23 December 2004

"Today nonlinear dynamics theorists and structural evolutionary theorists use the terms "structural attractors," "emergent complexity," and "self-organization" to describe the same kinds of phenomena that interested Kant, Bergson, and many other teleologists and vitalists." http://sls-2002.caltech.edu/sessions/abstracts.html Why information maps work: "...power of Feynman diagrams as visual metaphors for the spatio-temporal causal models we typically find in works of art. Feynman diagrams and works of art appear to rely on very similar cognitive operations, apparently capable of spanning most of the universe, including the small and the large, the slow and the fast, the past and the future.

" The information map-maker as the graphic arbiter of the knowledge landscape" - RW

22 December 2004

Comparison of Image Enlargement Methods : http://www.general-cathexis.com/interpolation.html#anchor5
"Potential counts for nothing until it's realized."
"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Dream what you want to dream; Go where you want to go; Be what you want to be;
Because you have only one life; And one chance to do all the things you want to do." - Nemo

21 December 2004

Knowledge-based Content Navigation : http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~lsacks/research/pubs/lcs115.pdf (and sSee references). TopicMaps consist of a new standardised tool developed to model and manage knowledge structures and information resources.

"Navigation - (from http://dspace.learningnetworks.org/retrieve/536/SURF+Onderwijsdagen.pdf )
-the process of determining a path to be travelled by any object through any environment" - Darken & Silbert(1993)
- is a social and frequently a collaborative process" - Hutchins (1995)
- "Everyone should be able to follow open learning pathways of their own choice, rather than being obliged to follow predetermined routes to specific destinations." - Commission of the European Communities, A
Memorandum on Lifelong Learning (2000)
- Exploiting collective learner interactions to help learners select efficient paths to reach their target from their position; "Others who went before you proceeded that way to reach the target". =Map

Navigating through e-Learning Objects : "...the learner should be directed towards reasonable selection and sequencing choices by recommending appropriate learning paths [32]. There could also be synchronization rules to specify or at least to restrict the order in which objects are available to the learners; access to objects could evolve dynamically according to the objects the learner already visited [34]. Links to objects preferred by the instructor could be presented more prominently than others." - http://opess.ie.iwi.unibe.ch/download/CLNGL03.pdf

The History of Memory Techniques Leading to Mind Maps by Tony Buzan : "When you are Mind Mapping, you are not only practising and exercising your fundamental memory powers and your information processing, networking and organising capabilities; you are also using the entire range of your cortical skills, on the way to helping you manifest your own genius!" http://www.mapitsoftware.com/english/mapit/history.htm
http://www.mapitsoftware.com/english/mapit/howto.htm

Maps on flags : http://www.photius.com/flags/map.html

Time Magazine (90 )references for "Mortimer Adler" : http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?search_date_range=range&searchnav=radioValue&query=Mortimer+Adler&from_month=01&from_day=01&from_year=1923&to_month=12&to_day=31&to_year=2005&x=45&y=10
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." - Shunryu Suzuki
"Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable, do nothing." - William Feather
"What if feelings of uncertainty and confusion were only reminders that you have options, that there's no hurry, and that everything is as it should be... Would you still then feel disadvantaged? What if mistakes and failures only ever happened when your life was about to get even better than it's ever been before... Would you still call them mistakes and failures?..." - The Universe

file://Ppi_srv1/sys/InetPub/ToFromDell/ZoomTest/zoom2.htm

20 December 2004

The Pursuit of Knowledge, From Genesis to Google : "The accumulation of knowledge isn't knowledge." - If Babel symbolized our incommensurate ambition, the Library of Alexandria showed how this ambition might be achieved. Set up by Ptolemy I in the third century B.C., it was meant to hold every book on every imaginable subject. by 1988, the Library of Congress alone was receiving 500,000 printed items per year, from which it sparingly kept about 400,000... Millions of pages will be waiting temptingly for their online readers and (to refer back to Genesis) "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." ...(but) reading, in order to allow reflection, requires slowness, depth and context; that leafing through a material book or roaming through material shelves is an intimate part of the craft... We can still read the words on papyrus ashes saved from the charred ruins of Pompeii; we don't know for how long it will be possible to read a text inscribed in a 2004 CD. ... Jorge Luis Borges, who once imagined an infinite library of all possible books, invented a Bouvard-and-Pécuchet-like character who tries to compile a universal encyclopedia so complete that nothing would be excluded from it. In the end, like his French forerunners, he fails, but not entirely.He realizes that his project was not impossible but merely redundant. The world encyclopedia, the universal library, already exists and is the world itself. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/weekinreview/19mang.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5040&en=13eb20f276348db8&ex=1104210000&partner=MOREOVER

MAP, a representation, on a plane and a reduced scale, of part or the whole of the earths surface. If specially designed to meet the requirements of seamen it is called a chart, if on an exceptionally large scale a plan. The words map and chart are derived from mappa and cliarta, the former being the Latin for napkin or cloth, the latter for papyrus or parchment. Maps were thus named after the material upon which they were drawn or painted. In Italian, Spanish and Portuguese the word mappa has retained its place, by the side of carte, for marine charts, but in other languages both kinds of maps are generally known by a word derived from the Latin charla, as carte in French, Karte in German, Kaart in Dutch. A chart, in French, is called carte hydrographique, marine or des ctcs; in Spanish or Portuguese carla de marear, in Italian carla da navigare, in German Seekarte (to distinguish it from Landkarte), in Dutch Zeekaart or ,Paskaart. A chart on Mercators projection is called Wassende graadkaart in Dutch, carte rduite in French. Lastly, a collection of maps is called an atlas, after the figure of Atlas, the Titan, supporting the heavens, which ornamented the title of Lafreris and Mercators atlases in the s6th century. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MA/MAP.htm

17 December 2004

Effective zoom : http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/html/gallery5.html (example). "In order to view explanation for specific area of the map, please drag the black rectangle over the desired area in the thumbnail image above, then position the cursor on numbered site or text in the enlarged image." JavaScript code from http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/utilmapzoomer/utilmapzoomer2.html
Also applicable:
http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/draghole/draghole.html
http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/draghole2/draghole2.html
http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/bgimgstretch3D/bgimgstretch3D1.html
Zoom showing (red) zoom lines : http://www.sdsu.edu/map/display.cgi?365,153

Evidence that the Process of Constructing a Knowledge Map Helps Learners: http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/CRMSE/Fisher_aaas2000.html

Sample maps from Atlas of Science Literacy : http://www.project2061.org/publications/atlas/sample/toc.htm

(Geo) base Maps of the World : http://www.nationmaster.com/countries.php?b_map=1
Flags : http://www.nationmaster.com/countries.php?b_flag=1

Ancient maps of Jerusalem : http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/html/gallery.html

Historic Cities Mapmakers & Artists : http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/mapmakers/search_mapmaker.html


16 December 2004

The Labyrinth Project : A Research Initiative for Expanding the Visual Language of Interactive Narrative : http://www.annenberg.edu/labyrinth/press_photos2.html

"A labyrinth is a multicursal maze representing alternate paths to the source of being."

MindMapping Vs ConceptMapping : Here is a concept map and a mind map from the same set of concepts: http://wiki.conceptmapping.org/view/Discussion/MindMappingVsConceptMapping#foo_1.4

"The new information resources available via the Internet and in software applications present us with constantly mutating layerings of words and pictures. Do such media images act as supplements or “illustrations” to words, or vice versa? What relation lies between word and image, what are its claims, and how does it insert itself into our consciousness? : http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/topics05.htm
... recently coined term) “word-and-image art” (=MAP?) ... what do they have in common with the illuminated manuscript, the emblem book, the cartoon, the comic strip, or film? How has the visual entered literary genres, how have words and texts changed the way we view and “read” art—historically, or in the present? ... the word-image opposition is linked to other strongly ideological binaries: masculinity versus femininity, time versus space, abstraction versus materiality, art versus nature. ...Romantic ideals of synthesis and recombination, the word-image relationship has been a continuous theme of literary and art historical thought.

Visualization is an interdisciplinary imaging science devoted to making the invisible visible through the techniques of experimental visualization and computer-aided visualization. : http://www.vsj.or.jp/dbe.html
Journal of Visualization

8'x10' interactive video Wall Map (integrating Flash with XML) : http://www.natecook.com/work/nrg_demo/demo.html

"I didn't think, I investigated." - Wilhelm Roentgen (acknowledged the discovery of a major landmark in modern life: the x-ray, in 1895)

"Don't confuse where you want to go, with how you're going to get there." - Ron Wild

Philosophical Quotations - Index: http://radicalacademy.com/philosophicalquotations.htm

15 December 2004

a good info map animated zoom
Animation
Originally linked to by rwild.

"[Mapmaking is] an incredibly difficult job. Let's say you're working in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, an age in which mapmakers were sometimes referred to as "world describers." In geometry, describe means to draw or trace the outline of something; in poetry, it means to get at the essence of something, to bring it to life in a way that's both startling and beautiful. You've got to do both kinds of description--and do it in a medium that partially visible, partially mathematical, partially textual, a complicated miscellany of scale, orientation, projection, grids, signs, symbols, lines, colors, words." - Miles Harvey (The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime)

"Why do scientists call it research when they are looking for something new?" -
"If you just do what you can, with what you have, from right where you are, IT WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH." - The Universe
"Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely." - Erma Bombeck

14 December 2004

ImageZoom Alter the size that the image appears to be by clicking multiple times on the links below the image : http://javascript.about.com/library/blzoom.htm#
Thumbnail Image Pop-ups : http://javascript.about.com/library/blpopup8.htm

A Time Line for online Literature Available from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.net/ : http://www.freeeliterature.com/AtripThroughTime/The%20FreeELiterature%20TimeLine.htm#_The_15th_Century

Visualization "tags" : http://del.icio.us/tag/visualization

How to Create A JavaScript Windows Interface : http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/gr/column6/index.html
JavaScript resource : http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/

Spatial Systems, Inc.: software development company focused on creating and marketing products to simplify Web browsing and Internet use. This software will be based on portraying an intuitive representation of the user's Internet browsing habits, using spatial and temporal references that more closely resemble the way people actually process information. The program will also track, categorize, and weight the user's online navigation habits and definitions, along with providing map-like and time-line display options. : http://www.spatialsystems.com/

"Visionaries are the pole stars by which we navigate our imagination to new lands and then, sometimes, if we are lucky, to new realities." - Judith Paulson
"In all the world there is no other map like this map." - Piri Reis in 1513
"The secret to always being at the right place, at the right time, is knowing you always are." - The Universe

13 December 2004

Explore unique applications of visualization tools to approach larger problems such as mapping human knowledge in a geographic context : http://vw.indiana.edu/envision05/

A nice live (JavaScript?) map monitoring example http://www4.passur.com/lax.html showing planes landing. - AirportMonitor - by Megadata - powered by PASSUR"- AirportMonitor - by Megadata - powered by PASSUR"/SCRIPT src="/files/AMscript.js" language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

GUIdebook http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/components/interface/dialogs

Senior academics Mind Mapping research project : http://www.mayomi.com/ provides online map creation functionality.

A good Mindmapping Map : http://www.b-smart.net/images/MMPlaws.jpg

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet." - Theodore M. Hesburgh
"I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
"I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision. " - - Eleanor Roosevelt
"One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to
you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
"1. Out of clutter, find simplicity. 2. From discord, find harmony. 3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote." -Ralph Waldo Emerson (from http://gocreate.com/QuotAmaze/index.htm )

10 December 2004

from animated MeetingMap
GreatMapZoomS
Originally uploaded by rwild.
A demo animated zoom (gif ani)

The processes of inquiry encompassing imagination, exploration, discovery, and reflection are universal among artists, scholars, scientists, and engineers. All seek to uncover new knowledge through innovations that will improve our lives and communicate new ways of understanding ourselves and the universe. The Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) is a creative research convergence zone for intrepid artists and scholars who are pioneers of an unfolding new era in the arts. http://www.washington.edu/dxarts/research.php

Urban Cartography is a collaborative weblog (i.e., anyone can contribute, and we wish you would; just write us for a posting account) dedicated to covering cartography and related subjects: http://www.urbancartography.com/

"I am a poor wayfaring stranger
Wandering through this world of woe
But there's no sorrow, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go." - Booker T. Washington (Up from Slavery)

09 December 2004

Online logo or button processor : http://www.cooltext.com/LogoEdit.aspx?LogoID=7313195

The Intranet "Roadmap" wallchart lists the key activities required in each of the project streams. ; http://www.steptwo.com.au/products/roadmap/index.html

"Don't give me your perfect offering, there's a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". - Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

08 December 2004

JavaScript code that gradually (zooms?) open new window : http://www.photomontage.com/cover/index.html

MetaDraw will allow you to zoom by code or end-user action. In code you can simply set a Zoomfactor property oryou can zoom independantly in X and Y directions with PicXSize andPicYSize properties. You can also allow end-users to zoom by mousescroll wheel, or by drawing a zoom rectangle with mouse and havingMetaDraw automatically zoom to that area. : http://www.bennet-tec.com/btproducts/metadraw/metadraw.htm

Gone (unfortunately) $99.00Date: 6/10/2001 Full featured and affordable image processing at your fingertips. Displays an image with the ability to align, stretch, scroll, zoom and move it. With databinding capabilities. Supports all common raster image formats BMP, PCX, JPG, TIF, PNG, TGA, from http://www.developersdex.com/vb/?p=1000&page=1

What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? http://www.diacenter.org/km/painting.html Reason for not designing map interface to lowest common denomiator.

Repository of classic and historical texts available online. : http://www.grantdavis.net/wisdom/library2.shtml

Aerial Imagery took the mostly international SPIN-2 imagery and has since morphed into Terraserver.com. Microsoft took the USGS imagery of the US and became Microsoft Terraserver and now Terraserver-usa.com. : http://www.terraserver.com/imagery/image_ermapper.asp?ulx=317642.6061&uly=3319581.2421&lrx=321642.6061&lry=3315581.2421&image=93&provider_id=150&t=pan
Sells image files or posters: Image Sizes $6.95 - Small (500x500 pixels) $15.95 - Medium (750x750 pixels) $24.95 - Large (1000x1000 pixels) $36.95 - XL (1500x1500 pixels) $49.95 - XXL (2000x2000 pixels)
Print Sizes $19.95 - 8"x8" Glossy Print $19.95 - 8"x8" Matte Print $24.95 - 16"x20" Glossy Print $59.95 - 16"x20" Matte Print $79.95 -$149.95 - 36"x36" Print

"When you come to a fork in the road....Take it." - Yogi Berra
"Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, buthow well you bounce." -
"Every path has some puddles." -
"You're going to laugh all right, at how close you were when you thought yourself far, how much more strength you had, when you thought you had none, and about how easy life was, when you thought it hard." - The Universe

06 December 2004

To generate more-relevant answers, organizations including the federal government are using topic maps to index their data. : http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65840,00.html Organizing content with Topic maps provides context for words that can have multiple meanings. Understanding Topic Maps : http://www.infoloom.com/whitepaper.htm
The Problem; The amount of information available on line has been doubling in size every 6 months for the last 3 years, with equally rapid growth predicted for years to come. Today there are 42 million active Internet users, and the potential is an estimated 270 million. In addition to a skyrocketing number of users, the number of pages is rapidly increasing as well. A study conducted at the NEC Research Institute estimates that the Web has over 800 million searchable pages. Search engines do not keep up with the rapid explosion of Web pages. NECRI tells us that it takes more than six months for a new page to show up on a search engine. Even one of the best engines, Northern Light, only searches one-sixth of the Web's pages.
Topic Maps Sites of interest http://www.infoloom.com/tmsites.htm

Welcome. HistoryShots are data graphics that explain historical events or stories. : http://www.historyshots.com/

Faces are handled differently in the brain from other objects : http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3445743 (Researchers are exploring how and where in the brain people recognise faces.) Implications for using portrait imagery as map point icons (?)

Odd, curious, and fanciful maps from the holdings of the Map Collection, Yale University Library:
http://www.library.yale.edu/MapColl/curious.html including http://www.library.yale.edu/MapColl/lifepath.gif

Scalable Inline Image Replacement code : http://axisfive.net/aboutsiir/

"Not all those who wander are lost." - JRR Tolkien

03 December 2004

First tagging (http://del.icio.us/url/5f8f945cd56c754f1868bea33342b90a )by del.icio.us community (to Blogs Visualization by CMo andto mapping place web by hive ... on 2004-12-03 ). del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others. : http://del.icio.us/doc/about Thanks to these 2 people, others may learn about this innovative informtion mapping project.

PerspecX : Create perspective effects on images or text. Perspective corrections may be made by specifying where any four points on an image should move to when creating a distorted version of the image. A particular application is to distort an aerial photograph so that all features exactly match the locations of the same features on a map. : http://www.xiberpix.com/PerspecX.html

Online Drawing Applet (Flash) : http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/?RFID=140772

"one needn't learn all the mysteries of the internet, to sail effortlessly around its information". - RW

02 December 2004

Cybermapping examines how “maps” are created and used in the new information era and economy to efficiently harness the exponential growth in available information. ..cybercartography may be a useful technology and method for filtering and making sense out of large volumes of information while helping enterprises visualize and understand their complex organizational structures and business processes. Speaker(s): Eddy, Brian, Carleton University, Geomatics Cartographic Research Centre
Taylor, Fraser Dr., Carleton University, Geomatics Cartographic Research Centre

memorymapping.com is derived from Memory Mapping, both a process and a project created in 2000/2001 and exhibited in April 2001 by artist Megan Hurst. Memory Mapping involved the participation of Megan's acquaintances, friends and family members - all of whom had lived in some common locations either at the same or differing times - and each of whom drew maps of each place they had lived from memory. : http://www.expandedfield.com/memorymapping/about.cfm

RW "draws engaging informative map graphics ".

Curious World Maps is the fastest, most versatile and cost- effective way to create quality maps and geographical animations. : http://www.curious-software.com/products/worldmaps/


Mapping Knowledge Domains Colloquium May 2003
MapKnoDoCover
Originally uploaded by rwild.

Visualization of keywords appearing in PNAS between 1982 and 2001. The top 10% of highly cited PNAS papers were analyzed to reveal keywords listed with high frequency or rapid initial appearance (burst). The size of the circle indicates the magnitude of the burst, and the colors indicate the year in which the word appeared most frequently. Interconnections reveal those words frequently listed in the same publication. http://www.pnas.org/content/vol101/suppl_1/index.shtml

(NAS Colloquium) Mapping Knowledge Domains (2004) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) can be read online at : http://www.nap.edu/books/0309092329/html/index.html

01 December 2004

Stylized Depiction in Computer Graphics: Non-Photorealistic, Painterly and 'Toon Rendering an annotated survey of online (highly academic) resources : http://www.red3d.com/cwr/npr/#sketching including "Non-traditional perspective (for viewing and modeling)".

Sociocracy can be regarded as a fractal structure. (That is why, once the basics are understood, the procedures at the highest level are as clear as the procedures at the grassroots level. It also doesn't require very many levels to include a great number of people.) http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/11/29/taking_back_our_decisionmaking_power.htm . Any holon (a whole made of it's own parts, yet itself part of a larger whole) is never completely independent (hierarchy).

"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions." - Alfred Adler
"The right circumstances, people, and opportunities are just like good ideas - they come to you, once you relax. Maybe this is true because they all start out as "good" ideas." - The Universe
"A word to the wise isn't necessary - it's the stupid ones who need the advice."
" If quitters never win, and winners never quit, who came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?"

30 November 2004


Creative Commons
Originally uploaded by rwild.

A most realistic Creative Commons category >>>>>

Using adaptable tools and a shared visual language of Green Map Icons to highlight green living resources, Green Maps cultivate citizen participation and community sustainability. : http://greenmap.org/ Example : http://www.sustainablecalgary.ca/greenmap/maps/c_tiles/c4.htm

Visual Mashups of Street Art Icons : http://0009.org/base/tiki-index.php?page=PropertyGames

1·61803 39887 49894 84820 45868 34365 63811 77203 09179 80576 Fibonacci Numbers and The Golden Section in Art, Architecture and Music : http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibInArt.html#music?session=B2ry1X68aakh5A5y1TX6xf5e2h

Online sources of good art: http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/nov04/mattison.shtml

HomeMap currently has 61 unique links (71 in total) : http://resources.bravenet.com/minitools/page_link_analyzer/

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." - Herman Melville

29 November 2004

Middle/East Online maps http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/maps.htm

"Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter." - Bono

26 November 2004

25 November 2004

Concept Maps take an enormous amount of information and consolidate it into a concise, readable graphic. By working with concept maps, a group of people can rapidly explore the relative importance (or other factors) of different ideas and use this shared vision as the basis for further action. http://www.conceptsystems.com/ConceptMapping/ConceptMapping.cfm

Information Mapping; ______Science or______ Art?


Mapped Layers
Originally uploaded by rwild.

... here is a good example of the multi-faceted nature of map layers

"The best way to persuade people, is to show them what you mean." - Ron Wild

"To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour." - William Blake ("Auguries of Innocence," Works, Oxford Edition, 1914, p. 171. )

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison

24 November 2004

When it comes to identifying or memorizing factual data, it is generally accepted that people find pictures far easier to remember than text. However In current GUIs everything looks the same, and finding a particular file is as difficult. The idea is to allow people to use the visual sense to identify files and objects in order to improve computer navigation and real-world organization. http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/11/23/distinctive_icons_provide_desktop_scenery.htm The system "exploits the fact that appearance is efficiently learned, searched and remembered, probably more so than file names. Psychological research has shown that searching for a picture among other pictures is faster than searching for a word among other words."

Examples for each of the Thinking Map styles; Brace Map Bridge Map Bubble Map Circle Map
Double Bubble Map Flow Map Multi-Flow Map Tree Map http://www.mapthemind.com/thinkingmaps/thinkingmaps.html#themaps

GreatMapViewer is an information map viewing Internet application that can be embedded into a personal blog template or Web page, and displayed in any modern Web browser. As an alternative to embedding it in a page, you can launch it in a separate pop-up window. With some simple editing of an external XML configuration file different functionality can be provided (similar to http://www.blogbox.com/photoblox.php ).

Factal (snowflake) examples; http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm including facets and branching.

"Never before has there been so much to choose from, and never before has it been more important to eliminate most of these choices." - Gerry McGovern
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”— Charles Mingus (from http://www.lukew.com/resources/quotes.asp )
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”— Hans Hofmann
“Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.”— Jeffery Veen, 2000
“[Leonardo Da Vinci] combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.”— Ben Shneiderman, 2002
"A map eliminates everything that is overwhelming and superfluous". - RW

23 November 2004

(Not Powerpoint) S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well. http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/

"We see with the brain, not with the eyes," Dr. Bach-y-Rita said. "You can lose your retina but you do not lose the ability to see as long as your brain is intact." Most important, the brain does not seem to care if patterns come from the eye, ear or skin. Given the proper context, it will interpret and understand them. http://nytimes.com/2004/11/23/science/23sens.html?pagewanted=2

"Exploration with a capital E is in the air again, in what will hopefully become some kind of renaissance. ... there is only one reason good enough, and that's exploration. That means going somewhere, not in circles. But actually going somewhere... The reality is that we have become risk averse, willing to coast on the momentum of past accomplishments. If we study the problem, build tools and systems, and so on for the next 50 years, we can jolly ourselves along that we are still those clever Americans who put a man on the moon back when was that again? Where will we be in 20 years if we don't do something that captures the public imagination and inspires kids to give a damn about science and engineering again? Exploration is not a luxury. It defines us as a civilization. It directly or indirectly benefits every member of society. It yields an inspirational dividend whose impact on our self-image, confidence, and economic and geopolitical stature is immeasurable. ...the fear of going becomes less than the fear of not going. What are we waiting for? Let's go." - James Cameron http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/cameron.html

The main point of the book The Medici Effect,: when and where "different cultures, domains, and disciplines stream together toward a single point," they may "connect, allowing for established concepts to clash and combine, ultimately forming a multitude of new, groundbreaking ideas." http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/book_reviews/v5i36_stuckey.html important innovations come from collisions or combinations of different fields; observation and analysis suggest ways to encourage those encounters; failure shouldn't discourage an innovator, nor should he or she be afraid to break away from traditional settings and take risks.

Tao Te Ching : http://www.merechina.com/culture/works.asp?pageid=52

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso

22 November 2004

Java applet is used to simulate a magnifying glass: dragging the square over the map in the large view displays the 2X zoomed map in the top view : http://www.webmapper.net/maps/java/

(Flash) TimeCircle : http://www.llgc.org.uk/illingworth/index_s.htm shows results in centre of navigation (looks like a combination lock).

As a part of the counter/cartography project organized in collaboration with c.cred, we have listed below a rough list of some groups and collaboratives that we know of; http://www.16beavergroup.org/links.htm

..."splash along, anywhere you choose, in the raging river of life." - The Universe

18 November 2004

Map of Mind Mapping (presentation) : http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/eLearning/HandDrawnMap.htm
"It's better to attempt something great and fail, than attempt nothing, and succeed."
"No-one truely dies if someone remembers."
"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." --Oscar Wilde

17 November 2004

About 30 different templates for various information visualization applications :
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/storymap/

More JavaScript tutorials http://www.sitepoint.com/subcat/javascript

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Touché to the Wise! A college student challenged a senior citizen, saying it was impossible for 'their' generation to understand 'his'. "You grew up in a different world", the student said. "Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers......"
Taking advantage of the students pause in litany, the geezer said, "You're right. We didn't have those things when we were young, so we invented them! What are 'you' doing for the 'next generation'?"

16 November 2004

Concept browsing interfaces, based on nationally recognized educational standards, can help educators and learners to locate, comprehend and use educational resources in digital libraries. These interfaces provide navigational and orientational cues that are typically lacking from traditional keyword or fielded search interfaces. http://dlib.anu.edu.au/dlib/november04/sumner/11sumner.html

(The Hidden Sphere of Artistic Concerns) An Adaptation of the Tao te Ching from an Artistic Perspective : http://hiddensphere.com/hs/index.html

“Mind mapping : Visual thinking and Communication”, "more show, less tell", using real world map examples : http://local.cips.ca/edmonton/HRsig/november__cips_hr_sig_breakfast.htm

InfoPeace is the production, application, and analysis of information by peaceful means for peaceful ends where critical imagination is the best antidote to technological determinism. : from http://www.watsoninstitute.org/infopeace/subpage.cfm?targetpage=concepts

"Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success." - Robert Orben, Humorist
"It's time to start living the lives we've imagined. " - Henry James
"So what if it takes a long time, Ron? So what if it's already taken longer than you thought? So what if it will still take longer? The day will nevertheless arrive, as it always does, that all your prior efforts, determination, and persistence will seem a paltry price indeed." - The Universe

15 November 2004


for presentation
Originally uploaded by rwild.

Making Maps Easy to Read : http://richardphillips.org.uk/maps/index.htm research on cartographic communication is divided into six sections -
Relief: Depicting a Surface on a MapMap Typography Eye Movements & Maps Other Map Symbols Overview Notes

Info-graphic combining comic and crossword puzzle metaphors ("These stories traverse and intersect across the map horizontally, vertically and diagonally in a formation reminiscent of the underground network.") : http://huntingdesign.com/arrhenius/pages/IMG_0204.html by Lars Arrhenius http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/content/platformforart/artists/Arrhenius.asp# and more examples at http://www.feigencontemporary.com/index.php?mode=exhib_current&object_id=87&project_id=105

I am your Doctor, sorry to inform you that you have a brain problem. Your brain is in 2 parts... Left and right. The left part has nothing right in it, and the right has nothing left in it. "

Interesting paper (including fractal views on p95) http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/archive/00000456/01/yang.pdf

12 November 2004

Visual languages andtechnologies are increasingly being used to facilitate human-human communication through web technology and electronic mobile devices. http://viscomp.utdallas.edu/vlhcc05/ IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)

Direct path to the data that users really need, such as Information Extraction, and Temporal, Trend and Relational Visualization, copy of this new white paper at: http://www.kmworld.com/i.cfm?SPID=inxight111004

A Community-Indexed Photo Archive at Gimp-Savvy.com has more than 27,000 free photos and images, consisting of over 2.5 Gbytes of data. The goal is to make this archive a resource for collage and photo-montage using digital image editing techniques. http://gimp-savvy.com/cgi-bin/keysearch.cgi?words=map

"Every thought, every word, and every deed, whether they serve you or not, changes everything, whether it serves you or not. " - The Universe

11 November 2004

Tabbed browsing; http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/tabbed-browsing.html web pages are loaded in "tabs" within the same browser window, making it easy to switch back and forth among multiple web pages. Tabbed browsing makes surfing the web faster and more convenient; perfect for reading the news or sifting through search results (you can keep the full search results in one tab and open each result in a new tab. You can easily compare results by moving from one tab to the next). Instead of just one web page as your homepage, you can make your home page several pages. Select your favorite web sites and open them in a set of tabbed windows.


This innovative dispute resolution mechanism may spread like a meme. It is based on leading-edge visual mapping approaches to resource allocation. It is a good example of a situation where animation communicates ideas that could not otherwise be shared.

"It is by the force of images that, in the course of time, real revolutions are made" - Andre Breton

"Only through art and imagery can people be persuaded in a visceral, non-verbal or non-intellectual way. This is important in the spread of ideas since verbal communications can be manipulated to deceive while artists can pursue the graphic manipulation of images to reveal hidden truths."- Winston Smith http://www.winstonsmith.com/main.html

"...the principle of collage is the central principle of all art in the 20th century." - Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) from http://www.collageart.org/links/



10 November 2004

Behind the scenes: web maps: "Little by little, online mapping web sites are using mainstream web technologies. " - http://www.webmapper.net/archives/2004/10/#p109862983644102755 From http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=414&trv=1

Perceptual Organisation http://perceptionweb.com/ecvp04/mon.html#p3 from European Conference on Visual Perception series.

http://www.quotesplace.com/info/browse/Native_American_proverbs :
"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave." - Dakota
"They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind. " - Tuscarora
"A rocky vineyard does not need a prayer, but a pick ax." - Navajo
"All dreams spin out from the same web." - Hopi
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand." - tribe unknown
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future." - Lumbee
"Wisdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start living the life the Creator intended for you." - Hopi
"He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone. " - Seneca
"Everyone who is successful must have dreamed of something."- Maricopa
"There are many good moccasin tracks along the trail of a straight arrow." - Sioux

09 November 2004


Beautiful Evidence
Originally uploaded by rwild.

... from the new and upcoming title "Beautiful Evidence". This chapter is entitled: "Mapped Pictures" and it is, as always in Prof Tufte's work, a marvelous exploration of imagery, graphics and historical diagrams viewed with an particularly skilled analytical eye and reviewed for their frequently tacit contribution to our just emerging world of visual language.

"A pattern is a proven solution to a recurring problem within in a given context." - Microsoft Patterns, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ . "[Pattern is] a recurring structural configuration that solves a problem in a context, contributing to the wholeness of some whole, or system, that reflects some aesthetic or cultural value." - www.easycomp.org/cgi-bin/OrgPatterns?WhatArePatterns

10x10 is a new visualization tool which showcases the top 100 words in the news and the 100 photos associated to them. It is also possible to directly click on any word or image to zoom in and see the news headlines behind it. (Click the headline links to read the original news stories. Click the zoomed image a second time to see the image full screen.) http://tenbyten.org/now.html

Example Image Databases ; + NASA Image eXchange (NIX)+ The Picture Collection (via the New York Public Library)+ US Fish & Wildlife Service: National Image Library+ NOAA Photo Library SearchDay article: Exploring Search Engine Overlap. Jux2 offers an overlap comparison tool.

08 November 2004

Everybody I have talked to since, and every report I have read, has stated that breadcrumb trail is, at best, a like-to-have feature. "The resistance to using breadcrumbs is perplexing," states Dr. Eric Schaffer, CEO of Human Factors International. "They increase efficiency. They support site learning. They reduce the user's "where-was-I?" memory burden by providing a list of recently visited pages. They make it easier to cross levels of the navigation decision tree within the browse environment."
"But users don't use breadcrumbs spontaneously," Dr. Schaffer continues. "Studies show that, too. Not surprisingly, the picture is not so black and white. Super users DO use breadcrumbs. You do, don't you? And you use them because they are efficient. They make sense." From gerry@gerrymcgovern.com

(Flash) Interactive TimeLine http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special/flash/Arafat/

The Journal of Maps is a new inter-disciplinary online, electronic, journal that aims to provide a forum for researchers to publish their maps. Using full peer review and a reverse publishing method (where the author pays for the review process), all published maps will be freely distributed to anyone wishing to view them. http://www.journalofmaps.com

Middle East Maps: Perry-Castañeda LibraryMap Collection http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east.html and Myths & Facts OnlineA Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html

http://www.wesroth.com/mt_archives/images/Jesusland.jpg

05 November 2004

File menu at the top of your browser, “Save As” be presented with options ranging from saving the entire contents of the page (images and all), or just the HTML. Depending on what you choose, this will store all of the content on your hard drive. OR WebStripper will catalog entire Web sites, but it will also check them for updates, and download the new or changed files. This is a good solution if you are really serious about offline browsing.

Larkin and Simon's "Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words" is a classic in the field.

"When you own your own business, you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours." - Anonymous

03 November 2004


Easy Street? Originally uploaded by rwild.

This is one of the places I need to draw a map to ("Easy Street", as well as Treasure Island, Happiness, SanJose, and a few other "where is...?" popular destinations.

New approaches to design / build: SHoP begins its projects in the virtual realm, using Rhino - a more modest 3-D program developed for Hollywood that sells for less than $900 a seat - to rapidly make 20, 40, even 60 iterations of a building. Then the architects judge each version against the requirements - light, room size, zoning issues - for the particular project. From the outset, they aim to do more with less. For one installation, SHoP used fluid dynamics modeling software to create an undulating wooden "beach" from standard 2 x 2 cedar planks. For a museum now in development, the firm is designing a facade whose decorative skin does double duty as a load-bearing structure - a two-for-one approach.... a process which begins with 3-D modeling software and ends with construction workers assembling the laser-cut pieces into their finished form. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/gehry.html

"To think. To choose a focus. To see the world however you like, and live to see it so. I mean, what else can you give someone who wants it all?" - The Universe
" Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap ... but by the seeds you plant."

02 November 2004

Pictorial maps ( http://www.georgeglazer.com/maps/pictorialmap/pictorialmap.html ) are a genre in which the cartography is enlivened with illustrations pertinent to the places shown: landmarks and buildings, peoples and ethnography, plants and animals, sometimes rendered in bird's-eye view. The maps often include historical events and references.

"A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler is one who does not know where he came from." - Lin Yu-t'ang
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. " & "Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week." - Will Rogers
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers
"Worst of all, as most became weaker and weaker, they'd resort to visualizing what they wanted, but without knocking, yearning without expecting, and, you guessed it, just kind of hanging around waiting for Oprah to call, instead of living a life worth calling about." - The Universe

01 November 2004

Map of Creativity (Flash-based) : http://www.ngf.org.uk/map/map.html

Keyhole www.keyhole.com "This acquisition gives Google users a powerful new search tool, enabling users to view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest. With an Internet connection, users enter an address or other location information and Keyhole's software accesses the database and takes them to a digital image of that location on their computer screen. The interactive software then gives users many options, including the ability to zoom in from space-level to street-level, tilt and rotate the view or search for other information such as hotels, parks, ATMs or subways. Unlike traditional mapping technologies, Keyhole creates a dynamic 3D interface for geographic information."

"Here's a six-sided figure, and getting four of them right doesn't help you." - Jay Walker (on how inventing is like solving a Rubik's Cube) ...what qualities does a successful inventor have? : the ability to find new problems that no one else even sees. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6257074/site/newsweek/
"Success is pretty much a crapshoot; there are too many unknown facts in a company's early life to make all the right decisions. But good, quick judgment calls on several fronts help multiply the chances of beating the odds." - Ram Shriram (one of Google's earliest gurus) http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/10055239.htm
"Fitness is not an act; it's a habit." - RW
"I find the great thing in this world is, not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist, playwright, & philospoher
"Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill
"Ideas are easy to come by: reduction to practise is an arduous but inspirationally rewarding matter." - Buckminster Fuller
"The old ways are dissolving and the new has not yet shown itself. If this is true then we must engage with one another differently, as explorers and discoverers." - Meg Wheatley Leadership and the New Science
The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists." - Martin Luther King
"Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those 'It might have been.'" - John Greenleaf Whittier
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail." - Abraham Maslow
If you can't think - go for a walk. - (Ideas)
"There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age." - Sophia Loren
"So, if you're a first-rate dreamer, dream it out -- several of them--and then see what realities can come to make them happen, instead of saying, "Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?"" - Virginia Satir
"One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try." - Sophocles
"Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged." - Thomas Edison
"We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems." - Lee Iacocca
"If I had to live my life over again, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time."- Natine Sanger

29 October 2004

28 October 2004

This is a test post flickr ... Added image capability to Blog (Flickr)
Use html ImageSwap to highlight (higher opacity, sepia--->color, ..?) possible menu choices (ala http://www.weiyew.com/home.html )

Icons (Stick Figure Warning Signs) bad? examples; http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/tbone/warningsigns/gallery.html they're a visual form of anticryptography, the science of conveying information without assuming any prior knowledge.

Script that allows you to conveniently zoom in and out of an image ;
http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/imagezoom.shtml

METADATA; Why categorize? "The human brain is a wonderful information processor. We take in innumerable details with every glance, sound or touch. Yet we are seldom overwhelmed with the magnitude of the information we are processing. One reason that we are able to cope with so much input is that we categorize it all. We look for what is new, what is different, what has changed. Then we try to match the new information to the categories that already exist in our minds." - Susan Feldman (research VP, content technologies, IDC (idc.com), e-mail sfeldman@idc.com. , KMWorld Magazine)
www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/index.cfm?action=readarticle&Article_ID=1890&Publication_ID=120 Browsing and searching are two different kinds of information seeking tasks, and both need to be accommodated in a good information access system.
A smart Spatial Navigation Engineer will focus on "desire lines”; these trails demonstrate how a site's users choose to move, which is often not on the paved paths. A smart designer will let wanderers create paths through use, and then pave the emerging walkways, ensuring optimal utility. http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000361.php

3D Web Research Network brings together some of Canada's finest institutions and researchers to explore critical issues in delivering and deploying three dimensional content over the Internet. http://3dweb.netera.ca/home.html

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Following from http://www.informationdesign.org/ :

New data structures have emerged which may serve as alternative models for both the organization, and presentation, of hypertextual nodes and links. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/9230/01/mSpace_zzStructures.pdf

The pre-Copernican view of the world; like the misguided early notion that the universe revolves around the earth, many business executives today still think that business revolves around companies. http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000075.php

Struggle often recognized between those humans who prefer to use knowledge to judge and those who use knowledge for ideation. ..Judgment is equal in importance to ideation, not superior to it in the context of innovation activity. As important as judgment is to design and to innovation, it is not more important than ideation. http://www.nextd.org/02/04/03/index.html (concept of ideation was adapted by Alex Osborn, the inventor of the ubiquitous brainstorming method, to describe one of the steps in his seven-part creative thinking model).

It is precisely the diversity of forms of theory that has huge potential within the new media... http://www.networkcultures.org/index.php?page=research&lang=en The Institute of Network Cultures (INC)
Navigating Innovation:Understanding the KaosPilots : http://www.nextd.org/02/04/01/index.html

27 October 2004

Fliker : http://www.fliker.com is an image search engine that produces a (Shockwave) line of images that can be downloaded individually to clipboard for pasting to any application. Fliker is the fastest way of searching for images, all you have to do is concentrate on the images that flash in front of you.

Ulysses Online is a searchable online version of Joyce's Ulysses http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/ Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism. "Suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant, to rule the waves."
"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce, Ulysses

Virtual Reality Photography or VR Photography or Immersive Photography http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html (view from Everest) are definitions for a panoramic image displayed in a viewer which you can control with your mouse to look around from a single view point. http://www.panoramas.dk/ - QuickTime Needed

Maps of the Imagination : The Writer as Cartographer "... many cartographic quests are as quixotic as any in literature." - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/159534005X/qid=1098914437/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0935864-4628938?v=glance&s=books "Turchi's book, like any good map, tells us where we are and urges us to discover more." (Bought)

http://andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/ for creating mosaic images.

VCAlberta.ca is a resource for all things videoconferencing : http://www.vcalberta.ca/

Eric H.'s blog http://vislit.typepad.com/melange/ interested in how we can use computers to help us visualize, navigate, and explore literature.

Clicking on a hot-button on this map http://www.newsoftheweird.com/weirdmap.html puts state name keyword into search engine (?);

26 October 2004

The foundation of The JUMP-Project is a suite of free, open-source applications that provide an extensible API and graphic user interface (GUI) for viewing and manipulating spatial data-sets.
http://www.jump-project.org/

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose." - Walt Whitman, Song Of The Open Road

There Is No Map for the Journey Towards Happiness
"I have a map that leads you to the world's great treasure," someone once said.
The neighbor saw the map and killed the owner. He then took the map, read it carefully, and set out to find the treasure. Not long after, he reached the place marked on the map and there, just as had been promised, he found a pile of diamonds and gold. The person sat upon the glittering treasure and died years later, full of sorrow and regret.
"I have a map that leads you to the world's great treasure," someone once said to her neighbor.
"How much do you want for it?" the neighbor asked, eager for the wealth that was promised.
"It is yours without charge," she said. "All I ask is that you take me along with you."

The neighbor grabbed the map from the woman's hand and ran as fast as she could. Having fled far enough so she knew she wouldn't be caught, she carefully looked at the map and followed step-by-step until she came upon the diamonds and the gold, just as had been promised. She rested now and sat on top of the glittering jewels. She sat there for many days and many months and many years, always full of regrets, until one day she died.
"I have a map that leads you to the world's great treasure," someone said to his neighbor.
"What do I have to do to see this map?" the neighbor asked.
"Take me along with you," the owner said.
So the neighbor did. The two looked at the map carefully, discussing which direction to take and what to bring with them. Then they set out along the road together. When they came to a fork, they studied the map, but they didn't always agree which way to go. They raised their voices and they argued about which turns to take. Finally, they settled on one of the paths and continued on their way. They argued and discussed what to do every time they had to decide which way to go.
They picked nuts and found clean water. They made new shoes and repaired the tears in their clothes. They built shelters and sang. They sometimes argued about the best way to reach the treasure.
The map grew yellow from age and worn from many folds. And when the two died, they did so with no regrets.

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." - Albert Einstein
"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind." - Albert Einstein
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly know how far one can go." - T.S. Eliot
"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed." - Bernard Edmonds
"The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." - Aristotle
"The basis of creativity has always been a new connection. To make connections would take hours using words. Your subconscious has to use pictures." -William J. J. Gordon
"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it." -Jacob Bronowski
"Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing." -Thomas Huxley
(many more at http://www.livejournal.com/users/rehuxley/ )

25 October 2004

There are more ways to map a city than MapQuest could possibly take on. http://www.sylviagraceborda.com/busstop.htm Consider your own strategies: is it according to streets and avenues, or the people and places to which they lead? Where traditional maps drop off, locative media comes in, wedding art and technology and opening up the world of creative cartography. http://www.surreytechlab.ca/ New Forms focuses on the convergence of arts and technology - providing a unique opportunity for audiences and industry professionals to interact with art forms that utilize cutting-edge media technologies. http://www.newformsfestival.com/index.php

Freeware source ; http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/freeware.html

First draft sketch http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/Images/HomeDepotMap.jpg

22 October 2004

A Web mapping services model : http://webmap.socialchange.net.au/images/webmapping/webmap_explained_big.gif

Visual spatial skills : It is accepted that high levels of prenatal testosterone encourage development of the right side of the brain, which would also encourage the visual spatial skills important in science. Brosnan’s findings appear to contradict this, with a more "female" pattern found in the scientists studied.
The researchers therefore speculate that exposure to either unusually high or low levels of testosterone in male fetuses could lead to a "scientific" brain. From this it would follow that average levels of hormone exposure could lead to a "social science" brain. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996564

21 October 2004

A Map Larger Than the Territory [ItiDex] : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/korourke/map/index.en.html a "Map of Tender" charted by surveillance technology...+ A rescalabale map interface that allows one to view all the itineraries on file. This project aims to build experiential maps based on such notions as landmark, district, edge or boundary, path, rendezvous. What details reveal a neighborhood, an intersection, a street? What characteristics of places or routes help us to find our way in a complex urban center? What information is charted on our mental maps?

Cartography frequently utilizes textual annotations or works in tandem with accompanying pages of text that flesh out its narratives. http://www.newberry.org/nl/smith/nebenzahl/exhibit.html Many of the maps on display here, however, rely primarily on graphic devices and effects to set scenes and to represent movement and change.

A searchable database of all fonts from all foundries, from all the world ; http://www.point-central.com/

Confessions of a map geek : http://trevor.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/confessions_of_.html His mapping links http://linkmonger.net/search.php?text=&submitter=trevor

"No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you." - Zora Neale Hurston, anthropologist and writer (1891-1960)

“What a useful thing a pocket-map is!” I remarked. “That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?” “About six inches to the mile.” “Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!” ”Have you used it much?” I enquired. “It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well." - Lewis Carroll

20 October 2004

WebForager™ : To move from a workspace where you have only one entity at the same time to another with multiple entities including, among others, the ones of the former movement (similar to RW's FibScreen 8D layout?) for the creation of these “natural” foraging spaces. After http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2004/num_154.htm WebBook also supports a focus + context technique in which you can see all the pages of the book at the same time, although the one that is in our focus has a larger size than the others. Three-dimensional metaphors like the one we have seen in the book or other similar ones haven’t yielded, up to now, better results than other more abstract metaphors. Possibly due to the fact that doing the same things in the virtual world that we do in the real world maybe doesn’t give more added-value to our insight. See also the article “The WebBook and the WebForage : http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/uir/pubs/items/UIR-1996-14-Card-CHI96-WebForager.pdf

And one by one, they each openly admitted that they had been approached by two students with a new idea for a search engine. "Go pound sand I told them" said Steve Kirsh (Infoseek). "I wasn't impressed with their demo at all" said Doug Cutting (Excite). "I didn't have the authority to sign a check anyway" said Louis Monier (the mighty AltaVista" at the time consisted of Louis Monier and about a half dozen other people that he had access to - and that was it). The two students which they all turned away, of course, were Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their new idea for search was called PageRank, and would eventually become the power behind Google.

Microsoft Search Champs initiative : http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/10/12/msn_search_champs_robin_good.htm

"It's gotta be in ya to do it." - Fred Smith's standard response to the question of how and why he made his art.

"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

19 October 2004

Attributes of visual perception most applicable to data presentation (see FIGURE 5). : http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DU0VU2B4TDB30QSNDBCSKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=31400009&pgno=2

ArtIcons Pro v4.10 offers graphic artists all tools needed for designing, editing and retouching Windows icons and managing icon libraries.

CocaCola Map : http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/displayStory.cfm?story_id=456039

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient." - Eugene S. Wilson

18 October 2004

Visualizing Bibliographic Metadata : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october04/dushay/10dushay.html The virtual spine viewer is an application which allows users to visually explore large information spaces or collections while also allowing users to hone in on individual resources of interest.

"I'm still waiting for the great breakthrough in visualizing search results. Clusters, folders etc are nice. And I'm continually attracted to new attempts at graphical or spatial displays. And I like the new A9 interface, Nevertheless, nothing I've seen really has the intuitive clarity and simplicity needed to be a major improvement in efficiency for the user." - Founder of www.wondir.com

(definition) information visualization : "the use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition" [4] and describe its purpose as using human perception to amplify cognition [5]. Humans are "hard-wired" to perceive many characteristics easily, including spatial position, color, size, and movement [6]. Since successful information visualization should provide insights to facilitate decision-making, discovery or explanation, effective visualizations will use these easily detected characteristics to illuminate their information.

Frames: "I do think that a good part of the antithesis towards frames is historical. In their origins, there was no way to reduce the borders between frames to nothing, resulting in a clunky, ungainly appearance to a website. Additionally, there were considerable differences between the levels of support for frames in different browsers, as well as differences in their looks.... It is particularly useful to have you navigation links on a page of their own and displayed in a frame on the parent page, so that any navigation maintenance
performed is immediately available to the entire site. " See http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/html4_frames.html W3C's reference information : http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/frames.html#edef-FRAME

Online Manifold help ; http://exchange.manifold.net/manifold/manuals/6_userman/mfd50Images.htm

Many will say, "Simple, yes, easy, no." To which I will just nod.- The Universe

"Dandelion is a marvelous story of the triumph of spirit!" - Dr. Wayne Dyer

15 October 2004

Cool site overlays semi-transparent USGS-like [actually Ordnance Survey -Ed.] map over aerial photography. Move your cursor over the map to see moving image swap. GlobeXplorer had it here in the US last year.
http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?client=public&scale=1000000&ukwidth=113&ukheight=113&lang=&uk.x=65&uk.y=65

Manifold Conference; georeference.org are organizing the first ever Manifold User Conference for November 18 and 19 at Cornell in Ithaca, New York. The two-day event features a look at what users are doing, the future of the software and many opportunities for user input. And, it's affordable. Details on online here with registration here.