Relax, breathe. You have made it...both to this article and Friday. Congratulations! As a reward, I want to give you a breakdown of all the fun articles we have come across this week in our #DailyBrainCandiii posts, share an even more fun (funner? fun to the max?) #MapOfTheDay, and give you a space to chill for a bit before you start your day.
"It's not what you know. It's what you do with what you know."
The opener of this article really sets the pace for the read as well as the Big Data movement itself. Having access to a resource like this does not do much good unless you are actually using it. To ensure this does not become the world's most expensive digital paperweight, organizations and teams need to be willing to embrace change and establish a clear plan with measurable goals.
Put together by a graphic design student, this time-lapse shows off famous landmarks from all over the world and allows you take a trip from the comfort of your couch. Based on imagery pulled from Google Maps and Google Earth, the video contains 3300+ screenshots frame by frame.
If you are reading this, you are well aware of the sea of uses to which Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies may be applied. One application you may not have anticipated is analyzing the reach of the Internet. A hypothesis coined as the Death of Distance states that the Internet will make many things that were previously limited by distance - such as communication and transmission of information - no longer impacted by distance. Was supporting evidence for this hypothesis found or has it been debunked? Well, I will not be the one to break it to you.
Although many software applications like ArcGIS, Tableau, Adobe Creative Suite, etc. all come pre-loaded with "recommended" color palettes, it does not mean that these selections are one-size-fits-all. The color savants responsible for assembling these collections pour a lot of time, thought, research, and testing into developing those palettes that will work on a basic level, as well as across the board. They must be applicable for both the product and the people, embracing typical data visualizations as well as any viewers who are color blind. This article is an interesting look into issues with many color options and what factors you should consider when selecting your own.
This article looks into the approach you might take when you have a large set of geolocated data points and want to aggregate them by region with the help of resources like geojson.
Okay, this is not actually the name of the map. However, it does help to sum up one of the reason we have picked this map for our favorite #MapOfTheDay of the week. This goes against everything we are taught, the biggest rule next to including a title... This has no legend. Gasp! Instead, it relies on the power of recognition to decode symbology. If it is done correctly, this approach can actually improve the understanding of the map. This is because the eye is no longer having to track the page, moving back and forth between features and the legend to discern what it is that is being seen.
But Wait...There is More?
Now that you have gotten a taste of the Big Data revolution and been convinced to never again include a legend on your maps, we encourage you to take a peek at these other posts.
This week, we highlighted the robust remapping capabilities of Integrated Marco Desktop in our #MarcoMonday post. By remapping, I do not mean creating a new map after you have already worked so hard to get the first one just right. In fact, I mean just the opposite.
In addition to Integrated Marco Desktop, we waxed poetic on our favorite Alignment Sheet Generator, Integrated Folio. This #MeetTheProduct introduced the makeover this application has received over the last year, showing off its lack of mullet and its increasingly shiny configuration and customization features.
#DailyBrainCandiii and #WeekliiiRoundUp are inspired by brain candiii, a division of Integrated Informatics that develops Geographic Information System (GIS) training for Energy and Natural Resources professionals.