January 8th, 2012, No Comments »
I recently finished reading Michael Ondaatje’s excellent The Cat’s Table. It tells the story of a boy’s journey (ostensibly, but not actually, Ondaatje himself–he’s a notorious liar in such things) by ocean liner from Colombo, Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka) to London, England. I quite enjoyed the novel–much more than Anil’s Ghost and Divisadero, and would recommend it.
This was the first ebook I’d ever read, as it happens. I read it on the iPad, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to include an annotated map with the text. There are some standard ‘extras’ that you get with the Kindle app–lists of characters and memorable quotes, example. The ebook actually included a section entitled “Setting & Places”, but it seems like it’s generated algorithmically, not curated by an actual human. How do I know this? The terms “Cat” and “Hyderabad Mind” (the latter is the name of a circus performer in the book) are listed as settings or places. The Kindle app notes that this content comes courtesy of Shelfari.
I was curious about the route the Oronsay, Ondaatje’s ocean liner, took. So, I plotted the locations where the boat put into port, and made a quick custom Google map:
View The Route of the Oronsay in Michael Ondaatje’s “The Cat’s Table” in a larger map
No Comments »
October 6th, 2010, 1 Comment »
In 2007, famed web cartoonist Randall Munroe drew this great map of online communities. Today, he released a wonderful new version of the map. He’s worked hard, apparently, to build the map to scale. Hence the huge landmass that Facebook covers. I also like how he’s clustered a lot of the foreign social networks into a kind of Southeast Asia in the western quadrant of the map.
Click to view the big version on xkcd.com:
Can you spot Kanye’s Isle of Sadness?
I’ve been a long time fan of xkcd, and was delighted when Russell gave us permission to use a particularly insightful comic about YouTube commenters in our book.
1 Comment »
March 19th, 2010, 3 Comments »
Last night I was at a client event, and some developers were demonstrating applications they’d built on top of the City of Vancouver’s Open Data catalogue.
The app I really liked is called VanPark 2010, and overlays metered parking rates on top of a map of downtown Vancouver.
Lots of geeks abstractly advocate the power of open source and open data, but this seems to be a great example of how opening up data can help the average citizen. I requested a feature where the user enters an address, and the app highlights the cheapest parking within, say, 500 meters.
And can we take a moment to recognize the awesomeness of Bing Maps’ Birds eye view functionality. It truly is the eye of God.
3 Comments »
February 7th, 2008, 3 Comments »
Last summer I collaborated with Rob from Techvibes and Christine from Blue Lime Media to build the first version of Techcouver.com, a Vancouver transit map showing Web 2.0 companies.
Then Cameron from Reaction Lab got involved, and we had a much fancier, Flash-based version 2.0.
Techvibes has national ambitions, so with Christine’s help, they recently rolled out version 3.0. It’s based on Google Maps, is nation-wide and is no longer restricted to Web 2.0 companies. Check it out.
3 Comments »
August 22nd, 2007, 3 Comments »
A couple of months back, my friend Rob Lewis had an idea for a little Web project. Rob’s the new CEO of Techvibes, and has the enticing challenge of transforming it from a creaky, Web 1.0 social network to something compelling and relevant in 2007.
Rob saw this map of the web in Montreal, and figured we could do something similar in Vancouver. I decided to use Translink’s familiar zone map as a background, so I set to work painstakingly recreating it.
We planned to announce our little project at BarCamp, so we decided to produce the first map with Vancouver’s Web 2.0 companies. We partnered with the good folks at Bluelime Media to turn my map into a site, and I really dig the retro fridge theme they came up with.
You can check it out at Techcouver.com.
Some Pretty Vague Criteria
We did our best to identify as many appropriate local companies as we could. My criteria were pretty vague, frankly, but then, so is the term itself. If we missed your company, apologies. There’s a link on the site to get added to the map–just click the fortune cookie fortune (odd, but grammatically correct, I think). I know Rob’s already received a couple of requests.
All of the companies that we found are clustered around downtown, so you kind of lose the whole Translink zone map effect. It’s a pity, too, because it took me hours to trace from Bowen Island to the Fraser Valley. Ah well, a future map will no doubt feature companies in suburban business parks.
Subsequent maps might include mobility companies, medium and large tech companies and so forth. Eventually we might even create some slick Ajax interface which enables us to fit all the companies on one map. For now, though, they’re categorized.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: in doing this project, I discovered that you can open up and modify Translink’s incredibly detailed PDF maps in Adobe Illustrator. That wasn’t any use to me and my zone map, but it’s a top tip if you need to hack up a map of Vancouver.
3 Comments »