Platial News and Neogeography

Geoblogger's *Privacy Oddities* Map

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RollerGirls Keep on Rollin'

    A&E had this great idea to capitalize on the resurgence of RollerGirl Teams across the U.S., but after an all-too-brief 15 minutes of televised fame, the show flopped. Well heck, that's how it goes.

    Meanwhile, back in the REAL WORLD the games have only just begun. Many season openers have already happened for the 40+ and growing U.S. teams, and there is a lot more bruising where that came from. And there are still teams forming! In Canada and the U.K. teams have appeared and there are probably a bunch more that I couldn't find. (By all means tell me if you are out there ladies! And let’s get your butt’s on the map!)

In almost every major city across the U.S.A. opening bouts are being fought, and benefits and fundraisers are ongoing. Rock shows are planned and D.J.'s are spinning at after-parties in warehouses and bars all over the world in praise of “Our Ladies of the Skates and Bruises.” Tickets, t-shirts, and designer skates (seen the one’s with chrome spinners yet?) are on sale all over the U.S. Cross-country games are planned as well for many if not all of the teams. You can contact your local team via their websites for ticket sales and game locations.

    “All Press is Good Press” when it comes to supporting our ladies and I for one am grateful for the brief stint of televised fame but let's be realistic--TV is so, well,...1990's. Who in the world would rather watch a televised RollerGirls game when they could go to the rink and see their local team beat the crap out of the town next door's team for roughly 5 bucks? Now that's some homegrown entertainment!

    All-girl Roller Derby represents a growing trend in our fair country of local team spirit. There are teams in almost every major U.S. city, whom you can see live on any given weekend. Minor cities too! I should know... I recently made a comment about a lack of upstate New York Roller Spirit. I’m from Utica. Who's heard of Utica? Anyone? Anyone? Didn't think so.... Anyhow, guess what? There are upstate New York Rollergirls! Queen City Rollergirls from Buffalo, N.Y. is a brand new team. Welcome ladies! Any friends in Utica?

These teams need your support. Please check out these links and get your butts to the games people!

US Rollergirls have the hook-up for news, updates, posts, blogs and general gossip and goodies about the sport. US Rollergirls

Check this link for Game Dates US Rollergirls National Game Dates

Buffalo's own Queen City Rollergirls Queen City Rollergirls

Ahem, shameless self promotion here…my rollergirls map: I Heart Rollergirls Map

Radio Free Rollerderby is a site put together by the Gotham Girls Roller Derby.

There are plenty more links where these came from…

Big Love,

Paige

I Feel Like I've Just Been to Seattle

I don't know who the Buzzard family is nor what their relation to Jodopod is, but I do now know where to find The World's Best Library, where to get my cupcake fix, and where to get The best soup in Seattle.

Mapping the best of everything in the neighborhood for visiting friends, or just for the fun of it is such a great use of Platial. There are a lot of maps out there. Zoom in to your neighborhood and see what's been tagged already. Be a tour guide.

Some other nice tours:
Ed Shepp's New York
Irvine's People Places

Adding Places using latitude and longitude

You can add a Place via latitude and longitude on Platial.

Simply enter the latitude and longitude in the address box in this format:

latitude, longitude

-that is-

45.522946, -122.667675 (will land on the Burnside Bridge in Portland)

--jake

Really Simple Tracking - Platial offers geoRSS Feeds

This is a really simple way to keep track of the multiple maps you care about, the people you think are posting interesting stuff, as well as a way to see when someone else adds a Place to one of your open maps, without having to visit all the various pages.

To use the new feeds, look for the RSS symbol on any Platial member's "Places" page, ie: platial.com/hive/places or on any "map" page, ie: platial.com/map/2878#Go_Skateboarding. Depending on the type of feed reader you use, you can either drag the icon into your reader, or right click the icon to copy the "link location" and paste that in (for info on choosing a reader, see below).

From that moment on, the reader will simply keep track of anything new from that user or that map. Most feed readers let you group multiple feeds into "folders", so you can group all your own open maps into one folder, and all your Platial buddies in another.

To find out more about RSS in general, or to find an RSS feed reader to use, check out some of these links:

Wikipedia article on RSS
and on news aggregators.

Here is a very large list of aggregators you can use. It includes both online and desktop version.

The fastest one to setup and that works well with our feeds seems to be the new google reader, but bloxor also seems very robust.

Ok, have fun!!

Gamers' Videos Mapped

Video game culture at its finest. Click on the Place titles to watch videos made by gamers.

Everything from parodies to their best moves.

Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks mapped

Map of Joseph Beuys' 7000 Oaks, and their extension beyond Kassel.
It's good to see more and more art making its way onto Platial.

This morning's poor performance, hang tight.

After a double whammy of traffic sources this morning, we are dealing with some internal code that should solve the issue once and for all.

The hits are coming from Daily Candy and USA Today's Pop Candy blog.

Great White Shark named after Nicole Kidman, swims from South Africa to Australia and back.

This is a cool story that proves what some had suspected for a while: that female great whites DO cross breed between the two largest populations of these sharks. The facts had never been documented, and the idea had come under scrutiny, because the distance seemed just too great for a lone swimming shark. Well, here is this sharks path.

Thanks Dolphintim.

Updated Activist Atlas Sparks Internet Revolution

Imagine what could be done if organizations could easily create their own maps and publish them anywhere on the web...that is exactly what Platial makes possible. Information is power and maps are an incredibly effective way to convey information.

Grassroots activism now has a new and powerful tool. Our Activist Atlas has been fully updated and now contains 35 handmade maps of activist resources. Our site has the tools activists need and want.

The Activist Atlas is ongoing and and we need you to add to it. Our site's content is only relevant when users like you contribute to it. So be sure to contribute your own maps and Places. I will check the site weekly for new additions and we will update the Atlas accordingly. Feel free to leave a comment in this posting with a link back to your map to be considered for inclusion in the Atlas.

Each one of the 35 maps that our site hosts hold a wealth of information. You can use these resources to start a campaign, share funding ideas, exchange links, publicize events, and build networks. The Activist Atlas was compiled for people looking to empower themselves. This is a tool that will strengthen the progressive online movement across the globe.

I'm sure you've got something to contribute. Have a look at what other people like you have already built here:

Activist Atlas Permalink
http://platial.typepad.com/news/2006/03/here_is_a_compi.html