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All ColumnsAn announcement yesterday in an Intergraph press release that the court-ordered mediation in the ongoing Intergraph/Intel litigation suit had resulted in both parties going back to the discussion table. “The Company has received a number of calls today inquiring about on-going mediation talks w
On April 1, the National Archives released data from the 1930 census. [Don’t try going to the National Archive site directly or you are bound to get lost looking for the information. For best results, start here.] Many of the experts interviewed about the data find it a fascinating profile of t
It was reported this week that Yahoo’s locator service Yahoo!®Maps had changed platforms (see press release below), dumping MapQuest, which had been the previous provider, for a custom solution from data providers Navigation Technologies, and Geographic Data Technology (GDT), and software
Most people have a very outdated image of geography. Recently, a non-geography member of the National Academy of Sciences
suggestively asked, since we now either know where everything is or have the technical capability of finding out where things are, then why do we need geography?
This query r
There are two “geographies” of everyday life. One represents the “incidental” (or “naïve”) geographic knowledge that we acquire as we pursue our episodic activities. The other is “intentional” and is the geographic knowledge we accumulate after we have been taught how to think and reason geogr
Many geographers today teach and research about concepts that are relevant to everyday life. This geographic knowledge enables us to understand the things we do on a daily or other episodic basis, and how everyday actions (like traveling to work) affect the world around us (e.g. auto pollution cont
Ron Eastman is Director and lead software engineer of Clark Labs. This is his inaugural column at Directions.
We commonly use GIS to assist in the process of decision making. However, few of us realize how our software systems may be giving our decisions an unexpected character. For example, con
In a previous column, I discussed the scope and current trends in geographic information science (GIScience) indicating an expanding field with significant research problems which have direct impact on human society and the environment in which we live. It is the primary mission of the University Co
Geographers can be found in many environments. As mentioned in previous columns, there are about 6,500 academics who are members of the main professional group-The Association of American Geographers (AAG-www.aag.org); there are about 1000 members of the National Council for Geographic Education (NC
The science of geography has a written and map-based history in European civilizations since the days of the Greek writers Eratosthenes, Strabo, and Plato. Even before this, ancient Egyptians included strip maps in coffins to guide souls to their final resting place, and Chinese “geographers” produc
Journal News Removes Interactive Gun Permit Map
The Lower Hudson Journal News has been under fire for publishing a map of gun permit holders in two counties in New York State before Christma. (APB coverage 1, 2, podcast). On Friday January 18 the paper removed the interactive map. Why? Publisher Janet Hasson gave answers in a media statement and in a letter to readers.
In a statement in response to The Poynter Institute (a journalism school) she argued:
With the passage this week of the NYSAFE gun law, which allows permit holders to request their names and addresses be removed from the public record, we decided to remove the gun permit data from lohud.com at 5 pm today. While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit. For the past four weeks, there has been vigorous debate over our publication of the permit data, which has been viewed nearly 1.2 million times by readers. One of our core missions as a newspaper is to empower our readers with as much information as possible on the critical issues they face, and guns have certainly become a top issue since the massacre in nearby Newtown, Conn. Sharing as much public information as possible provides our readers with the ability to contribute to the discussion, in any way they wish, on how to make their communities safer. We remain committed to our mission of providing the critical public service of championing free speech and open records.
In a letter to readers published on Friday she wrote:
So intense was the opposition to our publication of the names and addresses that legislation passed earlier this week in Albany included a provision allowing permit holders to request confidentiality and imposing a 120-day moratorium on the release of permit holder data.
She goes on to say that during the 27 days the map was online any one interested would have seen it and that the data would eventually be out of date. She also noted that the paper does not endorse the way the state chose to limit availability of the data.
The original map/article still includes a graphic - but it's a snapshot, a raster image, with no interactivity. Says Hasson in the letter to readers:
And we will keep a snapshot of our map — with all its red dots — on our website to remind the community that guns are a fact of life we should never forget.
I continue to applaud the paper for requesting the data via a Freedom on Informat request, mapping it, keeping the map up despite threats and criticism and now responding to state law. I think the paper did a service to the state, to citizens and to journalism.
- via reader Jim and Poynter
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