Google's Geographer, Dad, and Emeritus Aviator. Views expressed here are purely my own !
Register here to attend a free workshop on Google Earth Engine at Google’s London Office on the 15th November.
Earth Engine is Google’s cloud-based platform for planetary-scale geospatial analysis that brings Google’s computational capabilities to bear on a variety of high-impact societal issues such as deforestation, drought, disaster, disease, food security, water management, climate monitoring and environmental protection.
Back in June of last year I visited the now disused Aerodrome at Filton to visit Concorde 216 G-BOAF as part of my quest to visit all the Concordes in a year. Then Alpha Foxtrot was a rather sad sight parked in a remote corner of the airfield visible only from a Car Showrooms car park…
Todays visit find conditions somewhat improved.
Alpha Foxtrot is now the centrepiece of the Aerospace Bristol visitors centre and museum which opened last week the result of a £19 million investment, in addition to a building specifically built to hold the Concorde there are three beautifully restored aircraft sheds holding other notably exhibits including some Bristol helicopters and the nose section of a Bristol Britannia.
Alpha Foxtrot looks in very good condition and is displayed using some clever 3D projectors including this one which explains how the innovative variable geometry intake made sure that Concorde’s Olympus 593 engines always received subsonic air despite travelling at Mach 2.
There is also a small display of Concorde artifacts including test pilot’s Brian Trumshaws Overalls !
Alpha Foxtrot is now up there with East Fortune’s Alpha Alpha as the best presented Concorde and Aerospace Bristol is well worth the visit.
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
So goes the well-known philosophical thought experiment, however rather than a discourse on observation and perception I’d like to hijack the experiment for an argument I have been making on and off for the last couple of years and which was well summarised in a tweet summarising my point last month..
Quote @edparsons "Info that is not linkable is not used, information that is not used is not valuable" #SDWWG #GGIM7 #LinkedData
— Denise McKenzie (@SpatialRed) August 1, 2017
Does information published on the web which is not easily linkable actually exist ?
Well of course if I chose to publish my large spatial database of whatever using a Web Feature Service or some other application server the data actually exists, but as far as users of the web does it exist if I cannot find it using web search or more importantly as far as the way the web works cannot link to it?
This issue of making the so-called Deep Web more discoverable is still challenging , efforts such as the sitemap protocol have had only limited impact.
I would argue for the geospatial community in particular we need to take a more fundamental look at how we make information accessible and linkable on the web. We need to start from the basic use case, common if you think about it but radical it would appear in the GIS world..
I need to let people link to each record in my spatial database and to share that link..
This actually requires perhaps a much more granular approach to making spatial data available, something that nearly got started with OS Mastermap but which for many issues was never fully implemented.
Rather than publishing online a database of railway station locations in the Netherlands and expecting a user to then query the database for “Amsterdam Centraal Station”, publish the database giving each record a URI so for example Amsterdam Centraal Station becomes;
https://brt.basisregistraties.overheid.nl/top10nl/id/gebouw/102625209
Now this is something I can paste into an email, tweet or even share on Facebook !
Kudos to the Dutch Kadaster for taking this approach and providing this example, Ordnance Survey you could do the same ?
This approach also results in such data becoming part of the “mainstream” web indexable and searchable, but I argue the key benefit is the “linkability”
The Spatial Data on the Web best practice document, something of course I recommend you taking a longer look at provides many excellent practical pointers to taking this type of approach.
Maybe really this is just an issue of semantics rather than publishing spatial data should we be talking about sharing spatial data ?
You might notice a redesign of my site today, nothing major really a little less clutter hopefully, but the reason for the change is really behind the scenes. This site is now using the encrypted version of the web protocol https. Once only a requirement for sites taking payments and banking increasingly all types of websites are now making use of encryption and in the near future the chrome browser will label sites not using https as “Not Secure”.
Personally I think this might be overkill for a site such as this, but I can easily imagine people becoming concerned with such warnings.
A sign of the times…
If you are interested in finding out how data can make a real change to peoples lives in Kenya, come along and find out about Gather a startup I have been helping over the last few months…
Gather is holding its first public launch on Tuesday 20th June at 7.00pm at the Urban Innovation Centre in London.
The evening will be a great opportunity to learn more about Gather and meet our wider team as we launch our demo platform.
Doors will open from 6.30pm and refreshments will be provided.
To RSVP, please email john@gatherhub.org. We look forward to welcoming you on 20th June.
About Gather:
Gather uses data to transform city sanitation. Gather’s platform will visualise the areas of greatest need, provide insight and track progress towards providing sanitation for everyone in cities, starting in Nairobi, Kenya. For more information, please visit www.gatherhub.org/about.