Platial News and Neogeography

Come help map Portland

In Portland? Love Mapping? Please join us tomorrow at 2pm...

Join Platial in hosting a map party for OpenStreetMap

About OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a voluntary not-for-profit organisation that anyone, anywhere can join. The goal of OSM is to provide free map data that can be used by anyone. All of our maps are freely available on the internet at www.openstreetmap.org. Why would anyone want to do that? Aren't there are lots of free maps out there? Most of the maps that you come across on the internet or in your home are protected by very stringent copyright laws. These rules stop the maps from being used in unique and unexpected ways, stifling people's creativity and imagination.

A mapping party is where a group of openstreetmappers and novices descend on an area to map it exhaustively, usually over a weekend. It's a very social event where people can meet up and talk (usually at a pub) in between mapping sessions. A mapping session consists of dividing up an area between participants and mapping it, be that by car, cycle or walking.

Tomorrows Mapping Party starts at Platial

635 NE Going Street @ 7th at 2pm.
There will be a little food and drink.
There will be GPS units to lend out-although feel free to bring your own
Platial will have a few iPhones to lend out for trying our new iPhone app (now in the store)

We'll have you back at OSCON by 6pm.

RSVP appreciated.

Portland Bans Cars

Sunday, June 22nd!

Well, just on a 6 mile loop of random side streets, and just for a half day, but the sentiment is encouraging.

The model comes from a weekly event in Bogota, Colombia called Ciclovia, which seems highly integrated into people's routines and expectations. The (apparently one-time?) Portland version carries the not-quite-so-catchy monicker of "Sunday Parkways". There is more info about events and the map on the City's Dept. of Transportation website. Hopefully this is just a test run for something permanent.

Portland gets a lot of press for being bike friendly, and it seems to be part of our overall marketing plan (a healthy, green and active city), but taking steps towards real changes in the way our streets are used on a regular basis would really put our money where our mouth is.

Another encouraging piece of news is that Portland is hosting this year's Towards Car Free Cities Conference (June 16-20). The Sunday Parkways event is seen as a wrap up the conference with actual implementation.

So, hope to see you all there!

Garbage Island

Garbage Island is a Texas sized "island" of trash floating in the super remote North Pacific Gyre.

Gnarly.

Check out more videos and info here.

The Directions Will Work No Matter What

"Let's say you are lost in a town you have never been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are no street signs — the directions will work no matter what."

For example, consider the vertex marked in yellow. No matter where in the graph you start, if you trace out the path "blue-red-red, blue-red-red, blue-red-red", you will end up at the yellow vertex. Similarly, if you trace out the path "blue-blue-red, blue-blue-red, blue-blue-red", you will always end up at the vertex marked in green, no matter where you started.

via: msnbc

Platial Map Awards 2007: Meet The Movement Mappers

When you get to spend a week (or several) focused just on the content to be found on Platial, you realize how much depth is there. Last year, Baostar won our Mapper of The Year award because he inspired us to see mapmaking in a  new way. He took neogeography and created a new way to share the world around him. He illustrated a new genre called Mapumentary and it defined Platial in 2006. While mapumentarists continue to inspire us, this year we realized Platial was defined by something different, more collaborative, more active, more urgent---Movement Mapping.

This year we found that most of our winners have offered a very generous resource to their community or the world at large. They are largely movement makers using online and social tools to do important work and spread critical messages, making it easier for people to make life-changing decisions. There are guides to buying local food, guides to avoiding waste, guides to downshifting, local citizen journalism, and global justice issues.

Our map of the year, Gentilly, was created by a group of Berkeley students who, through citizen journalism, are overseeing reconstruction efforts in New Orleans post Katrina. Mapper of the year was very difficult. There are so many people creating important geographic works and who have taken a very deep investment in their projects. Palo Alto History has won that award.  Palo Alto History, whose roots in mapping come from a desire to educate, has turned into the best Local History resource we've seen.

Platial is a better service to every single visitor with these folks mapping here. They are using community mapping in ways that have never before been possible.

We're thrilled to be a part of all these new movements that are literally reshaping our new world, a single world united through action instead of boundary. That's why we started Platial. Being part of these movements and a resource for community action is what w hoped we could do. We see maps as an important and pervasive tool. Thank you to all the movement makers who are using social maps and using Platial. Some of our favorites are Frappr's downshifting, Platial's Glean the planet, and New England Grown but below you'll find there are a lot more winners out there.

Please tell us if you see other movement maps or if you start one because we are going to be updating the Activists Atlas soon.

Thanks, and congratulations to all of our winners.

Continental Shelving

Wired article

In 1945, to tap newly reachable offshore oil resources, President Harry Truman unilaterally proclaimed that the US boundary was henceforth extended to its continental shelf. The pronouncement prompted other countries to take similar stands and inevitably led to more than a little confusion about what exactly constituted a continental shelf. Four decades later, the UN created the Law of the Sea treaty and defined the term more precisely. Countries were given 10 years after ratification to submit maps to the UN with their proposed boundaries — a deadline fast approaching for many nations.

Nominate Your Map: 2007 Platial and Frappr! Awards

Nominate Your Favorite Platial and Frappr Maps in the Social Map Showdown by January 15, 2008!

Kick it off the New Year with some well-deserved props and nominate your map for the 2007 Map Awards! You can nominate your own map or any of your favorite Frappr or Platial maps. All entries must be in by January 15, 2008.

Map of the Year and Mapper of the Year Award Winners will be invited to Where 2.0  May 12-14, 2008 in Burlingame, California. All winning maps will be featured to 15 million other social mappers online!

2007 was an important year; Frappr and Platial joined forces to create the best social map service possible! Together, we’re going to make sure that we give you features you want and the best service to make your maps and your groups and to help you find the best of who and what's nearby. Soon we'll be releasing the first major upgrade to the Frappr! map widget, making it even more social. Get a sneak peek here.

Yours,
The Platial + Frappr  Team

USA, The Last UnGreen Nation

America, you are on notice! Following the landslide election in Australia held just last week, the new Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol as his first act as leader of the country. This leaves the United States as the sole country that has not ratified this global treaty.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“This Nation ... must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny.”

- Judge John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court

Today, this same Supreme Court will hear presidential administration lawyers try to defend the indefensible: that the President can ignore the writ of habeas corpus and imprison people indefinitely, without charge and without question. Many of us are hopeful that some sense of decorum might return to our nation's identity through this judicial scrutiny.

In light of that going on today, I'd like to post about an item for sale from Amnesty International that commemorates the upcoming 60th anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Nice as gifts for the socially minded / geographically influenced people in your lives.

Glean the Planet

About two months ago, I wrote a blog post about Urban Foraging on Platial, which turned out to be one of the most popular posts we've had.

Since then, a new awesome urban foraging project called Glean the Planet has kicked off, and we are very proud that they have chosen to use Platial. Dock Whoosie, a 28yr old living in Portland, Oregon (Platial's home town!) is the creator of the site.

Here's a tidbit from the press release:

Glean the Planet is a web site designed to facilitate the redistribution of community and individual food resources. The site offers both discussion forums and open source mapping software from Google maps and Platial.com. By allowing users to map specific locations and illustrate them with pictures and additional detailed information, this mapping software helps people facilitate the local sharing of food outside of monetary-based economies.

For instance, if you know of a food baring tree, a stand of bamboo or a healthy dumpster in your neighborhood, you can plot it on Glean the Planet’s maps. You find the map of your state and make an entry. Then add web links, text, and photos to your entries and others.

Whoosie says, “My activism has shifted focus lately. I am working a lot on myself and my relationships. Understanding the non-human world around me has been a key focus of my time this past year. In reevaluating the definition of sustainability I have found a need to be more critical of the way I consume…going beyond purchasing decisions at a store or gas pump, to building a direct subsistence relationship with the land base where I live. Politically, I am playing a supportive role with the construction of Glean the Planet, building infrastructure that supports the change I desire.”

Go have a look at the site, add some stuff, and if you have any ideas or comments about the site, email Dock Whoosie to let him know.