All issues can be found at: https://geocraic.com/

World

ESRI’s Water Balance App

Climate Change.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies It’s a no-brainer that we need to stop subsidies for Fossil Fuels with tax dollars and use that money to mitigate climate change. Why aren’t we doing it? With COP 28 happening now, this is incredibly relevant.

Google Maps new map styles. I like the new map styles from Google maps. I never really liked the “orange” motorways.

Turkey

Black Sea Coast

I love the trend of major media to use “scrolly-telling” technology to tell stories. I don’t know if ESRI was a pioneer in these techniques with Story Maps but they were the first I encountered using it. Now, CNN, NYT, FY, and many others are using a variety of technology and custom code to make this presentation format. Here’s another very good example about the Black Coast of Turkey. I’ve long had Georgia and the Caucasus on my “to see” list. I guess now I’ll add the Black Sea Coast of Turkey.

US

Mapping the Thanksgiving Harvest. An ESRI Story Map

Related to story maps and “scrolly-telling”, I was so enamored by the techniques in a story Eric shared about 20 farming families using more Colorado River water than some Western States, that I asked the developer at ProPublica about the technology stack. I’ll share his answer below:

  • Hey Tim! Glad you found the interactive compelling. It is indeed some custom code, and unfortunately the way we publish pieces make it hard to open up the source and see exactly what’s going on.

    The bulk of the code is built on top of d3, a js library that is commonly used for custom data visualizations, particularly interactive or animated presentations. Very much abridged: the code generates an array with an object for each “block” of water for each step in the interactive, using a few loops to link up each block to a unique id that can be used in multiple steps. D3 makes animating transitions with an id easier via its core “data join” feature. The layout, or the shape of the circles/groups, also relies on d3. If you’re curious, I’d google around “circle packing layout d3” – there’s lots of ways to do it.

    The inventor of d3 has recently been working on Observable, a platform that is great for learning how to build custom data viz. If you haven’t come across this yet, I’d encourage you to explore a bit! It’s a great place to find graphics you find interesting and tweak them or try to swap out its data for your own (an effective way to learn how everything works and how to build your own).

    Hope this helps!

    Nat Lash News Applications Developer | ProPublica —

Red State Brain Drain As much as it is chortle-inducing to see stupid GOP managed states losing talent, I can’t help feel bad for the folks who remain. The current MAGA GOP is an incompetent, grievance-hawking, civilization-spitting, bunch that is really hurting people and it is very sad and depressing to watch. I guess Adam Serwer is right, Cruelty Is The Point.

PNW

More on re-introducing Grizzlies back into the Pacific Northwest. See also: Issue 31.