Dutch Street View

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Google Street View arrived in the Netherlands last month, along with a creative application for Street View “sightings”, those funny and weird things caught by the Google car’s 360 camera.  If you don’t want to spend all your time coming the streets for something hilarious, you can take a look at what other people have found at “Streetview Nederland”.  So far just Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Groningen.  Note: anything too salacious or incriminating seems to be quickly removed, and if you want your house “blurred”, Google will do that.

Update 30/6/2018: Dutch version not available, but other sites developed… such as this – Streetview World . Better yet, google “Streetview sightings“.

Made in Detroit

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It seems that about 1/3 of Detroit has gone to seed.  In the past fifty years, since they heyday of Motown, the population has dropped from 2 million, to less than a million.  An article in the blog City Farmer  discusses current serious interest in converting vacant land to urban farms.  Another blog, Politics in the Zeros, also posted an article on this subject recently.

Here in Amsterdam, an astonishing film was shown at Arcam  last week. Made In Detroit by Dutch documentary filmmakers Masha & Manfred Poppenk is about Ferguson Academy for for Young Women in Detroit, an alternative high school which teaches young teen mothers to farm on the schools own grounds, less than three kilometers from the city center.  The farm includes an orchard, dairy, and bee hives, as well as organically grown crops which they sell at Detroit’s Eastern Market.  It is a beautiful and thoughtfully made film.  (Update 2009:  since posting a few hours ago, the film has been blocked pending right, permissions, etc…. hopefully it will be made available again soon.)

Update 30/6/2018: Film title changed at some point to Grown in Detroit.  Ferguson Academy (CFA) closed in 2014.  Another school for teen mothers, Pathways, replaced it, but at a different location and apparently without the farming component. 

 

Don’t forget

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…Earth Hour 2009, Saturday, March 28, 8:30 PM.  This global demonstration is a World Wildlife Fund initiative, and is being framed as a the world’s first global election.  The UN Sec General, Ban Ki-Moon, announced UN participation in a new video.   I’m spreading the word on the Zeeburgerkade!

Update 30/6/2018: Earthhour 2018 video.

 

Immigration Exploration

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The NY Times published this Immigration Explorer interactive map with some fascinating information about immigration in the US since 1880, a great example of using Flash for visualization of data over time.   You can view populations by country of origin as well, through time, though unfortunately not Dutch settlers.   Note all the Russians in Alaska!  (Of course a small number, but a significant percentage.)  The map was made with data from Social Explorer, which looks like an interesting service, though their pricing is not clear.

NYT seems to have their own flash developers, like Matthew Bloch, who studied at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (go Badgers!).  Matthew, with Prof. Mark Harrower of Colorbrewer fame, also developed Mapshaper, an online service for simplifying shape files. I can use this!  Note: the map on the right is extreme… many usable gradations exist between the two.  (This is really for GIS techies.)

Update 30/6/2018: A newer map, still using old (2007) data Migrations Mapand this good website from Pew Research showing world migration (legal)… doesn’t seem to count refugees.

 

Pano-Artio

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Artist Marjan Verkerk made this “map” of her hike in the coastal area near Kayoköy in Turkey. The deserted village of Kayoköy is a UNESCO World Heritage Friendship and Peace Village.

Searching Google Maps for Kayoköy, I was astonished by the explosion of Panoramio photos.  This made me think it would be nice if there were such a site for works of art. It might look like this…

Update 28/6/2018: Panoramio no longer available, bought by Google, aspects of photo sharing incorporated into Google.
Art and maps: Google Arts and Culture. Select Nearby to see museums on map… not artworks.
Van Gogh Gallery has works of art geographically placed, but not handy.

Toddler Geography, and Eurodishes

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This-Two Year Old is a Better Geographer than You  (was in the All Points Blog, now Directions Magazine) caught my attention,  just too cute to pass up.  The 2007 YouTube video was originally a response to the Miss Teen USA South Carolina answers a question. (See Sept 2007 post Sniggering).  Apparently Lilly was later on Oprah, and Jay Leno.  The video has been viewed over 4 million times.  Maybe it would be nice if more parents played map games like this with their kids.

Or you could buy these plates and teach them that there are just eight countries in Europe.  (The makers might have at least made a toothpick dish out the Netherlands.)

Update: 27/6/2018:  Map plates don’t seem to be available any more, probably for good reason. 

IMF Datamapper

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This sweet Flash Datamapper application from the IMF allows you to look at world economic projections through 2013.   The snapshot here shows the “current account” for each country, essentially exports minus imports.  The timeline shows China continuing to soar and the US, after a dip, holding steady, still in negative territory.    All of this data and much more is available for download from the IMF site here.

Update: 27/6/2018:  Links still work, but Datamapper is no longer flash.  Beautifully designed new (2017) interactive map!

From Viewbook to ParkLet via Listio

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This doesn’t have much to do with maps (yet), but what a nice presentation and website design tool!  Viewbook is the creation of a Dutch design company (Resourc Studio), and hit my radar because of their online portfolio for TodaysArt coming up in Den Haag.  Then, searching for reviews of Viewbook resulted in another discovery, Listio.com, a handy (maybe new?) online directory of Web 2.0 applications and services. Another great resource.

And finally, something map-related… searching Listio, found this application, ParkLet, for renting out unused parking spaces in the UK. Seems like a great idea, though not really appropriate on car-free Sunday in Amsterdam.

Update: 27/6/2018: Listio Closed down.  Viewbook expanded and improved.  TodaysArt continues in a different form. ParkLet still going, gussied up.

Trash Vortex and Greenpeace

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Not news, but news to me is the ominous “trash vortex” illustrated in this Greenpeace animation. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) 2006 report on Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters (PDF), there are 46,000 pieces of marine litter for every square mile of ocean.

An amazing film, Garbage Island, presented in short segments on VBS, features Charles Moore, discoverer of the trash vortex, and founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and enlightening explanations by Prof. Frederick vom Saal.

Earlier this summer, somewhere in Amsterdam, I happened upon some Greenpeace volunteers who were apparently training to board ships.  It didn’t seem to be a covert operation, but not too many people were passing by that evening when I took this photo.

Update: 2017-2018:  Article in New Replubic with history and current Trash Vortex news.  ABC news report, March 2018.  And latest estimates of size of trash island in Nature.

See also:  The Ocean Cleanup Foundation website.

Healthy Planet

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Healthyplanet.org is the brainchild of Dr. Mark Mulligan a Geography professor at Kings College in London.  The site was announced in April, with the goal of allowing individuals and businesses to become “guardians” of the planet using a Google Maps or Earth interface.  The maps display a layer of national parks and conservation areas all around the world, including a selection of parks which are designated “priority parks” (mainly in Africa) identified as globally important and in need of urgent funding.  A potential guardian can zoom into an area, select a 1 sq km section, make a donation and then create a pop-up plaque with a dedication.  There are other ways that people are encouraged to participate “from their armchairs”, including mapping (coming soon, they say).

In its FAQs, Healthyplanet states that 90% of a donation goes to a fund set up for each park, and whenever that park has an “approved project”, the funds are transferred to the park.  If, after time, there are no approved projects in the park, Healthyplanet will donate the funds to a priority park.  This seems like a very nice concept and innovative use of maps.

Update 27/6/2018: All links above no longer valid.  Mark Mulligan is still active in this field.