Issue 60 - Happy New Year Edition
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World
Popular music mapped in 3000 cities.
- From The Pudding: https://pudding.cool/2018/06/music-map/?date=202106
- Lots of other interesting map visualizations:
- Human “terrain”, population maps as terrain: https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d/
- The site: https://pudding.cool/
Amusing Planet
Great site. Also featured in the noodle delivery article below. I for one think Japan’s 72 seasons are awesome. Need to get it on my calendar.
- 72 Seasons of Japan: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2023/07/the-72-seasons-of-japan.html
- Bouvet Island: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/10/bouvet-island-uninhabited-island-with.html
Tech
Watch Duty
Looks like a great product for the US West. A 501(c)(3) non-profit created smartphone app for wildfire alerts in real time. Free.
- The Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/05/watch-duty-wildfire-app
- Watch Duty app.: https://www.watchduty.org/
Gaussian Splatting
Gaussian Splats are taking the AR/VR/XR (Augmented, eXtended, Virtual - reality) tech world by storm. The NYT article below is an excellent primer. If you have a recent iPhone you can try to create one with the Scaniverse app from Niantic Labs.
- NYT story on Spatial Journalism: https://rd.nytimes.com/projects/gaussian-splatting/
- Github library: https://github.com/mkkellogg/GaussianSplats3D
- Niantic Spatial Platform: https://www.nianticspatial.com/
- Scaniverse web page embedded example. Try dragging the plaque with your pointer: https://community.scaniverse.com/t/how-to-post-an-embeded-scaniverse-gaussian-splat-to-community/236
- Great table top example of a Gaussian Splat. Worth checking out: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hermesfrangoudis_first-try-with-3d-gaussian-splats-in-webar-activity-7130221845479378945-ZJ2H
Unified Satellite Data Model
AnySat: An Earth Observation Model for Any Resolutions, Scales, and Modalities
- arXiv journal article: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.141233
- Github: https://github.com/gastruc/AnySat?tab=readme-ov-file
- Demo notebook: https://github.com/gastruc/AnySat/blob/main/demo.ipynb
Georgia
BBC Country Profiles
BBC has a nice country profile so I thought it might interest folk since their recent elections have made the news.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17301647
- Just search the BBC for “country profile” to find more of their country write-ups: https://bbc.in/4gX76Ab
Japan
Cultural Geography
Bicycle Noodle Delivery
This was definitely a thing in Korea as well.
- Japan’s Acrobatic Noodle Delivery Cyclists: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/07/japans-acrobatic-noodle-delivery.html
US
Geography of Hate
Own Our History
US Indian schools were prison camps. They were labor camps. All aimed at crushing Indian culture and assimilation to our European colonial culture. They were death camps for many. There was terrible record keeping but the Washington Post, in a year long investigation, found documentation of 3,104 children died. One estimate of the overall death toll is as high as 40,000. Children. Separated from their families. This is our history. Read about it, absorb it. Own it. We repeated this kind of imprisonment with Japanese internment camps. We’re about to repeat some portion of it with migrants. History may not repeat, but it definitely rhymes. Canada had the same policies. They have done more about owning this history and acknowledging it. The US needs to continue and follow suit.
- An unsurprising but still shocking story of boarding school deaths. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/native-american-deaths-burial-sites-boarding-schools/?itid=sf_investigations_article_list
- In the name of God (WaPo): https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/sexual-abuse-native-american-boarding-schools/
- Family separation was formal US Policy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/american-indian-boarding-schools-history-legacy/
- Biden’s apology is not enough, but it’s a good first step: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/10/25/biden-apology-indian-boarding-schools/
Human Diffusion
California
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands have been on my list to hike and dive for a long time. Haven’t yet made it out there though. This is a key area for the “Kelp Highway” theory of human diffusion since the Chumash had very sophisticated boat building and paddling culture. The plank canoes came much later than the earliest arrivals but they’re clearly an experienced coastal people and the crossings were not as far when the shorelines were lower in the ice age.
- BBC: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240805-californias-little-known-ancient-society
- NOAA: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/condition/cinms/history.html
- Tomols, or plank canoes, of the Chumash:
- Santa Barbara museum: https://www.sbnature.org/collections-research/anthropology/chumash-life/daily-life#:~:text=The%20plank%20canoe%2C%20or%20tomol,pine%20pitch%20and%20hardened%20asphalt.
- Patagonia films “Chumash Powered”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAdPsCT_8_o
Australia
Tasmania Grasslands
Grasslands are very important carbon sinks that store carbon underground and that’s impervious to fires. A fire will release only a small portion of the stored carbon, as opposed to forests. But they are only recently getting the conservation love that forests have gotten.