Google Trends has put out a map showing what is says are the "most misspelled words" in Canada so far this year. According to this visualization, people in Quebec have trouble spelling "blueberry," while in the Northwest Territories, residents struggle with "facetious" (that's a tough one for sure), and New Brunswickers aren't sure how to spell "yacht." Canadians have understandably gobbled this up—we love nothing more than comparing ourselves to others, and silly stuff like this is catnip to the media. Maps like this pop up all the time: Google did something similar in the US in May, and in Canada, they've previously tracked people's favourite donuts, province by province. Even Pornhub recently did a map of most commonly misspelled searches, state by state. Maps like these are fun, but they leave some experts rolling their eyes. "This combines two of my pet peeves," Robert Kosara, a research scientist with Tableau Software in Seattle, who does data visualization research, told me over the phone. "Maps being used in weird ways, and rankings." He recently tweeted a link to an xckd comic poking fun at this: "Many web companies use maps like this in viral marketing, but the methodology behind them is pretty weak," a wiki dedicated to explaining the webcomic says. Random noise in the data can create what look like significant differences between regions where there really aren't any—doesn't it seem weird that this whole map of Canada doesn't just say "accommodate" and "accommodation," which are actually very hard to spell? And why are Labradorians flummoxed by "precious," and Yukon residents by "altar"? It also isn't really fair to compare Nunavut (population 37,000) to Ontario (13.9 million), for example, where the number of searches will make for vastly different denominators. "If you look at a word or a search term, it's going to be some tiny fraction of a percentage," Kosara said. That can make the top word in the ranking seem like a big deal, but what was the second-most searched? The third? If we saw a top-ten list in each region, there might be more similarities across provinces, instead of such weirdly huge differences. I talked to Alexandra Hunnings at Google Canada, who noted that the visualization is based on searches relating to how to spell various words. "It isn't a poll," she said. "It boils down to what people are typing in the search bar." In a follow-up email, she explained that Google Trends data is an "unbiased sample of Google search data." It's anonymized, categorized (determining a topic for a search query) and aggregated, allowing Google to measure interest in a particular topic across search. In Canadian media, a lot was made of the fact that British Columbia's "most misspelled word" was "pneumonia," which had some people wondering if the rain had more people concerned about being sick. Nunavut's word, meanwhile, was "anxiety." Read More: This Map Will Show If Your Web Traffic Passes Through an NSA Listening Post To Andrew Piper, a professor and director of the txtLAB at McGill University in Montreal, that's another potential pitfall and danger of data visualizations like these: People read into a lot into it. "Just picking the top [word] isn't a good way of representing what comes across as really important semantic implications," he said. "Are people googling 'pneumonia' because it's raining in BC? We have no idea." One final, and possibly quibbling, point. If people are googling how to spell something, Piper added, it doesn't mean they never knew how to spell it to begin with. The real problem, of course, are the spelling mistakes we don't even realize we're making. Subscribe to Science Solved It, Motherboard's new show about the greatest mysteries that were solved by science.

The Esri User Conference (Esri UC), July 10-14, 2017 in San Diego, California is the biggest GIS event globally. It attracts 16,000+ GIS users, managers and developers and includes 1000+ moderated sessions, 450+ hours of training, and 300+ innovative software vendors/startups. There will also be inspirational keynotes, one-on-one support sessions with Esri technical and professional staff, and more! One area you won’t want to miss is the Esri Startup Zone (SUZ) on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Hall A of the expo showcase! This high energy and innovative area is hosted by the Esri Startup Program and features the work of 23 up-and-coming businesses that have integrated spatial capabilities within their product offerings and help Esri customers gain even more value from their investments in ArcGIS. SUZ exhibitors address a broad spectrum of industries such as public safety, local and federal government, utilities, natural resources, health, and commercial sectors. These companies are driving innovation across a wide array of themes that include mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, real-time analytics, and more. Join this passionate community for demos, to explore partnerships, and to learn about their new offerings built to deliver value for the enterprise market. You can download the SUZ flier to help plan your visit in the Showcase EXPO. Startup Zone Exhibitors: Startup Demo Theater Schedule – Hall A, Startup Zone Industry Focused Moderated Paper Sessions Featuring Startup Program Partners: Today, startups do more than influence mainstream culture–they also change the way our organizations operate. With intense pressure on organizations to innovate and do more with less, Esri startups are delivering powerful solutions with intuitive interfaces that extend the ArcGIS platform. Take some time to see what is trending in the geospatial industry at the Startup Zone! Want to learn more about the Esri Startup Program?  Apply or learn more at esri.com/startups Follow @EsriStartups on Twitter & Instagram Connect with startups on GeoNet: geonet.esri.com/groups/esristartups Sign Up for our Newsletter developers.arcgis.com/startups/newsletter Explore our developer resources: developers.arcgis.com Questions? Email us: startups@esri.com

A new data delivery system is being tested that will allow the download of data from satellites within minutes.  The laser system connects to satellites 36,000 km above the Earth in order to deliver Earth observation data and imagery. Geostationary satellites, which maintain a stationary position relative to the Earth, are always in view of ground stations which allows for the immediate downloading of data.  Satellites like the European Space Agency’s Sentinel group orbit from Pole to Pole.  New technology is being tested with Sentinel-B that uses lasers to transmit data to geostationary communications satellites like Alphasat which carry the European Data Relay System (EDRS).  EDRS is system being developed to enable a constellation of geostationary satellites to receive data transmitted via lasers from other satellites and then transfer that data to ground stations.  The data transmitted from the Sentinel satellites is then relayed by the EDRS satellite to the ground.  A test of images from Europe to North Africa was successfully transmitted from Sentinel-2 to the ground in six minutes. More: First Sentinel-2B images delivered by laser, European Space Agency Learn How to Access and Use Sentinel-3 Data First Satellite Images from Sentinel-2 Delivered First Satellite Images from Sentinel-1A

A world renowned explorer who literally put Newfoundland and Labrador on the map is being recognized for his work 250 years later. James Cook surveyed most of the province from 1763-1767, charting areas unknown to the British at the time. "He spent 1763 at Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, the Strait of Belle Isle, returned in 1764 and finished that area," said Paul Wylezol, organizer of the James Cook 250 celebrations. "In 1765 and 1766 he charted the south coast and in 1767 he completed between the south coast and the Strait of Belle Isle." Cook was named the surveyor of Newfoundland and his maps were so good they are still used today. "His maps were really the first truly accurate maps, you could still navigate with these maps. Until you got into GPS really, that whole stream all comes from Cook," said George French, archivist at the Corner Brook Museum. The museum has a Cook in Canada exhibit that explains how he mapped the province. This summer his work is being celebrated across the globe.  Those celebrations include the western part of Newfoundland with new signs and map replicas going up at the Discovery Centre in Woody Point and museums on the North Shore and the Bay of Islands. Two hiking trails near York Harbour and Lark Harbour will be renamed in Cook's honour.  Wylezol says marking the 250th anniversary of Cook's work is an opportunity to both educate residents and tourists. James Cook 250 celebrations tie in with Canada 150 and the Tall Ships Regatta that's coming to Corner Brook and the Northern Peninsula the end of July. "Coincidentally, the greatest tall ship mariner of all time surveys our coast [250 years ago] this year. It's quite an interesting connection," said Wylezol. For more information on the celebrations, check out the James Cook 250 website.

- The Arctic Divide, in conjunction with other continental divides of North America, demarcates two watersheds of the Arctic Ocean: the Arctic Ocean watershed and the Hudson Bay watershed. This divide was a barrier to transportation until the Methye Portage was discovered in 1778, which opened up the Arctic rivers to the fur traders and became part of a transcontinental trade route from Atlantic to Pacific. It was of significance in Canadian history because it marked the northern boundary of Rupert's Land, the trading monopoly area of the Hudson's Bay Company. - The Continental Divide of the Americas, also called the Great Divide, separates the watersheds of the Pacific Ocean from those of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. It runs from the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, through western Canada along the crest of the Rocky Mountains, including through Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park, to New Mexico. From there, it follows the crest of Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental and extends to the tip of South America. It is crossed by the Panama Canal and by the two outlets of Isa Lake in Yellowstone National Park. - The Eastern Continental Divide separates the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean. It runs from the Twin Tiers of New York and Pennsylvania along the Appalachian Mountains to the tip of Florida. The city of Atlanta sits atop this divide. - The Northern Divide, or Laurentian Divide, separates the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean from that of Hudson Bay. The western part of it from Glacier National Park in the Rocky Mountains to the Great Lakes watershed marked the northern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase and was the border between the United States and British North America until it was superseded by the 49th parallel in the treaty of 1818. In Canada, it historically marked the southern boundary of the fur trading monopoly area of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the easternmost portion still marks part of the boundary between Quebec and Labrador. The divide traverses very flat terrain, especially in North Dakota, causing many travelers to believe the sign marking the divide is a joke. - The Saint Lawrence River Divide separates the Great Lakes Basin from the rest of the Atlantic Ocean watershed. Two canals cross the divide: The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal crosses the Chicago Portage and connects Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River watershed. The Erie Canal connects Lake Erie to the Hudson River watershed. Historically there were additional canals, e.g., the Ohio and Erie Canal, but most of these are no longer in operation. Via wikipedia.org

When you think about the Internet of Things (IoT), it is both intriguing but mysterious.  We have a sense that this platform is affecting our daily lives and giving us buying choices that connect us with devices.  For example, we can buy devices that help us remotely run or protect our homes.  On the other hand, we are realizing that IoT will change the way government works, too. IoT is essential for building the smart communities we live in.  And yet, it seems as if we are always on edge of things to come. Similar to the early Internet, few had the long-range vision to know everything the web would become and what it would have to offer.  Innovation and entrepreneurism prevailed as new applications emerged at a rapid pace.  We see these patterns all the time.  ATM technology allows us to get cash any time, almost anywhere. Now we’re using things like e-commerce, online banking, tap and pay, and the ability to buy a hamburger and get twenty bucks back so you have a little cash in your pocket. As IoT evolves, we’re starting to think about a myriad of smart technology: devices, cars, houses, and meters that sense everything from location to temperature to pressure to energy consumption. Many of things don’t even require our interaction and yet, they are becoming part of our lives. This is resulting in an unfathomable amount of information streaming over the Internet. It’s just floating out there – ready for you to use. If you only knew how. From my perspective, there are five basic concepts that governments need to consider to take advantage of the Internet of Things.   Think of it as how the Internet of Things meets the Internet of Where. The first challenge is to better plan our communities to effectively take advantage of the IoT.  Look at geodesign principles to better understand where we can best place these sensors to collect data to collect the data for better decision-making. Governments can design cities to prepare for and assist trends like unmanned vehicles and where public infrastructure itself signals vehicles letting them know the condition of the roads, where to drop a passenger off, and where to pick the next one up.  How to navigate to optimize delivery schedules.  That IoT infrastructure and the vehicle uses location to collect data on road conditions, produce passenger counts, and, through spatial analysis, reveals patterns that help us understand what’s going on. I also believe that, for most of you, the real challenge with IoT is getting connected with the data so that you can do something meaningful with it.  After all, if you can’t access the data produced by IoT and control it in some way you’ll never get to use this incredible information and you won’t be able to make real-time decisions. What I’m suggesting is that there’s a more practical approach to taking advantage of the IoT.  It’s a technology you are already aware of called, Real-Time Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  Real-Time GIS refers to getting connected with streaming data, visualizing it, and doing something with it. It’s a way to come at IoT from a different angle; using location as your access point.  By using GIS you can tap into streaming data sources and put that data to work in an efficient and useful way. In other words, the door to IoT will open to you. Let me explain, by connecting with IoT through Real-Time GIS, there’s 3 things you can do right away: First, you can get connected with any type of streaming data. Connectors are just little pieces of software that translate the data feeds into GIS language. At Esri, we have dozens of pre-built connectors that work with common data feeds. And, we make it easy for you to build your own connectors so that you can connect to the streaming data you want to work with. Next, you can use Real-Time GIS to instantly analyze the data and eliminate the noise in the data streams you connect with. Essentially, you filter the data so that you are only seeing the what’s important to you. In a split second, Real-Time GIS helps you focus on specific key words or thresholds and, at the same time, allows you to constrict the geography of your interest; say your city boundary or project area. Finally, you can create alerts that notify you and other people or devices when something you’ve defined happens. And, you can employ geofences – a virtual geographic boundary that enables action when devices approach, enter or leave the area. These alerts can also update maps and databases. These three simple concepts – connect: analyze: alert – may help you get a handle on IoT and approach it in a practical way.  Just the ability to tap into IoT data streams makes it worthwhile.  Real-Time GIS makes it possible to cut through the noise of IoT data and focus on what’s most important to you.  It empowers you to automate action and make real-time decisions. It’s time that we start thinking about IoT differently. We need to eliminate the mystery (and confusion) around it and put it into practical terms. The promise of IoT must meet our needs. Christopher Thomas is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

Ad: Share:There are thousands of unknown species of plants and animals in the world’s rainforests. Plants that have been studied in the rainforest have been used as medications, as food, and the incredible diversity of this ecosystem shows just how unique our Earth is. There is an extraordinary amount of information we still don’t know about the rainforest, but scientists and researchers are still working to understand more about how these regions can help humanity. Scientists have been studying the chemistry of rainforests, and have been able to determine 36 different types of forest based on chemical signatures. These differing chemical makeups show the incredible diversity of rainforests in all their glory. Researchers mapped 23 chemicals that are released by the rainforests in Peru with laser-guided imaging spectroscopy. Using airplanes, researchers mapped the tree canopy and scanned areas that are nearly impossible to access on foot. Using a chemical footprint, they were also able to see variations in the tree canopy that is undetectable using other imaging methods. Researchers divided the 76 million hectares of rainforest used in the study into 100-kilometer squares. These smaller units had their levels of water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium measured, resulting in about 36 different forest types. Differentiating these areas of forest could allow for better methods of rainforest conservation to occur around the world. The imaging techniques used in Peru are now being used in the rainforests of Ecuador and Borneo, in hopes of expanding the knowledge base of rainforests around the world. The study: Asner, G. P., Martin, R. E., Knapp, D. E., Tupayachi, R., Anderson, C. B., Sinca, F., … & Llactayo, W. (2017). Airborne laser-guided imaging spectroscopy to map forest trait diversity and guide conservation. Science, 355(6323), 385-389. The Rainforest Magician: Optical Illusions and the Spectra of the Canopy Mapping Carbon in the Amazon SaveSave Advertising

A midsize utility in New Jersey has made the leap to adopt a cutting-edge mixed reality (MR) holographic application while blazing a path for other industries and businesses to follow. Toms River Municipal Utilities Authority (TRMUA) may just be the first utility in the world to use mixed reality headsets to guide fieldworkers in locating underground utilities. This technological leap brings utilities and other companies with underground assets closer to realizing an age-old wish: to see through dirt. The mixed reality solution is helping field technicians in Toms River close service tickets more quickly and avoid costly repairs. “This is not science fiction anymore,” says Len Bundra, the IT/GIS director for the Toms River agency, and the person who saw the potential in a mixed reality application. At its most basic, the Toms River system takes three well-established technologies and combines them into one brand-new application. All three are commercially available—Esri’s geographical information system (GIS), which stores location and attribute information on TRMUA’s underground assets; Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing service; and Microsoft’s HoloLens. The three were integrated and customized by Meemim Inc., a Toronto-based company founded by Alec Pestov, who previously managed several startups. Early results are sparking widespread interest, driven in part by the growing excitement and investment in mixed reality applications. As more agencies and organizations see the potential savings and increase in efficiencies and job safety, the use of hands-free mixed reality headsets may set the new standard for avoiding utility breaks while digging, and preventing errors when marking line locations on asphalt, concrete, or lawns. Just a couple months into the pilot program, it’s hard to quantify savings. But in addition to minimizing lost time, anything that lowers the chances of a utility main break is likely saving tens of thousands of dollars. The first steps toward this technological leap came in 2005, when Bundra oversaw the installation of TRMUA’s GIS, which included precise (subdecimeter) data on the locations and sizes of more than 400 miles of wastewater pipes. With that rich database and other layers embedded in GIS, Bundra began to wonder how to create even more efficiencies in the field. He eventually found in Meemim a partner that wanted to explore the idea. The partnership has turned out to be very useful, so much so that the dozens of utility representatives who have seen the TRMUA application in action have been impressed by its capabilities and ease of use and want to know more.   Mixed Reality Technology across Industries The use of mixed reality or augmented reality (AR) devices in work environments continues to grow. Goggles, smart glasses, headsets, and helmets that project information, instructions, or images on the wearer’s field of vision are being used by manufacturing and retail companies that build equipment, repair machinery, or want to show customers what kitchens or homes will look like when completed. And the list of the technologies’ applications keeps getting longer. In December 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that companies were performing quality checks 20 percent faster and speeding up production by 25 percent with versions of the smart glasses. It also noted that Forrester Research, Inc., predicted that the number of US workers using smart glasses will grow from the current 400,000 to nearly 14.5 million in 2025. The research company also expects spending on smart glasses among large companies to increase from $6 million to $3.6 billion in the same period. Those numbers do not surprise Cindy Elliott, head of commercial industry marketing for Esri. “The combination of GIS and augmented reality can address a lot of interesting business cases across industries,” Elliott says. “The technology is certainly powerful in outdoor settings like Toms River, but GIS and AR can also create efficiencies in warehousing, real estate, retail planning, and manufacturing.” (See the sidebar for one possible scenario.) In essence, the use of mixed reality technology and GIS affords companies a new level of operational intelligence, which drives efficiency, increases safety, and can even inspire new service offerings. (Learn more about operational intelligence.) As word has spread about the Toms River implementation, even utilities much larger than TRMUA—which has 435 miles of underground utility lines, 18 pump stations, and 47,000 ratepayers—are paying attention, and new partnerships are forming around the business potential of mixed reality. While many utilities traditionally have kept a tight lid on data related to gas lines, electrical wires, and fiber-optic connections, Bundra sees that changing, thanks to the HoloLens project. “This technology is like a caveman fire for people to huddle around ” Bundra says. “When you put on the HoloLens, the more utility lines you see underneath you, the more utilitarian the product becomes. Now we’re suddenly huddling around the fire.”   A Huge Potential for Savings A simple scenario that was repeated several times during the first months of the Toms River project helps illustrate the increased efficiencies of GIS when coupled with the holographic headset. The holographic headset includes audio, tiny cameras, movement sensors, and a system for confirming the wearer’s exact location relative to the underground pipes. While wearing the HoloLens transparent visor, utility workers see a mixed reality—including the real world in front of them as well as a holograph of the lines of wastewater pipes underground. The pipes are color coded and projected to scale. With slight movements or audio commands, the wearers can summon screens showing relevant information. This video offers a brief tour of the MR/AR experience. The relationships among the pipes are made clearer and the ability to gauge depth is much richer with the headset on, but the video conveys the basic functionality. While wearing the headset, workers operate hands free, precluding trips back to the truck to get their bearings using two-dimensional maps of utility lines, or a tablet computer. And even more importantly, the technology allows fieldworkers to connect with remote colleagues—often an engineer in the office—who can see exactly what the fieldworkers see. This is accomplished through a simple Skype connection. So if the employee in the field—whether marking lines with paint or digging to fix or replace a line—is not sure how to proceed, an engineer or manager back at the office can highlight or circle certain areas where extra caution should be taken, and those marks will appear in real time on the fieldworker’s visor. For instance, if the manager notices a grouping of utility lines, then the worker may be directed to stop using heavy equipment and start digging by hand until the issue is resolved. In the past, fieldworkers attempted to resolve these incidents over the phone or by summoning the manager from the office to the field—a slow and pricey process. Having accurate GIS data and engineering help available at nearly all times can avert costly line breaks. A break in any utility line means that work comes to a screeching halt until repairs are made. Many of those problems occur because the aboveground markings are off. “So now a simple two-hour markup just turned into a $23,000 dig up and repair,” Bundra says. And if the issue happens after business hours, the new application means that fewer employees need to drive to the site and risk exposure to open holes and heavy machinery at night. But even the avoidance of small issues can add up to big benefits. For instance, a TRMUA worker on a routine assignment discovered a manhole cover that had been paved over. Accordingly, the next version of Meemim software will allow the wearer of the headset to mark the location electronically and then record an audio message to note the data discrepancies and any needed repairs.   A Company’s Bridge to the Future TRMUA’s data is precise. Wastewater pipes are plotted within a decimeter of their position. Indeed, the utility’s GIS helped emergency managers know exactly where wastewater lines were located after Superstorm Sandy blew away or covered up many of the landmarks in 2012. For companies looking to bring mixed reality technology to their operations, indoors or outside, a richly detailed GIS database makes most applications possible. It can store information on the location of fixed assets, track mobile assets like trucks in real time, and monitor the conditions of anything equipped with a sensor. “Without a GIS, there’s nothing,” Bundra says. That database of information allowed Bundra and Toms River to pioneer a different approach to operational intelligence, experimenting with MR technology that many people have heard of but few have actually used. For his part, Bundra relishes the pioneering spirit of the project, as well as its early returns. “I’m looking at this like it’s 1979 and I’m holding the first Walkman.”

As Brazil’s government steps back from Amazon conservation, the urgent need for stronger protection has been made more apparent by a new data map that highlights the knock-on effect of the forest’s capacity to absorb carbon, regulate temperatures and sustain life. Launched on Tuesday, the Silent Forest project assesses the extent and impact of forest degradation – a largely man-made phenomenon that is less well-known than land clearance, but is seen by scientists as potentially more of a problem for the climate and biodiversity. Forest degradation is the thinning of tree density and the culling of biodiversity below an apparently protected canopy – usually as a result of logging, fire, drought and hunting. It is more difficult for satellites to monitor than deforestation (the total clearance of foliage) because the canopy – when viewed from above – appears uninterrupted, even when many of the plants underneath have been cut down or destroyed and the habitat of many species has disappeared. As a result, it is harder to tackle and has long been overlooked by policymakers, even though scientists warn it may have a bigger impact on biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. To draw attention to the trends and the risks, the Silent Forest “disturbance map” highlights the black spots of forest degradation (particularly prominent near Santarem, Sinop and on the border of Pará and Maranhão states), as well as areas affected by roads, logging and forest fires, which tend to cluster together as a result of (often illegal) human activity. During the 2015-16 El Niño, fires affected 38,000 sq km of Brazilian Amazon – more than five times the area classified as deforested. On other land, loggers cut deep under the canopy to remove the most valuable timber and swaths were bisected or fragmented by roads. This creates a vicious circle because degraded land is drier and results in lower rainfall in surrounding areas, which increases the vulnerability to arson and accidental fire. “It is terrifying to see the Amazon degraded to this extent,” said Jos Barlow, a scientist at Lancaster University and one of the authors of a key study being used for the data visualisation. “Every time we go to field, we measure plots and find the situation is far far worse than before but nothing is being done about it.” He and the other scientists behind the data visualisation hope the new tool will guide policymakers to tackle the multiple causes of forest degradation. Thiago Medaglia, coordinator of the Silent Forest platform, said: “The data visualization from scientific studies is an important step in the struggle for forest conservation. Now, it is possible not only to visualize the impacts of deforestation in the Amazon, but also those of degradation.” They have also added information on biodiversity loss to widen the potential audience. Bird lovers, for example, will be alarmed to discover that some of the worst wildfires last year occurred in the habitat of the highly endangered black winged trumpeter on eastern Amazon. The species – which numbered only 100 or 200 individuals – is now considered the most likely to go extinct in the near future. Last year, an international team of researchers found that areas in Pará state with the highest levels of protection still lost between 46% and 61% of their conservation value as a result of degradation.

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QGIS is one of the primary open source platforms available for geospatial information system creations. Its intuitive interface paired with close collaboration with its userbase make it a perpetually evolving application in a way ArcGIS isn’t. However, with the absence of the same marketing and educational clout, QGIS tends to have fewer professionals utilize it in their GIS skillset. Even with its smaller user base, it’s still poised as a premier open source app that’s worth a look. Many of those who use ArcGIS are familiar with the popularized Esri User Conference, happening this July. Making this event is a great experience for GIS developers and analysts, but for those attending – consider planning a trip to one of QGIS’ conferences.  In fact, the third annual QGIS user conference is scheduled for August 2-11 at the University of Copenhagen. This UC will have 4-5 total days of workshops unique to this software, alongside three days for developers. For those interested in this event, more information can be found here: QGIS 2017 Nødebo. GIS Conferences and Events How to Make the Most of QGIS SaveSave

This blog post contains an example project that demonstrates how to read NetCDF climate projection data from S3 or a local filesystem into a Spark/Scala program using NetCDF Java and how to manipulate the data using GeoTrellis. We are interested in reading datasets stored as NetCDF because it is a common format for storing large, global climate projection datasets commonly used in the scientific climate community. The dataset used in this demo is the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP). According to its Unidata homepage, NetCDF “is a set of software libraries and self-describing, machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data.” The ability to easily and efficiently read NetCDF data into a GeoTrellis program opens the possibility for those who are familiar with GeoTrellis and its related and surrounding tools to branch into climate research, and also makes it possible for climate researchers to take advantage of the many benefits that GeoTrellis can provide. Because GeoTrellis is a raster-oriented library, the approach that is demonstrated in this repository is to use the NetCDF library to load and query datasets and present the results as Java arrays which can be readily turned into GeoTrellis tiles. Once the data have been transformed into GeoTrellis tiles, they can be masked, summarized, and/or manipulated like any other GeoTrellis raster data. The results of that are shown below. In the last section there is a brief discussion of ideas for improving the S3 Reader. You can find the github repo to follow along with here. This code relies on two main dependencies to do most of the work: NetCDF Java and GeoTrellis. Because the S3 and HDFS reading capability are not present in mainline NetCDF Java, you must compile and locally-publish a particular feature branch that was recently contributed by the present author and will hopefully make its way into the mainline at some point. To compile and locally-publish the feature branch, try something like the following: bash git clone 'git@github.com:Unidata/thredds.git' cd thredds/ git fetch origin 'feature/s3+hdfs:feature/s3+hdfs' git checkout 'feature/s3+hdfs' ./gradlew assemble ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal This code requires a 1.2.0-SNAPSHOT or later version of GeoTrellis. That is due to the fact that recently-added tile transformation functions are used in this code which are not present in earlier version of GeoTrellis. To compile and locally-publish GeoTrellis, try this: git clone 'git@github.com:locationtech/geotrellis.git' cd geotrellis/ ./scripts/publish-local.sh With the dependencies in place, compiling the code in this repository is straightforward: sbt “project gddp” assembly sbt "project gddp" assembly To run the code from the root directory of the project, try this: $SPARK_HOME/bin/spark-submit --master 'local[*]' \ gddp/target/scala-2.11/gddp-assembly-0.22.7.jar \ /tmp/gddp.nc /tmp/boundary.json '32.856388889,-90.4075' where the first argument (after the name of the jar file) is the name of a GDDP NetCDF file, the second argument is the name of a file that contains a polygon in GeoJSON format, and the third argument is a latitude-longitude pair. The program will produce several outputs: A png of the first tile (the tile for day 0) in the given GDDP dataset, that will appear in /tmp/gddp.png A png of the first tile clipped to the extent of the GeoJSON polygon that was given, that will appear in/tmp/gddp1.png A png of the first tile clipped to the extent of the GeoJSON polygon and masked against that polygon, that will appear in  /tmp/gddp2.png Time series of the minimum, mean, and maximum temperatures in the area enclosed by the polygon, as well as temperatures at the given point If you download the files3://nasanex/NEX-GDDP/BCSD/rcp85/day/atmos/tasmin/r1i1p1/v1.0/tasmin_day_BCSD_rcp85_r1i1p1_inmcm4_2099.nc` and put it into a local file called `/tmp/tasmin_day_BCSD_rcp85_r1i1p1_inmcm4_2099.nc , then type:\ $SPARK_HOME/bin/spark-submit --master 'local[*]' \ gddp/target/scala-2.11/gddp-assembly-0.22.7.jar \ /tmp/tasmin_day_BCSD_rcp85_r1i1p1_inmcm4_2099.nc \ ./geojson//CA.geo.json \ '33.897,-118.225' You will get the following results. The whole first tile: The first tile clipped to the extent of the polygon (the boundary of California): The first tile clipped and masked: Here are the time series in graphical form. (The code in this project did not produce graph, just the data.) This program should take about 10 seconds to complete. We can re-run the same example, this time reading the data directly from S3: $SPARK_HOME/bin/spark-submit --master 'local[*]' \ gddp/target/scala-2.11/gddp-assembly-0.22.7.jar \ 's3://nasanex/NEX-GDDP/BCSD/rcp85/day/atmos/tasmin/r1i1p1/v1.0/tasmin_day_BCSD_rcp85_r1i1p1_inmcm4_2099.nc' \ ./geojson//CA.geo.json \ '33.897,-118.225' The output will be the same as above, but the process will take longer to complete — generally about 2 minutes and 40 seconds in my experience. (Of course, this will vary with connection speed and proximity to the S3 bucket.) Measurements show that about 190 – 200 megabytes are downloaded in total. Two separate sweeps are taken through the file (one to produce the clipped tiles and one to do point reads). The cost of taking one pass through the file — reading subsets of size 32 KB or less of each tile — is about 95 – 100 megabytes. (The file is 767 megabytes, the amount downloaded varies with the number of executors used.) There is still room for improvement in the S3 functionality, that is [discussed below](#future-work-better-s3-caching).   In this section, we will address some of the key points that can be found in this code. def open(uri: String) = { if (uri.startsWith("s3:")) { val raf = new ucar.unidata.io.s3.S3RandomAccessFile(uri, 1<<15, 1<<24) NetcdfFile.open(raf, uri, null, null) } else { NetcdfFile.open(uri) } } is where the local or remote NetCDF file is opened. Notice that there are different code paths for S3 versus other locations; that is not strictly necessary, but is done only for efficiency. NetcdfFile.open("s3://...") returns a perfectly workingNetcdfFile, but its underlying buffer size and cache behavior are not optimal for GDDP. That is further discussed below. val ncfile = open(netcdfUri) val vs = ncfile.getVariables() val ucarType = vs.get(1).getDataType() val latArray = vs.get(1).read().get1DJavaArray(ucarType).asInstanceOf[Array[Float]] val lonArray = vs.get(2).read().get1DJavaArray(ucarType).asInstanceOf[Array[Float]] val attribs = vs.get(3).getAttributes() val nodata = attribs.get(0).getValues().getFloat(0) val wholeTile = { val tileData = vs.get(3).slice(0, 0) val Array(y, x) = tileData.getShape() val array = tileData.read().get1DJavaArray(ucarType).asInstanceOf[Array[Float]] FloatUserDefinedNoDataArrayTile(array, x, y, FloatUserDefinedNoDataCellType(nodata)).rotate180.flipVertical } This code is where the whole first tile (tile for day zero) is read into a GeoTrellis tile. Notice the assignments: latArray = vs.get(1)... lonArray = vs.get(2)..., and tileData = vs.get(2).... These are enabled by prior knowledge that in GDDP files, the variable with index 1 is an array of latitudes, the variable w ith index 2 is an array of longitudes, and the variable with index 3 is three-dimensional temperature data. Perhaps a more robust way to do that would be to iterate through the list of variables and match against the string returned by  vs.get(i).getFullName( , but the present approach is good enough for government work. The dimensions of the temperature data are time (in units of days), latitude, and longitude, in that order. `vs.get(3).slice(0, 0)` vs.get(3).slice(0, 0)  requests a slice with the first (0th) index of the first dimension fixed; it requests the whole tile from the first (0th) day. The assignment  nodata = attribs.get(0).getValues().getFloat(0)  gets the “fill value” for the temperature data which is used as the NODATA value for the GeoTrellis tile that is constructed. val array = tasmin .read(s"$t,$ySliceStart:$ySliceStop,$xSliceStart:$xSliceStop") .get1DJavaArray(ucarType).asInstanceOf[Array[Float]] FloatUserDefinedNoDataArrayTile(array, x, y, FloatUserDefinedNoDataCellType(nodata)).rotate180.flipVertical This code is where the partial tiles (matched to the extent of the query polygon) are read. Here, instead of using the `slice` method, the slicing functionality of the read  method is used. The string that results from   s"$t,$ySliceStart:$ySliceStop,$xSliceStart:$xSliceStop"will contain three descriptors separated by commas; the first is a time (specified by an integral index), the second is a latitude range (a range of integral indices with the start and end separated by a colon) and the last is a longitude range (again, a range of integral indices). tasmin .read(s"$t,$ySlice,$xSlice") .getFloat(0) This code uses the slicing capability of the read method to get the temperature value at a particular time, at a particular latitude, and at a particular longitude. # Future Work: Better S3 Caching # As mentioned above, the efficiency of reading from S3 is an area for future improvement. There are many different types of files that have the extension `.nc`, in this brief As mentioned above, the efficiency of reading from S3 is an area for future improvement. There are many different types of files that have the extension.nc , in this brief discussion we will restrict attention the GDDP dataset. Those files store the temperature data in compressed chunks of roughly 32 KB in size, and those chunks are indexed by a B-Tree with internal nodes of size 16 KB. Within the S3 reader, a simple FIFO cache has been implemented. The S3RandomAccessFile implementation emulates a random access file, and for compatibility must maintain a read/write buffer. For simplicity, the cache block size used is twice the size of that buffer. When one makes a call of the formNetcdfFile.open("s3://...") , the buffer size used is 512 KB which results in 1 MB cache blocks. That implies that every request to read an uncached datum incurs a 1 MB download. For many access patterns, such as reading random whole tiles, that is not a problem and in fact is the intended behavior. However, reading small windows or single pixels from different tiles is not a good access pattern for this scheme. Such a pattern would result in a lot of extra data being downloaded and cached when accessing leaves, as well as the eviction of large cache blocks containing internals nodes (which presumably may be revisited) in favor of cache blocks containing (single-use) leaf nodes. The special-case that contains the line raf = new ucar.unidata.io.s3.S3RandomAccessFile(uri, 1<<15, 1<<24)creates an S3RandomAccessFile with a 32 KB read/write buffer and 64 KB cache blocks. The 64 KB cache blocks are a much better fit than the 1 MB ones that would have been created by default. Examination of the access patterns generated by point queries, e.g. read("107,22,7"), shows that accesses are in general not aligned to block boundaries which frequently results in two blocks being fetched when one would have done. There is also the question of unnecessary cache eviction that was raised above. One of many ideas for improvement is to implement a cache that pays attention to the particular structure of the file rather than just managing blocks of bytes. That can potentially be done by inspecting the program state before a read is performed to determine whether the request is for an internal node or a leaf. If it is an internal node, the entire node can be cached (or returned from the cache), and if it is a leaf the request can be serviced without involving the cache.

Community Maps contributors have made it clear, and we’ve noticed. Colleges and universities all over the world want their campus on the map. There has been a rather impressive increase in the number of campuses that want to share their content with Esri’s Living Atlas of the World. Just click on these interactive maps to view a few of the campuses we have helped complete maps for.       Sure, there are many campuses that maintain campus maps already. The Living Atlas team at Esri would like to offer an additional resource. What’s the benefit? Maybe you should ask yourself, how will your campus benefit by not participating and sharing your map content. We’d like to help your campus get on the map. Here’s what you get and how to do it. Make Your Campus Map Widely Accessible Faculty, students, and facility managers will all have access to the same online basemaps, derived from and maintained with the authoritative content provided by the educational institution’s data stewards. The online basemaps can then be used to manage your facilities, highlight student life, activities and events. Like this Building Energy Explorer App. It Calculates and compares the Energy Use Intensity (EUI) for UMass buildings and associates this data with a map to visualize and analyze energy consumption across the campus. Assemble all your campus apps by creating a map gallery on ArcGIS Online, it makes it easy for students, faculty, and staff to find information they need. Ensure featured content about your campus is easily discoverable. Create a Living Atlas of your campus! Why Esri’s Community Maps Program? When you participate in Community Maps, your campus data will be integrated into a suite of ready-to-use online basemaps. You also get… Access to your map 24 hours a day, seven days a week Your content hosted, published, and maintained by Esri, ensuring high performance The ability to combine your campus map service and other operational data in web applications Contributing your campus data, whether it includes building footprints, sidewalks, or vegetation data, provides your internal users and the public with access to a unified, cartographically well-designed campus map. The campus map can be accessed through a standard Internet browser, ArcGIS® for Desktop, ArcGIS® Pro, ArcGIS for Smartphones and Tablets, or custom applications. Getting Started Participation in the program is free, and a wealth of resources is available to you. Just email Shane Matthews (smatthews@esri.com), I can help you out! Or register for Community Maps here, and we’ll contact you with the next steps. This Story Map illustrates the building blocks of large-scale content, features select contributing campuses, and provides examples of applied use.

Opinion Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies. But as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office. Jump to story below Jan. 21 â€œI wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)Jan. 21 â€œA reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Trump was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)Jan. 23 â€œBetween 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There's no evidence of illegal voting.)Jan. 25 â€œNow, the audience was the biggest ever. But this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive.” (Official aerial photos show Obama's 2009 inauguration was much more heavily attended.)Jan. 25 â€œTake a look at the Pew reports (which show voter fraud.)” (The report never mentioned voter fraud.)Jan. 25 â€œYou had millions of people that now aren't insured anymore.” (The real number is less than 1 million, according to the Urban Institute.)Jan. 25 â€œSo, look, when President Obama was there two weeks ago making a speech, very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech. You can't have that.” (There were no gun homicide victims in Chicago that day.)Jan. 26 â€œWe've taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them. They can say they vet them. They didn't vet them. They have no papers. How can you vet somebody when you don't know anything about them and you have no papers? How do you vet them? You can't.” (Vetting lasts up to two years.)Jan. 26 â€œI cut off hundreds of millions of dollars off one particular plane, hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period of time. It wasn't like I spent, like, weeks, hours, less than hours, and many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. And the plane's going to be better.” (Most of the cuts were already planned.)Jan. 28 â€œThr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its dwindling subscribers and readers.” (It never apologized.)Jan. 29 â€œThe Cuban-Americans, I got 84 percent of that vote.” (There is no support for this.)Jan. 30 â€œOnly 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage” (At least 746 people were detained and processed, and the Delta outage happened two days later.)Feb. 3 â€œProfessional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (There is no evidence of paid protesters.)Feb. 4 â€œAfter being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!” (It never apologized.)Feb. 5 â€œWe had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.” (About 60,000 people were affected.)Feb. 6 â€œI have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35.” (Much of the price drop was projected before Trump took office.)Feb. 6 â€œIt's gotten to a point where it is not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it.” (Terrorism has been reported on, often in detail.)Feb. 6 â€œThe failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!” (It didn't apologize.)Feb. 6 â€œAnd the previous administration allowed it to happen because we shouldn't have been in Iraq, but we shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. It created a vacuum, ISIS was formed.” (ISIS has existed since 2004.)Feb. 7 â€œAnd yet the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years.” (It was higher in the 1980s and '90s.)Feb. 7 â€œI saved more than $600 million. I got involved in negotiation on a fighter jet, the F-35.” (The Defense Department projected this price drop before Trump took office.)Feb. 9 â€œChris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave ‘service’ in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!” (It was part of Cuomo's first question.)Feb. 9 Sen. Richard Blumenthal “now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” (The Gorsuch comments were later corroborated.)Feb. 10 â€œI don’t know about it. I haven’t seen it. What report is that?” (Trump knew about Flynn's actions for weeks.)Feb. 12 â€œJust leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest!” (The media did cover it.)Feb. 16 â€œWe got 306 because people came out and voted like they've never seen before so that's the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan.” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all won bigger margins in the Electoral College.)Feb. 16 â€œThat’s the other thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a massive problem with their computer system at the airports.” (Delta's problems happened two days later.)Feb. 16 â€œWalmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives.” (The jobs are a result of its investment plans announced in October 2016.)Feb. 16 â€œWhen WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.” (Not always. They have released classified information in the past.)Feb. 16 â€œWe had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.” (The rollout was chaotic.)Feb. 16 â€œThey’re giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the debates. Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates.” (It was widely covered.)Feb. 18 â€œAnd there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing.” (Refugees receive multiple background checks, taking up to two years.)Feb. 18 â€œYou look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” (Trump implied there was a terror attack in Sweden, but there was no such attack.)Feb. 24 â€œBy the way, you folks are in here — this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks.” (There was no evidence of long lines.)Feb. 24 â€œICE came and endorsed me.” (Only its union did.)Feb. 24 â€œObamacare covers very few people — and remember, deduct from the number all of the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken away from them — it was taken away from them.” (Obamacare increased coverage by a net of about 20 million.)Feb. 27 â€œSince Obamacare went into effect, nearly half of the insurers are stopped and have stopped from participating in the Obamacare exchanges.” (Many fewer pulled out.)Feb. 27 â€œOn one plane, on a small order of one plane, I saved $725 million. And I would say I devoted about, if I added it up, all those calls, probably about an hour. So I think that might be my highest and best use.” (Much of the price cut was already projected.)Feb. 28 â€œAnd now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.” (NATO countries agreed to meet defense spending requirements in 2014.)Feb. 28 â€œThe E.P.A.’s regulators were putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands.” (There's no evidence that the Waters of the United States rule caused severe job losses.)Feb. 28 â€œWe have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials.” (They can't lobby their former agency but can still become lobbyists.)March 3 â€œIt is so pathetic that the Dems have still not approved my full Cabinet.” (Paperwork for the last two candidates was still not submitted to the Senate.)March 4 â€œTerrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)March 4 â€œHow low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)March 7 â€œ122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” (113 of them were released by President George W. Bush.)March 13 â€œI saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't I? Did I do a good job? More than $725 million on them.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 13 â€œFirst of all, it covers very few people.” (About 20 million people gained insurance under Obamacare.)March 15 â€œOn the airplanes, I saved $725 million. Probably took me a half an hour if you added up all of the times.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 17 â€œI was in Tennessee — I was just telling the folks — and half of the state has no insurance company, and the other half is going to lose the insurance company.” (There's at least one insurer in every Tennessee county.)March 20 â€œWith just one negotiation on one set of airplanes, I saved the taxpayers of our country over $700 million.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 21 â€œTo save taxpayer dollars, I’ve already begun negotiating better contracts for the federal government — saving over $700 million on just one set of airplanes of which there are many sets.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)March 22 â€œI make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems.” (Riots in Sweden broke out two days later and there were no deaths.)March 22 â€œNATO, obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism. They fixed that.” (It has fought terrorism since the 1980s.)March 22 â€œWell, now, if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong — in other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly and/or illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous numbers of people.” (There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud.)March 29 â€œRemember when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after the election, because their coverage was so wrong. Now worse!” (It didn't apologize.)March 31 â€œWe have a lot of plants going up now in Michigan that were never going to be there if I — if I didn’t win this election, those plants would never even think about going back. They were gone.” (These investments were already planned.)April 2 â€œAnd I was totally opposed to the war in the Middle East which I think finally has been proven, people tried very hard to say I wasn’t but you’ve seen that it is now improving.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)April 2 â€œNow, my last tweet — you know, the one that you are talking about, perhaps — was the one about being, in quotes, wiretapped, meaning surveilled. Guess what, it is turning out to be true.” (There is still no evidence.)April 5 â€œYou have many states coming up where they’re going to have no insurance company. O.K.? It’s already happened in Tennessee. It’s happening in Kentucky. Tennessee only has half coverage. Half the state is gone. They left.” (Every marketplace region in Tennessee had at least one insurer.)April 6 â€œIf you look at the kind of cost-cutting we’ve been able to achieve with the military and at the same time ordering vast amounts of equipment — saved hundreds of millions of dollars on airplanes, and really billions, because if you take that out over a period of years it’s many billions of dollars — I think we’ve had a tremendous success.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)April 11 â€œI like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late. I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve.” (He knew Steve Bannon since 2011.)April 12 â€œYou can't do it faster, because they're obstructing. They're obstructionists. So I have people — hundreds of people that we're trying to get through. I mean you have — you see the backlog. We can't get them through.” (At this point, he had not nominated anyone for hundreds of positions.)April 12 â€œThe New York Times said the word wiretapped in the headline of the first edition. Then they took it out of there fast when they realized.” (There were two headlines, but neither were altered.)April 12 â€œThe secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism.” (NATO has been engaged in counterterrorism efforts since the 1980s.)April 12 â€œMosul was supposed to last for a week and now they’ve been fighting it for many months and so many more people died.” (The campaign was expected to take months.)April 16 â€œSomeone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!” (There's no evidence of paid protesters.)April 18 â€œThe fake media goes, ‘Donald Trump changed his stance on China.’ I haven’t changed my stance.” (He did.)April 21 â€œOn 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)April 21 â€œWhen WikiLeaks came out … never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it.” (He criticized it as early as 2010.)April 27 â€œI want to help our miners while the Democrats are blocking their healthcare.” (The bill to extend health benefits for certain coal miners was introduced by a Democrat and was co-sponsored by mostly Democrats.)April 28 â€œThe trade deficit with Mexico is close to $70 billion, even with Canada it’s $17 billion trade deficit with Canada.” (The U.S. had an $8.1 billion trade surplus, not deficit, with Canada in 2016.)April 28 â€œShe's running against someone who's going to raise your taxes to the sky, destroy your health care, and he's for open borders — lots of crime.” (Those are not Jon Ossoff's positions.)April 28 â€œThe F-35 fighter jet program — it was way over budget. I’ve saved $725 million plus, just by getting involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 â€œThey're incompetent, dishonest people who after an election had to apologize because they covered it, us, me, but all of us, they covered it so badly that they felt they were forced to apologize because their predictions were so bad.” (The Times did not apologize.)April 29 â€œAs you know, I've been a big critic of China, and I've been talking about currency manipulation for a long time. But I have to tell you that during the election, number one, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)April 29 â€œI've already saved more than $725 million on a simple order of F-35 planes. I got involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 â€œWe're also getting NATO countries to finally step up and contribute their fair share. They've begun to increase their contributions by billions of dollars, but we are not going to be satisfied until everyone pays what they owe.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)April 29 â€œWhen they talk about currency manipulation, and I did say I would call China, if they were, a currency manipulator, early in my tenure. And then I get there. Number one, they — as soon as I got elected, they stopped.” (China stopped in 2014.)April 29 â€œI was negotiating to reduce the price of the big fighter jet contract, the F-35, which was totally out of control. I will save billions and billions and billions of dollars.” (Most of the cuts were planned before Trump.)April 29 â€œI think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it.” (There's still no evidence Trump's phones were tapped.)May 1 â€œWell, we are protecting pre-existing conditions. And it'll be every good — bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” (The bill weakens protections for people with pre-existing conditions.)May 1 â€œThe F-35 fighter jet — I saved — I got involved in the negotiation. It's 2,500 jets. I negotiated for 90 planes, lot 10. I got $725 million off the price.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.)May 1 â€œFirst of all, since I started running, they haven't increased their — you know, they have not manipulated their currency. I think that was out of respect to me and the campaign.” (China stopped years ago.)May 2 â€œI love buying those planes at a reduced price. I have been really — I have cut billions — I have to tell you this, and they can check, right, Martha? I have cut billions and billions of dollars off plane contracts sitting here.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)May 4 â€œNumber two, they’re actually not a currency [manipulator]. You know, since I’ve been talking about currency manipulation with respect to them and other countries, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)May 4 â€œWe’re the highest-taxed nation in the world.” (We're not.)May 4 â€œNobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters.” (Polls show most Americans do care.)May 8 â€œYou know we’ve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than we’re getting. All because of me.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)May 8 â€œBut when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high — highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.” (Colbert's “Late Show” debut had nearly two million more viewers.)May 8 â€œDirector Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.” (Clapper only said he wasn't aware of an investigation.)May 12 â€œAgain, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election.” (The F.B.I. was investigating before the election.)May 12 â€œWhen James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” (Clapper said he wouldn't have been told of an investigation into collusion.)May 13 â€œI'm cutting the price of airplanes with Lockheed.” (The cost cuts were planned before he became president.)May 26 â€œJust arrived in Italy for the G7. Trip has been very successful. We made and saved the USA many billions of dollars and millions of jobs.” (He's referencing an arms deal that's not enacted and other apparent deals that weren't announced on the trip.)June 1 â€œChina will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020.” (The agreement doesn’t allow or disallow building coal plants.)June 1 â€œI’ve just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.” (Trump’s figures are inflated and premature.)June 4 â€œAt least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” (The mayor was specifically talking about the enlarged police presence on the streets.)June 5 â€œThe Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.” (Trump signed this version of the travel ban, not the Justice Department.)June 21 â€œThey all say it's 'nonbinding.' Like hell it's nonbinding.” (The Paris climate agreement is nonbinding — and Trump said so in his speech announcing the withdrawal.)June 21 â€œRight now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.” (We're not.) Trump told a public lie Didn’t tell a public lie Inauguration Trump told a public lie Didn’t tell a public lie Inauguration President Trump’s political rise was built on a lie (about Barack Obama's birthplace). His lack of truthfulness has also become central to the Russia investigation, with James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., testifying under oath about Trump's “lies, plain and simple.” There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths. Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant. We have set a conservative standard, leaving out many dubious statements (like the claim that his travel ban is “similar” to Obama administration policy). Some people may still take issue with this standard, arguing that the president wasn't speaking literally. But we believe his long pattern of using untruths to serve his purposes, as a businessman and politician, means that his statements are not simply careless errors. We are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump's part. But it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying. The list above uses the conservative standard of demonstrably false statements. By that standard, Trump told a public lie on 25 of his first 40 days as president. But based on a broader standard — one that includes his many misleading statements (like exaggerating military spending in the Middle East) — Trump achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end until March 1. Told a public lie Told a public falsehood Didn’t tell a public lie or falsehood First day without a public lie or falsehood Visited a Trump property and told no public lie or falsehood Told a public lie Told a public falsehood Didn’t tell a public lie or falsehood First day without a public lie or falsehood Visited a Trump property and told no public lie or falsehood Since then, he has said something untrue on at least 74 of 113 days. On days without an untrue statement, he is often absent from Twitter, vacationing at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, or busy golfing. The end of May was another period of relative public veracity — or at least public quiet — for the president. He seems to have been otherwise occupied, dealing with internal discussions about the Russia investigation and then embarking on a trip through the Middle East and Europe. Visited a Trump property and told no public lies or falsehoods Washington Post reports Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russians New York Times reports Trump hoped Comey would “let this go,” referring to the Flynn investigation Special counsel appointed in investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign Trump’s trip overseas Visited a Trump property and told no public lies or falsehoods Washington Post reports Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russians Special counsel appointed in investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign New York Times reports Trump hoped Comey would “let this go,” referring to the Flynn investigation Trump’s trip overseas Sometimes, Trump can’t even keep his untruths straight. After he reversed a campaign pledge and declined to label China a currency manipulator, he kept changing his description of when China had stopped the bad behavior. Initially, he said it stopped once he took office. He then changed the turning point to the election, then to since he started talking about it, and then to some uncertain point in the distant past. April 21 “from the time I took office” April 29 “during the election” April 30 “as soon as I got elected” May 1 “since I started running” MAY 4 “since I’ve been talking about currency manipulation” Trump has retained the support of most of his voters as well as the Republican leadership in Congress. But he has still paid some price for his lies. Nearly 60 percent of Americans say the president is not honest, polls show, up from about 53 percent when he took office. Would you say Donald Trump is honest? 60% No Inauguration Yes Source: Quinnipiac Would you say Donald Trump is honest? 60% No Inauguration Yes Source: Quinnipiac

Way back on June 8, 2014, Donald Trump — who by then had long since established himself in conservative circles as a prominent voice in birther conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant demagoguery — staked out a strikingly heterodox position: He wanted to save entitlement programs. As a candidate during the 2015 GOP primary process, it was a theme he returned to. When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also stepped up with a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare, Trump claimed total ownership of the pro-entitlement position — vowing specifically to defend Medicaid as well. Trump portrayed this issue as a key differentiator. Defending Medicaid was a central plank of his pitch for American greatness. He even specifically referred to Ohio Gov. John Kasich as being excessively right-wing on the Medicaid issue. Now, of course, Trump has lined up behind a Senate health care bill that features draconian cuts to Medicaid: First, it cuts reimbursement rates to Medicaid expansion states, slowly phasing out federal support for the new enrollees. Second, it ends Medicaid’s open-ended commitment to covering the health care needs of eligible patients — sticking states with per capita spending caps. Third, it adjusts those payments over time to ensure that the money available per patient grows more slowly than the cost of providing medical coverage. Each year, a wedge will steadily open wider and wider between the money available for medical coverage and the cost of providing it. Kasich says he thinks the cuts go too far. But Trump himself doesn’t tweet about Medicaid anymore. He just keeps saying that “Obamacare is dead.” That’s not really true, but even if you think it is, it’s true Medicaid certainly isn’t dead. But the Senate health care bill will kill it, and will do so in order to finance a large tax cut for wealthy people — something Trump’s economic team also promised not to do.

Ad: Share:More than seventy percent of the Earth is made up of oceans, yet these underwater places are the least known areas of the planet. Even now, the oceans are still largely unmapped. Scientists have estimated that only ten to fifteen percent of the ocean has actually been mapped in detail. One woman, however, made major strides in discovering more about the world’s oceans and mapping the entire ocean floor. Despite the barriers of being a woman in the scientific community of the twentieth century, Marie Tharp’s work led to revolutionary discoveries and her maps of the ocean still affect us today. Born in Michigan in 1920, Marie Tharp was a geologist and cartographer during her lifetime. In partnership with her colleague Bruce Heezen, Tharp was the first to scientifically map the ocean floor. Tharp began her work in science as a geologist for Stanolind Oil in the 1940s. After completing a degree in mathematics, Tharp began working for the Lamont Geological Laboratory in 1948 at Columbia University in New York, which is now the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. It was there that she met Bruce Heezen, also a geologist, and two began working on a project to locate downed aircraft from World War II using photographic data. However, the majority of Tharp and Heezen’s work was a research project to map the topography of the ocean floor. Up until that time, the ocean floor had previously been envisioned as a flat plain of mud. Tharp and Heezen wanted to map the ocean floor in order to understand its geology and hypothetically connect it to the continents. In order to this, Tharp and Heezen collaborated for many decades, from the 1950s into the 1970s, gathering information. Bruce Heezen went out on research vessels to sea and collected data. Much of the raw data came from soundings, or sonar measurements, of the ocean depths. The process involved the sending out of sound signals at regular intervals. The echo of those signals would be picked up by a microphone on a ship and then a stylus would make marks on a recording paper. The technological improvements of the time allowed for the continuous readings of sounding numbers. Women at the time were not allowed to work aboard ocean vessels so Tharp used the data collected by Heezen to systematically map the ocean floor back at home.  Working with only pens, ink, and rulers, Tharp took those thousands of sonar readings and literally drew the underwater details of the ocean floor, longitude degree by latitude degree. Tharp used what is known as the physiographic mapping technique, using light and texture for her diagrams instead of color. Tharp also integrated research data from other sources such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and data from seismographs of underwater earthquakes. Tharp and Heezen’s work was revolutionary for many reasons. First of all, before their efforts, the ocean floor was essentially empty. Tharp herself commented that she had a blank canvas to work with and that made it exciting. More importantly, Tharp and Heezen discovered that the ocean floor was not flat but covered with various kinds of geological features like canyons, ridges, and mountains, just like on the Earth’s above-ground continents. Oftentimes, these oceanic geological features were much larger and deeper than anything seen on the planet’s surface. Tharp’s maps and Heezen’s data demonstrated that the ocean floor was a vast world more complex than anything anyone had dared to imagine up until then. Tharp and Heezen made an even bigger contribution to science and the world when their maps revealed 40,000 miles of an underwater ridge that runs along the globe. In 1953, Tharp made another remarkable discovery in the mid-Atlantic Ridge, a chain of mountainous volcanoes that runs north to south through the ocean. She had observed a depression in the ridge that appeared to be a continuous crack along its length. Those observations led her to emphasize the theory of continental drift, or seafloor spreading, the idea that the continents move by spreading across the ocean bed. Although unpopular at first, the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics was widely accepted into the scientific community over the years that followed. Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen completed several maps of the ocean floor. Their first completed map of the North Atlantic came out in 1957 followed by maps of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean in the early 1960s. After Heezen died in 1977, Tharp published a comprehensive map of the entire ocean that same year, called the World Ocean Floor Map. Tharp continued working for Columbia University until she passed away in August of 2006. The impact of Marie Tharp and her mapping of the ocean floor is still with us today. Tharp and Heezen’s work has led to the widespread acceptance of the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics. Their work also led to the discovery of the oceanic ridges and the mapping of a previously unknown world. In any case, Marie Tharp has been popularly recognized for succeeding as woman in a field long dominated by men and as a pioneer in her science of oceanography. References: “July 30, 1920: Marie Tharp, the Woman who discovered the Backbone of Earth.” http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/2013/07/30/july-30-1920-marie-tharp-the-women-who-discovered-the-backbone-of-earth/ “Marie Tharp: The Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hali-felt/marie-tharp-map-ocean_b_1826410.html “Marie Tharp, Oceanographic Cartographer, Dies at 86.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/26/obituaries/26tharp.html?_r=0 “Marie Tharp, oceanographic cartographer, and her contributions to the revolution in the Earth sciences.” http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/192/1/215.abstract “Marie Tharp Bio.” http://www.whoi.edu/sbl/liteSite.do?litesiteid=9092&articleId=13407 “Remembered: Marie Tharp, Pioneering Mapmaker of the Ocean Floor” http://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2006/story08-24-06.php Advertising

Ad: Share:The human brain is a remarkable organ. It has the ability to reason, create, analyze, and process tons of information each day. The brain also gives humans the ability to move around in an environment using an innate sense of direction. This skill is called spatial orientation, and it is especially useful for finding routes in an unfamiliar place, following directions to another person’s house, or making a midnight raid of the refrigerator in the dark. Spatial orientation is crucial for adapting to new environments and getting from one point to another. Without it, people will walk around in endless circles, never being able find which way they want to go. The brain has a specialized region just for navigating the spatial environment. This structure is called the hippocampus, also known as the map reader of the brain. The hippocampus helps individuals determine where they are, how they got to that particular place, and how to navigate to the next destination. Reading maps and developing navigational skills can affect the brain in beneficial ways. In fact, using orientation and navigational skills often can actually cause the hippocampus and the brain to grow, forming more neural pathways as the number of mental maps increase. A study by scientists at University College in London found that grey matter in the brains of taxi drivers grew and adapted to help them store detailed mental maps of the city. The drivers underwent MRI scans, and those scans showed that the taxi drivers have larger hippocampi when compared to other people. In addition, the scientists found that the more time the drivers spent on the job, the more the hippocampus changes structurally to accommodate the large amount of navigational experience. Drivers who spent more than forty years in a taxi had more developed hippocampi than those just starting out. The study shows that experience with the spatial environment and navigation can have a direct influence on the brain itself. However, the use of modern navigational technology and smartphone apps has the potential to harm the brain depending on how it is used in today’s world. Map reading and orienteering are becoming lost arts in the world of global positioning systems and other geospatial technologies. As a result, more and more people are losing the ability to navigate and find their way in unfamiliar terrain. According to the BBC, police in northern Scotland issued an appeal for hikers to learn orienteering skills rather than relying solely on smartphones for navigation. This came after repeated rescues of lost hikers by police in Grampian, one of which included finding fourteen people using mountain rescue teams and a helicopter. The police stated that the growing use of smartphone apps for navigation can lead to trouble because people become too dependent on technology without understanding the tangible world around them. At McGill University, researchers did a series of three studies on the effects of using GPS devices on the brain. The scientists wanted to measure the brain activity of people while using two methods that humans employ when navigating. The first method is called spatial navigation, and this is where landmarks are used to build those cognitive maps that help us determine where we are in a particular environment. The second is called stimulus-response. In this situation, humans run on auto-pilot mode and retrace their steps according to repetition. For example, taking the same route home from work becomes second nature after a while, and sooner or later you find yourself retracing the route out of habit, not thinking about how you got home. Researchers claimed that this mode is more closely related to the way a GPS is used to navigate. What researchers found was significant in terms of how spatial orientation affects the brain. After performing fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans on people using both of those strategies, the individuals that used a spatial navigation strategy had an increased activity in the hippocampus. Conversely, they found that using a GPS excessively might to lead to atrophy in the hippocampus as a person ages, and this could put them at higher risk for cognitive diseases later in life. One of these diseases might be Alzheimer’s which impairs the hippocampus and leads to problems with spatial orientation and memory. Researchers also found a greater volume of grey matter in those who used spatial navigation, and this group scored higher on standardized cognition tests than those who used the other strategy. The results of this study demonstrate that using orienteering and building cognitive maps might be better for the brain than using a GPS. Researchers are now questioning whether modern global positioning systems and advanced maps are doing humans any good. Studies done by the British Cartographic Society have determined that high-tech maps can get users from Point A to Point B but are falling short compared to traditional paper maps. Old-fashioned printed maps not only show users how to navigate but also give other important information about an area such as historical landmarks, government buildings and cultural institutions. The fear of using a GPS exclusively is a loss of cultural and geographic literacy. The more humans use GPS, the more cut off from the real world they might become. Dr. Toru Ishikawa, a researcher and specialist in human spatial behavior, has done numerous studies on how using a GPS device affects the ability of humans to navigate the surrounding environment. Ishikawa and colleagues at the University of Tokyo asked three groups of people to find their way through an urban environment on foot using various means of navigation. One group used a mobile phone with a built-in GPS and another group used a paper map. Researchers actually showed the last group the route they needed to take before navigating on their own. The study found that the group that used the GPS walked slower, made more stops, and walked farther than the others. They made more errors and took longer to reach their destination. After their walks, the GPS users also exhibited a poorer knowledge of the terrain, topography, and the routes they took when asked to draw a map. The group shown the route beforehand by researchers did the best in the study. Researchers who point out the benefits of paper maps claim that using a GPS actually makes it harder for people to navigate. A GPS device encourages people to stare down at a screen instead of looking around at their environment. The size of GPS screen also means that users cannot view both their location and their destination at the same time. However, paper maps do not rely on getting a signal, and using a map in conjunction with a compass gives people a better feel for the natural world. Anyone can learn orienteering with a map and compass, no matter what navigational skills they are born with. Those in favor of paper maps also point on that there is a big difference between precision and accuracy when using a GPS. A device can be precise without being accurate. Anyone who has found themselves in the wrong place but exactly where the GPS told them to go knows what that means. A GPS can only go so far in aiding people with navigation. Barry Brown, co-director of the Mobile Life Center and co-author of a research study called, “The Normal Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS” tells the story of a man from San Diego who flew to the East Coast. When he arrived, he picked up a rental car outfitted with a GPS but, after twenty minutes of driving, the man sensed he had been headed in the wrong direction. He then realized that he had entered his own California address and that the GPS was leading him 3,000 miles away. Similarly, according to More Intelligent Life, a magazine from the Economist, Princess Diana’s niece once told a taxi driver to take her Stamford Bridge, a football (soccer) stadium in London. Instead, she ended up 150 miles in the wrong direction in the village of Stamford Bridge. A GPS cannot always save us from our own human errors. Those in favor of GPS devices argue that in-car navigation systems are most helpful when driving. These digital maps are helpful because they can tell the driver the location of the nearest restaurant or gas station. Some GSP devices can also help people make contact with friends though location-based social networking. In fact, a Taiwanese study suggested that GPS devices outdid paper maps when it came to driving efficiency. However, a study by Barry Brown and the University of California, San Diego found another way in which GSP navigation could be harmful to the human brain. Drivers who use GPS often find that their navigation skills have atrophied. Like any other cognitive skill, map reading and navigation need to be practiced in order to not diminish. The concern over GPS devices and its effects on the human brain only highlights a greater unease of what technology is doing to critical thinking and memorization. With information only a click away, people are losing their common sense. Each new innovation of Google Maps only brings about a decrease in basic geographical knowledge. Moreover, there are even apps for people to find what floor they are on in a building as if looking for floor numbers is too difficult. Researchers, academics, and even hike leaders are becoming concerned that technology is decreasing our mental capacity and observation skills. Then, if technology fails, people will be incapable of determining where they are. Gender also has an important effect on navigation and spatial orientation skills. Several studies have demonstrated that men and women use different strategies when trying to navigate. A study from the Netherlands asked men and women to find their way back to their cars in a crowded parking lot. As a result, men tended to use more mileage terms when describing the route while women mentioned landmarks more often. A professor at Utrecht University, Albert Postma, claims that a man’s brain is better suited to precise distances while women focus more on the relationship between objects. These differences in spatial orientation, although rather small, are the results of biological differences in the brains between genders but also different learning experiences. Another study asked a group of men and women in a Mexican village to gather mushrooms. The researchers fitted them with satellite positioning devices and heart rate monitors. The study found that the women expended less energy and seemed to know where to go. The women were also more likely to recall their routes using landmarks and retraced their paths to the most productive areas. Although men are usually better at reading and using maps, women usually get to their destination quicker because they are better at remembering landmarks. Consequently, women are less likely to get lost. Other studies demonstrate that men and women develop different methods of navigating and orienting themselves to the spatial environment because of differences in roles as hunters and gatherers. This could explain the reason why men get lost in supermarkets while women can find their way around in minutes. Research done at Queen Mary, University of London demonstrated that men are better at finding hidden objects while women are better at remembering where objects are at. In addition, Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at Kent University, states that women are better at making judgment calls while men tend to overcomplicate the most basic navigational tasks. The use of map reading and navigating skills to explore the spatial environment can benefit the brain and cause certain areas to grow while the use of modern technology for navigation seems to only hinder the brain. No matter which strategy men and women use for navigation, it is important to practice those skills and tune into the environment. While technology is a useful tool, in the end the human brain remains the most sophisticated map reader. References BBC News.  “Hillwalking Warning over Smartphones after Cairngorms Rescue.” BBC News. BBC, 14 Aug. 2012. Accessed: 08 Mar. 2013. Cox, Lauren . “Study Shows People Walk in Circles in the Woods.” ABC News . N.p., 20 Aug. 2009. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. Eleanor A. Maguire, David G. Gadian, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Catriona D. Good, John Ashburner, Richard S. J. Frackowiak, and Christopher D. Frith.  “Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers“.  PNAS 2000 97 (8) 4398-4403; published ahead of print March 14, 2000, doi:10.1073/pnas.070039597 Faulkner, Katherine. “Men are better at map reading, but women are superior at remembering routes, study finds.” Mail Online. N.p., 2 May 2010. Accessed 8 Mar. 2013. Madrigal, Alexis C. “How Google Builds Its Maps – €”and What It Means for the Future of Everything.” The Atlantic. N.p., 6 Sept. 2012. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. McKinney, John . “Paper Maps Not Ready to Fold Yet.” Pacific Standard. N.p., 22 Mar. 2010. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. Miller, Rebecca. “Google Maps illustrates how people depend too much on technology.” Arizona Daily Wildcat . N.p., 11 Apr. 2012. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. Nierenberg, Cari. “Where’s the car? Men are (a little) better at remembering” NBC News. N.p., 26 Nov. 2012. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. Stross, Randall. “GPS and Human Error Can Lead Drivers Astray” The New York Times. N.p., 1 Sept. 2012. Accessed 08 Mar. 2013. Advertising

Amidst President Trump’s claim that millions of noncitizens voted in 2016, and his promised major investigation on the subject, hundreds of voting and election bills are already circulating in state capitals — and three legislative bodies have already passed legislation.    As of February 1, 2017, with 46 states and Washington, D.C. now in their legislative sessions, at least 308 bills to enhance voting access have been introduced in 36 states. Meanwhile, at least 46 bills to restrict access to registration and voting have been introduced in 21 states.    The states have been busy legislating on voting this decade, a trend that began following the 2010 election. In the following two years, states passed a wave of restrictions: 19 bills in 27 states. Some laws were blocked or reversed, but more followed in the next four years — and now 20 states have new restrictions in effect since that time. Although the initial flood of restrictive legislation has given way to a more deliberate pace, serious threats to voting continue to be introduced and passed in state capitals. At the same time, states have also led the way in expanding voting access: at least 26 states and D.C. have passed bills to expand voting access since 2013. In 2017, with legislation still being introduced, key trends are emerging:   States continue to introduce voter ID and citizenship bills, notwithstanding high-profile controversies over similar laws. This week, Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a “show me your papers” law requiring documentary proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote. Proponents claim the law is needed to block illegal voting, repeating President Trump’s allegation of widespread noncitizen voting — a claim unsupported by evidence. A similar law in Kansas stopped tens of thousands from registering and has been partially blocked by state and federal courts. Elsewhere, lawmakers continue to introduce voting restrictions, even where other recent efforts to restrict voting access have been stopped. Arkansas and North Dakota lawmakers have proposed bills to enact or heighten voter ID requirements — despite court rulings blocking previous strict voter ID laws — and the bills have already passed in one chamber in each state. Texas legislators have introduced a proof of citizenship law, among a litany of restrictive bills, even though the state’s strict voter ID law was found discriminatory by multiple courts. On another topic, in New Hampshire, student voting restrictions similar to those vetoed last legislative session have been proposed.    A spike in laws restricting voting and registration assistance. Legislators are increasingly targeting individuals and organizations that help others participate. Attacks on civic groups are not new, and courts have stepped in to block them. Several recent high-profile examples, however, suggest this may be a major new front in the voting wars. Arizona and Wisconsin passed laws in 2016 that could make it harder for groups to help people register and vote, and controversial investigations in Georgia and Indiana may have hindered participation. This year, there are already bills that would pose barriers to certain voting and registration assistance in Arizona, Montana, New York, Texas, and Virginia.    Reforms garnering bipartisan support continue to be introduced. Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming lawmakers have already introduced legislation to expand access — in ways that have garnered bipartisan support in recent legislative sessions in those states. These include expanding early voting access, restoring the right to vote for people with criminal convictions, and enacting automatic voter registration. Since 2013, at least 26 states passed positive reforms — including automatic registration — with bipartisan support, showing consensus reforms remain possible.    Expansive Legislation   As in previous legislative sessions, bills to expand access — at least 308 bills in 36 states — outnumber those that restrict voting and registration.       Automatic voter registration and other reforms to modernize voter rolls    Overall, 99 bills that would modernize voter registration have been introduced in 29 states, with automatic voter registration (AVR) being the most prevalent. In early 2015, Oregon became the first state to pass AVR, and saw increased registration and turnout. Five additional states followed suit in 2015 and 2016, and more states are poised to consider AVR bills this session. Bills to implement or expand AVR this session have been introduced in at least 21 states — Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. Bills that would modernize voter registration in other ways — such as by allowing registration online or on Election Day — are also prevalent.    Early and absentee voting expansion   Thirty-nine bills to increase early in person voting access have been introduced in 14 states. Fifty-eight bills to increase access to absentee voting have been introduced in 22 states.     Restoring the right to vote   In 11 states, 32 bills to help restore the right to vote to persons with past criminal convictions have already been introduced.   Restrictive Legislation   Restrictive legislation is comparable to the most recent legislative sessions at this time. Legislation posing acute threats to voters continues to circulate — there are 46 bills restricting access to the franchise introduced in 21 states.     Voter ID    At least 12 states are already considering strict voter ID legislation — Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming. Arkansas and North Dakota’s bills have already passed in their state Houses. Legislation from the Iowa secretary of state to implement voter ID will likely be considered in the legislature, with the possibility of more restrictive bills originating in the capital.    Other restrictions on voting and registration   Along with Virginia, Texas legislators have introduced legislation that would create strict documentary proof of citizenship requirements to register. In Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, and New Hampshire, legislation has been introduced to eliminate or limit Election Day registration, and bills that restrict students’ ability to claim residency where they live and go to school have been introduced in Arizona, Maine, and New Hampshire. Legislators in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and Texas have introduced legislation that would cut back on early voting opportunities.   Attacks on civic groups and voter assistance   Numerous states have seen legislation that threatens individuals or groups who help others vote or register. Legislation making it more difficult to help others deliver their absentee ballots has been proposed in three states: Arizona, Montana, and New York. Virginia legislators have introduced burdensome requirements on community-based voter registration, along with increased penalties for alleged misconduct. In Texas, a bill has been proposed to make it harder to offer voter assistance, undermining a court settlement last year.      Frontpage image: Flickr user Ally Aubry via CC by 2.0.   Voting Rights & ElectionsVoting Reform AgendaVoter Registration ModernizationRestricting the VoteRestoring Voting Rights

Every day thousands of passengers on underground streetcars in San Francisco pass through the hull of a 19th-century ship without knowing it. Likewise, thousands of pedestrians walk unawares over dozens of old ships buried beneath the streets of the city’s financial district. The vessels brought eager prospectors to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, only to be mostly abandoned and later covered up by landfill as the city grew like crazy in the late 1800s. Now, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park has created a new map of these buried ships, adding several fascinating discoveries made by archaeologists since the first buried-ships map was issued, in 1963. It’s hard to imagine now, but the area at the foot of Market Street, on the city’s eastern flank, was once a shallow body of water called Yerba Buena Cove, says Richard Everett, the park’s curator of exhibits. The shoreline extended inland to where the iconic Transamerica Pyramid now rises skyward. In 1848, when news of the Gold Rush began spreading, people were so desperate to get to California that all sorts of dubious vessels were pressed into service, Everett says. On arrival, ship captains found no waiting cargo or passengers to justify a return journey—and besides, they and their crew were eager to try their own luck in the gold fields. The ships weren’t necessarily abandoned—often a keeper was hired to keep an eye on them, Everett says—but they languished and began to deteriorate. The daguerreotype above, part of a remarkable panorama taken in 1852, shows what historians have described as a “forest of masts” in Yerba Buena Cove. Sometimes the ships were put to other uses. The most famous example is the whaling ship Niantic, which was intentionally run aground in 1849 and used as a warehouse, saloon, and hotel before it burned down in a huge fire in 1851 that claimed many other ships in the cove. A hotel was later built atop the remnants of the Niantic at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets, about six blocks from the current shoreline (see map at top of post). A few ships were sunk intentionally. Then as now, real estate was a hot commodity in San Francisco, but the laws at the time had a few more loopholes. “You could sink a ship and claim the land under it,” Everett says. You could even pay someone to tow your ship into position and sink it for you. Then, as landfill covered the cove, you’d eventually end up with a piece of prime real estate. All this maneuvering and the competition for space led to a few skirmishes and gunfights. One of these intentionally scuttled ships was the Rome, which was rediscovered in the 1990s when the city dug a tunnel to extend a streetcar line (the N-Judah) south of Market Street. Today the line (along with two others, the T and the K) passes through the forward hull of the ship. Eventually Yerba Buena Cove was filled in. People built piers out into it to reach ships moored in deeper water, Everett says. “The wharves are constantly growing like fingers out from the shore.” Then people began dumping debris and sand into the cove, which was only a few feet deep in many places to begin with. “By having guys with carts and horses dump sand off your pier,” Everett says, “you could create land that you could own.” It was a land-grab strategy with lasting ramifications—as evidenced by the ongoing controversy over a sinking, tilting skyscraper built on landfill near what was once the southern edge of Yerba Buena Cove. Three archaeologists—James Allan, James Delgado, and Allen Pastron—consulted on the making of the new shipwreck map, and discoveries by them and their colleagues have added several fascinating details that weren’t on the original buried-ships map created by the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in 1963 (see below). Red circles on the new map indicate sites that have been studied by archaeologists. One of the most interesting additions to the new map is a ship-breaking yard at Rincon Point at the southern end of Yerba Buena Cove, near the current anchorage point for the Bay Bridge. A man named Charles Hare ran a lucrative salvage operation here, employing at least 100 Chinese laborers to take old ships apart. Hare sold off brass and bronze fixtures for use in new ships and buildings. Scrap wood was also a valuable commodity in those days, Everett says. The 1851 fire ended Hare’s business. Archaeologists have found the remnants of six ships at the site that were presumably in the process of being salvaged at the time of the fire. One—the Candace—was another whaling vessel pressed into service to bring gold-crazed prospectors to San Francisco. A lighter, small, flat-bottomed boat that was used to shuttle goods from moored ships to shore has also been found. A development project near Broadway and Front streets, which began in 2006, turned up bones that archaeologists suspect came from Galapagos tortoises (the site is marked by an asterisk in the map at the top of this post). After passing around Cape Horn, many ships stopped in the Galapagos Islands and threw a few turtles in the hold—a source of fresh meat for the long voyage north to California. “They got to San Francisco, and lo and behold: They had more turtle than they could eat,” Everett says. Menus from the era show that turtle soup was a common offering at restaurants and lodging houses around the cove. Illustrator and designer Michael Warner says his inspirations for the new map included the “Maps of Discovery” from a mural painted by N.C. Wyeth in 1928 for the headquarters of the National Geographic Society. Wyeth’s imaginative painting evokes the romance of the Age of Discovery, and Warner says it inspired him to go beyond just showing the details of the buried ships and historic wharves. “My hope is that I have not only enhanced the image for the history enthusiast,” he says, “but created something that might even make people learn by accident!” The team is still ironing out some final details, such as how to most accurately represent the boundaries of Charles Hare’s ship-breaking yard. They hope to have posters of the new map available for purchase early next year and plan to eventually put it on display in the visitors’ center.

Kolten Wong, a shy 5-year-old from Daly City, loves dinosaurs. He draws them, goes with his family to museums, wears dinosaur shirts, and has tons of dinosaur books and toys. At last year’s Bay Area Science Festival, Kolten asked Bay Curious: What sort of dinosaurs roamed the Bay Area? And are there fossils here? https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/bay-curious/2017/05/dinosaurs-in-the-bay-area.mp3 The answer is satisfyingly full of toothy prehistoric beasts. But before we get to those, we need to explain a bit about the Bay Area during the Mesozoic era — the geologic time of the dinosaurs, ending with their sudden extinction 66 million years ago. “Through all of the Mesozoic, the Bay Area as we know it didn’t exist,” says Doris Sloan, a retired geologist from UC Berkeley and author of “Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region.” The California coastline was 100 miles farther east, toward the Sierra Foothills, putting the Bay Area thousands of feet underwater. And much of our ancient seafloor is long gone. Over millions of years, the Farallon Plate subducted into an underwater trench, melting under the continent. This, along with frequent earthquakes and underwater landslides, meant bad news for ancient bones we’d like to find today. “This would shake a skeleton apart, and the sediments being dragged down into a zone where heat and pressure would metamorphose them—all of this argues you wouldn’t get much preserved,” Sloan says. So you won’t find many fossils in the Bay Area — though a few have survived. In the Marin Headlands, you can find reddish chert made up of tiny prehistoric shells of radiolarians — think of plankton. A few larger spiral shells from extinct mollusks have also turned up; these belonged to ammonites, which swam through the water kind of like the modern-day nautilus. But to find evidence of the predators that ate those ammonites, you have to look closer to the prehistoric shoreline to the east. Northeast of Sacramento, in Rocklin, Dick Hilton is co-chair of the Sierra College Natural History Museum. Hilton authored the 3.4-pound “Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California,” and is careful to say that many of the superb beasts above what’s now San Francisco were not exactly dinosaurs per se. Dinosaurs, he explains, are terrestrial — land dwelling. So a Mesozoic creature swimming through the modern-day bay’s waters or flying overhead wouldn’t qualify. There are also taxonomic distinctions to do with skulls and hip structure. Still, Hilton says, all kinds of gnarly reptiles that weren’t dinosaurs swam along the coast, like one that resembled a dolphin — if dolphins were terrifying reptiles. Known as ichthyosaurus, the name literally means fish lizard. Another toothy carnivore upwards of 30 feet long was mosasaurus. “If you saw the latest Jurassic Park movie, one of these comes out of the water and scares the heck out of you, doesn’t it?” Hilton remarks. Indeed. Mosasaur fossils have been found just a few miles from Sierra College. Among the favorites of Kolten, our young question asker, is another sometimes found in California called plesiosaurus. “And everybody says, well, what’s that? And I always refer them to the Loch Ness monster,” Hilton jokes. Plesiosaurs had four flippers, long necks and sharp teeth. Their fossils sometimes turn up with rocks inside the rib cage. Hilton believes they swallowed the rocks to attain neutral buoyancy. “You don’t wanna sink to the bottom, you don’t wanna float to the top, so if you can swallow just enough rocks and keep them in your body, then you’re neutrally buoyant and you just glide through the ocean,” he says. There were also pterosaurs, the flying family of the iconic pterodactyl and its cousin, the pteranodon. “The largest ones may have had a wingspan of around 40 feet, so we’re talking of a flying reptile here the size of a jet fighter,” Hilton smiles, “which is pretty cool.” (Fact check: accurate.) While the bay’s jumbled, messy geology makes it difficult to find definitive fossil evidence, Hilton is convinced they were around. “It’s like today. You go along the coastline and you’re liable to see whales. And they stay usually fairly close to the coastline. But you can go out on a boat 500 miles from the shore and still see whales and still see birds, just probably not as numerous,” he says. As for actual dinosaurs in California, much of what’s found are fragments — a finger or two here, a scrap of leg there. The only California fossil suggesting a meat-eating dinosaur once lived here is on display in Hilton’s museum: a dark gray chunk of theropod leg small enough to hold in your palm. Of the few largely intact dinosaur skeletons found in the state, one belonged to a duck-billed plant eater known as Augustynolophus morrisi. State lawmakers are considering a bill this year to make it California’s state dinosaur. === What Dinosaurs Roamed the Bay Area? 1 June,2017