This Week’s Hangout:: Professional Minecraft GIS
So we’re back at the Hangouts with a special one this week. Ulf Månsson, FME extraordinaire, is going to show us some of his Safe Software FME Minecraft and OpenStreetMap integration. We’ll have a live Minecraft server up and running for everyone to connect to and explore OpenStreetMap in Minecraft. To prepare for the hangout, download Minecraft to your computer, connect to our server, and play around in an OSM Minecraft world. The connection details to the server will be published on Friday so check back on the block to see everything.
Because of the holiday, we’ll be at a weird time this week, Friday, July 5th at 5 PM PDT. As always you can watch along on my blog and I’ll be sure to update this event with the details as we get closer. Go to the Google+ Event page to find out more.
Back at it
So I’ve been just a bit quiet on the blog. Looking back the longest before this spell was about a week. Been busy working for the man and you know how he is.
Jack-Wall
Actually I’ll tell you, he doesn’t like me working on Linux or Mac but maybe that’s a discussion for another day.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve been thinking about diagramming my life in Microsoft Visio or Project, I’ve been spending my spare time really getting into some awesome stuff.
- Leaflet.js - Seriously, where has this been all my life. I’ve been sort of working with Esri’s JSAPI again, but even at the compact build it’s like washing one glass in your dishwasher. Leaflet might be the most exciting geo-related (it’s hipster if you hyphen geo, but not if you CamelCase it) project out there right now. I’m just breaking into Leaflet.js 0.6 right now and I’m salivating over seeing how I can now save layers to GeoJSON.
- Node.js - Replacing GeoServer with Node.js.
- TopoJSON - It’s been a big week for TopoJSON and GitHub support for it. Call me a neck beard, but spatial layers support topology. Why is it we did things this way in the mid-90s and then forgot how? Oh right, the stupid Shapefile.
- TileMill - You could have not gone to SOTM-US and not want to do amazing things with CartoCSS. I mean, blurring geometries? The golden age of cartography is upon us. Learn CSS and know that TileMill is so much better than ArcPlot ever was. Seriously though, did anyone ever love ArcPlot even though it gave you such fine grained control of cartography. I sure didn’t.
- The San Francisco Giants - Yes it’s been a brutal year but the Giants are still World Champs and your team isn’t. They’re a second half team and that’s so much better than being a first half team. It’s all good because I just watch this all day.
- FME Desktop on Mac OS X - Finally I can do everything on my Mac except that I’m not allowed to do anything on my Mac at work. Still that’s why we have personal computers.
So next Friday Hangouts with James Fee is back on. We’ll be doing it every other week with special events throughout the year. July 5th is going to be a great Minecraft mapping exercise. Fire up your Minecraft client and connect to something awesome, details to follow. I’ll probably have a Hangout at the Esri UC as well.
Speaking of which, I’ll be there Monday night through Thursday evening. If you want to catch up, just email me and we can talk. I’m skipping the Plenary session because I can’t take anymore stories about using GIS to find hikers in Yosemite, but I’m looking forward to seeing if 10.2 is all that. Remember, even releases of ArcGIS are bad so we’ll have to see if this bucks the trend.
You Blew it up
I also like people who find a blog post from 5 years ago and email me to say I misspelled some word that I should know better how to spell. You inspier me to dble my eferts to spel wrds corectly.
Waze valued at $1B
So Waze may be part of Facebook for a cool “One Billion Dollars”.
After spending $1 billion on Instagram last year to keep pace with the mobile photo explosion, Facebook is now reportedly ready to spend a similar amount on popular social driving app Waze.
Waze is considered the second most popular navigation map in the USA so it’s not too much of a surprise. I do find it interesting though that Facebook would spend this money on the data. They don’t need the users, that’s for sure and they can buy engineers to solve the problem. I can only think it is better to own Waze than use OpenStreetMap data that you have to share. Are we seeing problems with the license? I hope this is a huge discussion at OSM PLUS next month.
UPDATE - Marc Prioleau has some great insight on his blog. His kicker at the end?
Why OSM isn’t a better option is another whole discussion. I suspect it revolves around ownership and data rights.
Esri and an OGC Standard
So there is a ton of talk about Esri’s REST API trying to become an OGC standard on Twitter. We mentioned it on my hangout yesterday and it’s still a hot topic. Here are some bullet points.
- OGC exists to help software vendors, open source projects, contractors market to the federal government. There is no altruistic goal other than to make money.
- OGC standards are standard only in the world of contracts. Just because Esri gets their REST API “blessed” doesn’t make it worth using any more than it was before.
- Esri submitted their REST API to OGC so they could use it in federal contracts instead of existing OGC standards which nobody uses.
- Esri REST API won’t be used outside of Esri software so it really doesn’t matter.
- Esri’s consulting arm is competing with all of us. Beware as they’ll squeeze you out the minute they can.
- OGC standards suck so that’s why people are always proposing new ones. By next year there will be another “standard” coming up that will replace Esri’s.
- The simple fact that there is a proposal for “OGCJSON” should tell you all you need to know about these standards.
- Esri exists to make money, that’s OK as I work for the same reasons. Just don’t wrap their business model up with saving the world.
- KML is the only OGC Standard people actually use. The rest are check boxes on a form.
Don’t get emotional about OGC standards. That’s what they want, people to actually start caring.
Mission Accomplished
Esri and an OGC Standard
So there is a ton of talk about Esri’s REST API trying to become an OGC standard on Twitter. We mentioned it on my hangout yesterday and it’s still a hot topic. Here are some bullet points.
- OGC exists to help software vendors, open source projects, contractors market to the federal government. There is no altruistic goal other than to make money.
- OGC standards are standard only in the world of contracts. Just because Esri gets their REST API “blessed” doesn’t make it worth using any more than it was before.
- Esri submitted their REST API to OGC so they could use it in federal contracts instead of existing OGC standards which nobody uses.
- Esri REST API won’t be used outside of Esri software so it really doesn’t matter.
- Esri’s consulting arm is competing with all of us. Beware as they’ll squeeze you out the minute they can.
- OGC standards suck so that’s why people are always proposing new ones. By next year there will be another “standard” coming up that will replace Esri’s.
- The simple fact that there is a proposal for “OGCJSON” should tell you all you need to know about these standards.
- Esri exists to make money, that’s OK as I work for the same reasons. Just don’t wrap their business model up with saving the world.
- KML is the only OGC Standard people actually use. The rest are check boxes on a form.
Don’t get emotional about OGC standards. That’s what they want, people to actually start caring.
Mission Accomplished
Hangouts with James Fee:: Live from the Airport
Steve Citron-Pousty joined me to talk about some of the latest trends in the spatial world. We hit on Google Glass, Esri, Frameworks, housing prices, travel, iD and OSM, naming stadiums, and of course being in an airport. The IRC log is here.