:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Thursday, July 24, 2008 ::

Google Street Map Bristol

Busted
Originally uploaded by dspain.

Interestingly Google Street Map cars have been spotted snapping around Bristol and Birmingham. Despite the legal case against it is Europe and the referral, in the UK, to the Information Commissioner. They must be quietly confident.

France has already had the whole Tour de France route covered.

Labels: Google, Maps, Privacy

:: Dan 24.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

The Schmap tourist guides have now been released for the iPhone and iPod touch. My photos in these versions are at:

Royal Academy of Arts, London
Chinatown, Liverpool
La Villa Cultural Center, Madrid
La Villa Cultural Center, Madrid
Eureka, Bath

If you are using a desktop computer, these links will show you exactly how the photos are displayed and credited in the iPhone version of our guides.

Labels: Flickr, Maps, Photography, Travel

:: Dan 23.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Russian Military & KGB Maps of the UK
"What did the Russians ever do for us?
The spine-chilling fact is that they did more than you think. Every Soviet leader from Stalin to Gorbachev knew not only where you lived but how to get there by tank. For over 50 years, before, during and after the Cold War, the Soviet military undertook the most comprehensive global survey ever attempted and created detailed, accurate maps of practically every country in the world, including the UK.

"Satellite images, high altitude aerial reconnaissance including spies on the ground were used to collect all possible information which was sent back to 50,000 cartographers in Moscow. The maps were scanned and geo-referenced to the National Grid so that they can be overlaid with current mapping. And now for the first time, these unique UK maps have been added to Landmark's historical digital archive, which is already the UK's largest, most comprehensive and accurate."

Visit www.sovietmaps.com for the detailed history of the Soviet mapping of Great Britain by expert John Davies

Labels: Maps

:: Dan 25.2.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

"The Gough Map of Great Britain (also known as The Bodleian Map) is the oldest surviving road map of Great Britain, dating from around 1360. Drawn in pen, ink and coloured washes on two skins of vellum, the map's dimensions measure 115 x 56cm. It was donated to the Bodleian Library in Oxford by Richard Gough in 1809, along with the rest of his collection of maps, prints, books and drawings, under the terms of his will."
More information and large scale image on that link.

Labels: Maps

:: Dan 10.2.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

A recent technical discussion in the office was sidetracked by discussions about the age of parts of the UK motorway network. Google to the rescue, we found ukmotorwayarchive.org, "the online encyclopaedia of UK motorway heritage."

Not only did it answer all of our questions, it even presented an animated time history of network (very slow loading).

Meanwhile, over at Chris's British Road Directory we find the intriguing C-road hunt and the brilliantly annotated work in progress that is the Motorway drive simulator. I recommend the simulation of the M5 Northbound from Exminster in particular, where the petrol is only 85p/ltr and where the first "Tiredness kills Take a break" sign is annotated "Ten miles between junctions here - it's a long way to Bristol and most people are going all the way. Please don't drift off!"

Stupidly geeky as it is, it is still strangely fascinating. I've often wondered if such a map existed as I've been driving, but until now never bothered to look it up. Much as we like to take the piss out of the boring old gits in Civils in the office the engineers' fascination with such systems cannot be denied. In Microserfs Douglas Copland has the computer programmers pouring over 1970s freeway design manuals, quoting aloud from them to each other. There he touched an important part of the engineers psyche that transcends discipline.

Labels: Computing, Engineering, Literature, Maps, Travel

:: Dan 23.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Null Device collects some links and quotes extensively on the possibilities of crowd behaviour modelling. (I used to work at a private company that modelled crowed evacuation from buildings and stadiums in exactly this way, interesting to see that academia is playing catch up here.) Some interesting ideas for things to try with emergent systems. A lot of the ideas posited are akin to game play, which reminds me that "the classic urban-planning simulation game, SimCity, has now been released under the GPL."

Labels: Computing, FOSS, Maps, Modelling

:: Dan 15.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Busy week, made a new mix, worked from home for a day to wait for a boiler engineer to come round, suck his teeth, and say, "nowt to do with us mate, you'll have to go back to the insurance people, they don't know who to send out see, they aren't technical at the office like," recorded a radio show and played said mix, et cetera.

Spotted

Tractor driving through rush hour traffic in Bristol city centre, 9am Monday morning. Wasn't quick enough with the camera. Not that the trater was too fast of course but a bus got in the way.

Psychoacoustic Maps of Milton Keynes

Found on an old Bldg Blog post. Timon Botez says, "Psychoacoustic Maps of Milton Keynes explore ways of translating visual compositions into sound environments. The psychoacoustic maps are not functional, but they use the geometrical forms of the original city map as a basis for artistic expression."
The links in the post are dead, the site has moved to here and you can find all of the text, images, audio and movies referenced there. Well worth a listen if you are interested in generative composition. I'm enjoying FridayEvening.mp3 right now [9min 12MB] very otherworldly, makes Milton Keynes sound even more desolate than Bill Bryson did, which is quite a feat.

Labels: Electronic Music, Maps, Spotted

:: Dan 22.11.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Plymouth34
Originally uploaded by gusset.


I've popped up on Schmapp! again, this time in Plymouth. Not a great picture, there are some much better ones in the rest of my Plymouth set, but those are of less touristy areas.

Labels: Flickr, Maps

:: Dan 7.10.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

BLDG BLOG is a brilliant blog of "architectural conjecture, urban speculation & landscape futures," that I have just discovered thanks to Natali linking to this post about Hot-Mapping. Apparently Haringey Council have been busy flying planes over their district taking thermal images of the area. The council explains it here and full maps of the region are available here. It's interesting to look over. I would genuinely be interested to see how my own house compared to others around it. I'm sure it would be exactly the same as all the others on the estate (it is new build) but I'd really like to know how it compares to houses of different ages and see how age and build vary. The comment on the blog bring up privacy issues, although I'm not sure how much heat loss your house suffers from is a private issue? As long as vigilantes don't start searching out energy loss offenders I think it's pretty harmless from that point of view and I think I'd like to see more councils doing it.



The blog also has two noise related posts from the last week or so. This one following up an interview with neurologist Oliver Sacks about the affects of noise on people. It's interesting although, as with psychology generally, it relies heavily on the exceptional cases rather than the norm. I guess that makes things a lot easier to test and interpret.

This lowest common denominator approach is similar to the way the World Health Organisation Guidelines for Community Noise are based on preventing adverse health affects in the most sensitive population. From conversations with the papers co-editor Birgitta Berglund I know that children in particular are her largest concern. Perhaps by designing to ensure the protection of the most sensitive we can bring down average noise levels over a period of time?

(The Erik Satie anecdote sounds like he failed to do Eno was doing with Music for Airports etc. I imagine these days you could get away with it without anybody flinching. Sometime a space without background music seems odd.)

There is also a post about intentional additions to urban noise to make cities sound more "musical" and to help mask more unpleasant sounds. Soudscaping cities is a bit of a buzz word with architects these days and I've been involved in the soundscaping of some major district developments in the middle-east (without ever actually going there annoying!) I'm interested to see how this study pans out.

Labels: Academic, Acoustics, architecture, Art, Maps, Noise

:: Dan 30.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Free Our Data: Make taxpayers' data available to them
"...government-funded and approved agencies such as the Ordnance Survey and UK Hydrographic Office and Highways Agency are government-owned agencies; they collect data on our behalf. So why can't we get at that data as easily as we can Google Maps or the Xtides program?"

From the blog:

• Want to put maps online cheaply? Get a paper licence and scan them
  
• Crown Copyright: time for an end?

OS Explore portal includes useful user generated route maps like pubcrawls! Note that, "any “walk” you submit becomes OS’s property. ... In other words, OS can resell your stuff if everyone creates walks it likes. Not exclusively, but for itself. Which in fact is exactly the same as we want the OS to provide its data to us, the citizens. Except that things seem to have gotten turned on their head, and OS is acting like a big media company such as MTV wanting to piggyback on the submissions of its viewers. ... Still, it’s movement, of sorts. But what we really want is an API so we can create mashups."

Labels: Copyright, FOSS, Law, Maps

:: Dan 26.9.07 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

liverpool
Originally uploaded by gusset.


I've popped up on Schmapp again. This time in Liverpool. My shot of Chinatown, above, has been included. Odd, as I was never happy with it, I couldn't find a chance to get that arch without cars in front of it. My complete Liverpool set is here. Schmapplet below. Seems to be working now, and the Bath one has sorted itself out too. Fingers crossed.

Labels: Flickr, Maps, Travel

:: Dan 8.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Another one of my photos has popped up on Schmapp, this time for Clothing & Fashion in Bath. It's this night time shot of the Eureka window display.


Window
Originally uploaded by gusset.


My complete Bath flickr set can be found here.

Labels: Bath, Fashion, Flickr, Maps, Photography

:: Dan 3.9.07 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

The latest edition of the Schmap Guide to Madrid now includes a couple of my photos from my trip there in March. Here's the wigget:



If you can't find them, it's these two of Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid.

Labels: Flickr, Madrid, Maps, Spain, Travel

:: Dan 28.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

One of my shots of The Royal Academy of Arts (complete with Invader tile tag) has been included in the latest edition of the Schmapp!! travel guide to London. See it here and check the fancy widget:

Labels: Art, Flickr, Maps

:: Dan 29.6.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Popmatters interviews Steven Johnson about his new book The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Two Men Who Battled to Save Victorian London [paperback due in Oct]. The interview alone brings up some fascinating ideas and questions. If the book is anywhere near as inspiring as it sounds it'll be a good read. Remember, this is from the author of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software so it should be good. Taking the "long zoom" look at society and networks. More intriguing in the connections it draws and more robust an approach than lateral thinking will ever get you. The Ghost Map concerns itself with the story of the cholera outbreak in Victorian London, allowing it to analyze that time of amazing flux in the same way Gibson and Sterling attempted (in fiction form) in The Difference Engine, although their attempt failed to pull it all together in the end. Evolving maps have always fascinated me too. The recent exhibition of London maps at the British Museum was mesmerising. I'm going to end this post now before I meander too much.
[via lmg]

Labels: Books, Literature, Maps, science

:: Dan 9.5.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...

Bookmarking for Physical Locations

"How much you like this resource depends on where you're interested in. If you're into metro areas and other busy places, you'll probably find a lot to see here. If you're more about small towns in the middle of Nebraska, you'll get much less out of it. RRove allows you to tag and review physical locations. You can also get pictures and events for locations as well.

"From the front page you can view sets of places, or see most-recently added places or popular places. You can also search for places ala Google Maps: search for x near y. I did a search for North Carolina with no keywords and got two locations. Then I did a search for New York with no keywords and got over 4600 results. Definitely go for the metro area.

"(If you're just looking for a particular kind of place, and not in a specific location, search for a keyword without a specified location.)

"I did another New York search, this time for deli, and got over 240 results, which are listed alphabetically ten at a time, with Google Maps locations. Click on the name of the location for a details page. The details page gives you comments about the location, sometimes a star rating, offline address/contact information, and a listing of nearby events. Sometimes you'll also get Flickr photos of the location (this is more true of a place like Times Square than a place like Fred's Deli.)

"Note that not just businesses/institutions are listed here. A couple of the searches I did I found people's houses listed. And sometimes it's a group of places, like Times Square. It works best for metro areas, and it would be cool if external information was pulled from a few more places (Wikimapia? Answers.com?) Worth a browse, though -- love those resources that put maps and Flickr photos together..."

Nothing marked in Bristol yet, and I found the navigation a little tricky, but love the idea. And as Research Buzz says in the quote above, would be great if it pulled in Flickr photos too.

Labels: Maps

:: Dan 14.3.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
...