SpacePlace

(Space and Place) RAND Report Says Geospatial Data Not Big Threat

in

Via slashdot.org:

An article in Federal Computer Week came out Monday that announced The Rand Corporation has published a report (sponsored by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) concerning the threat that publicly available geospatial data on US Government web sites might pose in the hands of terrorists that 'found that less than one percent of the 629 federal data sets they studied appeared to have notable value to would-be attackers', according to the report titled: Mapping the Risks:Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information. A curious 'finding' from page xxv of the summary not mentioned in the article states: 'However, we cannot conclude that publicly accessible federal geospatial information provides no special benefit to the attacker. Neither can we conclude that it would benefit the attacker.'

(Space and Place) Communectivity Workshop in Gent

in

These days, there is the Communectivity Workshop in Gent.

This workshop will explore modes of collaborative information and data exchange systems in local and public spaces. It will focus on how individuals can become both distributed and localized participants in shared experiences that can exist city-wide or on a personal scale. The idea is to work on a single project or theme by splitting participants into groups and working collectively. The workshop will take place over four days, include an initial day of introductions, brainstorming around specified topics, and overview of budget, technologies available, expertise of participants and more. The second day we will build a “quick and dirty” prototype to test, provide justification for the project, and give short internal presentations. Day three will involve building a more robust version of the project and have a working version ready for deployment. The final day will be to install the project and collect initial reactions to the piece by people who might use it or see it. Finally, each group will give a more formal presentation of their project in a forum open to the general public.

[Space and Place] Mobile Phone in Morroco

in

This picture shows a "Teleboutique" in the Ourika Valley (Morroco). They sell mobile phone, calling cards and allow you to phone. And the network is good (nice roaming as well).

In addition, Morroco seems to be a very good place for the Internet, I found lots of cybercafés in Marrakech and even though the bandwidth is not huge, it is really cheap (7DH almost 70eurocents) for one hour.

[Space and Place] Paper about locative media and urban studies

in

The paper we wrote (Mauro and me) about IT and urban studies has been accepted: TO LIVE OR TO MASTER THE CITY: THE CITIZEN DILEMMASOME REFLECTIONS ON URBAN SPACES FRUITION AND ON THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE ONE'S ATTITUDE. This is about how IT could offer new way to re-appropriate the city.

Abstract: Without any claim of presenting scientific results, this article will present some reflections on different attitudes we can find in citizens towards their city. We categorised here two different behaviours that we connected to an active or passive role in the community. Our idea is that IT, and location awareness in particular, may support a shift of attitudes towards a more vibrant citizenry. A review of projects into this domain will be presented.

Keywords: urban planning, mobile learning, e-government, informal learning, CSCL, social knowledge, public authoring, civic discourse

(Space and Place) From zoomburb to ball pork

in

Via things magazine, a new vocabulary seemed to appear offered by Dolores Hayden, a professor of architecture, urbanism and American studies at Yale University, as ways to describe aspects of urban sprawl

A boomburb, she explained, is a fast-growing suburb.

A zoomburb is one that's growing even faster.

Snout houses have garages bluntly pointing out at the street. Subdivisions in which all houses face the street with such garages are "snoutscapes."

A ball pork is a sports stadium built with public money for the benefit of a privately owned athletic team.

And litter-on-a-stick is advertising billboards.

[Space and Place] The fool's map !

in
Smart new japanese project: fool's world map.

This is a project visualizing the world map which many fools in the world imagine. If you can see this map comfortably, you are definitely a fool.

One day, a Texan asked me a question when I lived in U.S..

The question was "How many hours does it take to go to Japan by car?". (true story)

He didn't know where Japan is, and even bofore that, he didn't know that Japan is an island. And then, I thought. "What kind of world map is pictured in his mind?"

[Space and Place] Distorted map: anamorphosis

in

The distorted map I posted this morning has been done thanks to a technique called "anamorphosis". Anamorphosis "deals with visual presentation based on deformation theories that create unusual spatial reference". With this keyword, I found this map of Europe. It is an anamorphosis map centered on London according to the travel time from the most important european cities (Source: Denain and Langlois, 1998):

[Space and Place] Skyscrapers are cool but what about underground buildings?

in

subsurfacebuildings.com is a webiste that deals with underground buildings.

SubsurfaceBuildings.com explores underground buildings, examines their impact on architecture and the environment, and addresses such questions as: - Why would anyone want to bury a building? - Are underground buildings safe? - How do architects feel about designing buildings that are hidden within the earth? - What is the environmental impact of subterranean architecture?

[Space and Place] New trend: mapping biodata and location stuff

in

Read in the geowanking mailing list:

I am trying to connect some of my own bio data - electrical skin resistance (GSR) with GPS data. My homemade bio sensor sends numbers via serial to my laptop at 10 second intervals and I can certainly download some waypoint data from the Garmin GPS.

But how can I use 'Time' to later sync the two sets of data together and then visualise the whole thing on some nicely detailed maps of London?

The answer was:

Syncronizing the two means that you will end up with data that looks sort of like this:

lat, long, time, GSR

If you sent me a GPS track log and a GSR file I'd be happy to write a little perl script that would spit that out for you.

Presenting that data on a map opens up a world of possibility. The short answer is that there are lots of tools, and most of them are more tedious then one would think that they should be...

I've been working on a perl module called Geo::Track::Animate that creates animations of track logs.

Here is a sample: http://www.testingrange.com/geotest/ride2work.swf

(TheWorld) people doing strange things with software

in

Runme-Dorkbot City Camp invites people who do strange things with software.

Ladies and Gentlemen,   You are cordially invited to leave your tents and sleeping bags safely at home and join us in Århus, Denmark for the Runme Dorkbot citycamp 2004. From the 25th-27th August, Århus will be filled with 'people doing strange things with software', as well as more traditional campfire activities such as eating, drinking, talking, socialising, showing off and relaxing together.

The citycamp will be an informal gathering of people interested in software and art where citycampers will be free to do some low-key research, develop code and ideas, talk to interesting people and enjoy dorkbot-style presentations (5-20 minute presentations with feedback sessions), performances and parties.