Archive for the ‘Mapping’ Category

Postcards from Stoke

A new photoblog, Postcards from Stoke showing vintage picture postcards from Stoke and across north and mid Staffordshire (and the nearby Peak and the bits of Cheshire bordering Staffordshire).

Big maps of Brum

Late Victorian O.S. maps of Birmingham, at a huge 1:2500 scale, with zoom. The map sheets must surely be public domain by now, but sadly there’s an ‘All Rights Reserved’ notice.

Treepedia

MIT Treepedia, using Google Street View to determine the extent of a city’s “green canopy” of trees, at least those visible along the roads. The website currently has a demo for 10 cities, but it seems that Green View Index comparison between a great many of the world’s cities is planned… “we will continue to […]

On a Whim

“Using the Whim app, Helsinki becomes the first city to try out an all-inclusive mobility service covering public transportation, taxis, and even car rentals. Instead of a monthly train or a bus pass, imagine buying a mobile app subscription that covers all forms of public and private transportation.”

Photographers’ Identities Catalog

PIC – the Photographers’ Identities Catalog. Sadly my Web browser wasn’t deemed worthy enough to enter, but yours may have better luck. “Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC) is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations […]

Mind the gap…

Google Street View now has the first full UK walking trail online, in 360-degree walkable form. It’s the ancient North Downs Way, stretching 153 miles from Farnham — Canterbury — the White Cliffs of Dover. Next up is the Cleveland Way, and the rest of the UK’s main long-distance National Trails are scheduled to go […]

Needless Alley

Birmingham Conservation Trust has a short blog post today on one of my favorite Birmingham places, Needless Alley… “This little passage way is a survivor from old Birmingham that has managed to escape the urban planners!” It has only escaped the council planners, in the sense that it hasn’t been stopped up. But its unique […]

Social Media in an English Village

A new open ebook, based on detailed grassroots research, “Social Media in an English Village”… “Daniel Miller spent 18 months undertaking an ethnographic study with the residents of an English village [less than one hour from Central London by train, so perhaps not that typical…], tracking their use of the different social media platforms. […] […]

Graven images

I had thought that news stories about ridiculous bans on photography in public places were a thing of the New Labour past. But now it seems that Birmingham City Council wants to ban photography of public gravestones… “Council bans amateur historians from taking photos of heritage graves”. The Council obviously doesn’t have a clue about […]

Visit the British Museum using Google Streetview

You can walk through the British Museum, using Google Streetview… “Built over 15 months with the help of a Google employee with a camera on wheels … completed by the Google Cultural Institute after hours, with special lightbulbs being installed to ensure the lighting remained the same through the galleries.”

New book: Archaeology of Sutton Park

Thirty-five years in the researching, a new book on the Archaeology of Sutton Park, an ancient semi-wild park a few miles to the north of Birmingham.

World Map of Stereotypes

Amazingly detailed and complete, a new World Map of Stereotypes…

What is might cost to get a short graphic novel made?

A new edition of the What do Comic Creators Earn? table, this week. So it seems like £130 per page for line-art + colouring would get art from a mid-range artist. I’m assuming that the writer is the one commissioning the artist directly and can do things like… * the finished script * provide the […]

BBC: stormy outlook

Looks like I won’t be enjoying the elegant design of the BBC’s per-day / 5-day weather forecast for much longer. The BBC is set to swop the Met Office data feed for either a Dutch or a New Zealand weather company, according to The Economist. Oh well. What’ll be needed then, come the Autumn, is […]

Fifty-three Stages of the Eastern Sea Road

The prints of Hiroshige’s Fifty-three Stages of the Tōkaidō [Eastern Sea Road]” (1832, pub. 1833) are on show in Wolverhampton until 21st November 2015.

Drone Races

The new, underground sport of first-person drone racing. Don’t forget to take the air-sickness tablets, guys…

Manchester accent map

Greater Manchester accent map. Interesting, but possibly somewhat of a summer silly season item — the sample size is 62 ‘non-experts’, the map looks like something made by undergraduates for a student magazine, and the local press’s description of the methodology seems suspiciously vague… “Participants were given a blank map of the area of Greater […]

Endon Wildlife

Endon Wildlife is a blog in the Staffordshire Moorlands of North Staffordshire, which is doing outstanding local on-the-ground research work on subtle eco-degredation and mis-management of the landscape.

Google StreetView: Mongolia

Google StreetView, Mongolia. Off-road trails, too. “Last fall we strapped a Street View camera onto a four-wheel drive pickup truck to begin capturing 360-imagery from rugged Mongolian roads. Since then we’ve also gone off-road to capture images of the country’s most beautiful places with Ariuntuul, our Mongolian Trekker operator, who carried the 18-kg Street View […]

Just add bears…

DatumExplorer v01. Digitally scan an entire British woodland, record its complex sounds and acoustics, create a mapped computer simulation, add bears and other extinct animals…