest in data.” Otherwise, you’ll find yourself up a creek without a paddle.

So, take a good look at what Frank says and ask yourself, “Who is building tools for my data?” Or, “Who has data for my tools?” Then go and work closer with those people. Have lunch. Move into a nearby cube. Date the PM’s daughter, or, son. Or, both. Only so: yourself, the tool builder and/or data builder, can live in harmony.

It may keep your butt out of a sling and me sane.

I’m going to be busy in the next few weeks with some “stuff”, so I thought I would place the “Interns Wanted” sign on the PLANET.

If you’re geographer, interested in blogging, in the 22 to 35 and 60+ 55+ demographic, I would be interested in your application. I would like some credentials such as a note from your mom, a picture of you and a rare returned artifact, or, furlow papers from a Turkish prison.

Sarcasm and God-honest thought a plus.

GIS and Remote Sensing place you at the low-end of the totem pole unless you have sarcasm or God-honest thought.

Spelling will be checked, but malapropisms allowed… Only if beauteous.

Send your inquiries to the email address provided on the webpage.

This past weekend I installed some new hardwood floors. Engineered hardwood. Which means that it has to be glued down on top of the cement floor that is the main level of my home.

A funny thing about engineered hardwood, it can have soft spots that can crack and pop. Driving me somewhat crazier than I already am. So, to remedy the problem I am having the installers return to inject more glue.

They came earlier this week and missed most of the soft spots.

So, taking a cue from my archeologist buddies I used a little trick to find the rest of the soft spots. I got down on my hands and knees, and started knocking with my knuckles. The doppler effect takes affect here. Where the more solid sounding knock means there is adequate glue beneath the planks and the more hollow sounding knocks are where there needs to be more glue. I used Post-it Note flags to outline the areas where there needs to be more glue.

You should see my floor!

Just before I did take photos of my floor to orthorectify and start generating a GIS of the soft spots my wife stopped me. Noting that I wasn’t at work and that I was geeking out.

Holy crap!

As always she’s right.

At least now, my floor people will know how to do their job.

Whew! Good thing I checked my junk mail.

I just received my reminder to sign up for “The Nation’s premier Geospatial Intelligence Event:”

[Under my breath] GEOINT 2005

I always laugh when I hear that abomination of a term the US Intelligence Community uses to describe what they think they do with geography. My personal feelings are that they seem to be missing the boat somewhere. I’m also not sure this is the greatest place for geographers in general. It’s intelligence policy and numerous vendor demonstrations.

If you look at the keynotes, you will notice that there’s a disconnect. Of course there’s the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the deputy director for national intelligence, a former director of CIA, and numerous others from industry.

“Numerous others from industry?” Hmm? Sounds like a sales convention.

But there is a workshop!

Ah, yes. The Advanced Geospatial Intelligence workshop. Pssst… That’s remote sensing for you guys in the intelligence community.

The fine purveyors of the conference ask you to, “Come participate in this two-hour workshop to hear about the USGIF Academy and NGA requirement for an Advanced Geospatial Intelligence Certificate. We are asking for academia input and participation in these activities and initiative.” That was an actual quote from their webpage and not my bad grammar.

If you graduated from a decent photogrammetery or remote sensing program, odds are… You’re gonna have one of these already.

So, um, I guess GEOINT isn’t an entire bust, because…

THERE’S THE GEOWALK EVENT! Which sports the finest open bar from our industry partners!

Then again, I guess GEOINT is pretty awesome. [Scoff] Geography? Ha!

I thought I would highlight some of the wonderful things found on the FANTOM PLANET.

Dictionary.com/malapropism:

mal-a-prop-ism (ml-prp-zm)
n.

1. Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.
2. An example of such misuse.