GIS Education Weekly: A Great Week for Maps in the News

Maps in the News

Barnes and Noble Map

CNBC: Barnes & Noble says political book sales have skyrocketed and it released a map that shows how polarized the sales are - "... [W]ith a few exceptions, states that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election tended to also favor the books that cast him in a friendlier light, and vice versa."

BBC: Ban on putting Shetland in a box on maps comes into force - "The final rule written into the bill requires the islands to be 'displayed in a manner that accurately and proportionately represents their geographical location in relation to the rest of Scotland' in any documents published by Scottish public authorities."

GIS Education Weekly: Foundations Fund Poverty Mapping Effort

Resources

New York Times: Detailed New National Maps Show How Neighborhoods Shape Children for Life - "On Monday the Census Bureau, in collaboration with researchers at Harvard and Brown, published nationwide data that will make it possible to pinpoint — down to the census tract, a level relevant to individual families — where children of all backgrounds have the best shot at getting ahead." The funding sources for this work include Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Overdeck Family Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Per Geekwire: "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will commit $15 million to get a new initiative called Opportunity Insights off the ground. This week, the organization, in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, published comprehensive nationwide data and maps that predict the likelihood that kids will escape poverty based on where they live. Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann announced the funding on stage at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle Tuesday. It’s the organization’s first U.S. Economic Mobility and Poverty grant."

Commercial GIS Software: Setting the Record Straight

Confusion

In recent months I've run into a number of pieces about open source GIS in magazines, on social media sites and on blogs. That's great; there should be lots written about this important part of the geospatial toolbox. So, while I'm happy to see the content, I am saddened these posts may have caused and will continue to cause some confusion about open source software.

Here are a few titles and sentences from content published on the web in 2018 that suggest that open source software is not commercial software.