Digial Portfolio – final post?
W J 14:
Schuurman ch. 1,
GIS application of interest
W J 20
Conceptual Frameworks for Spatial Analysis
M J 26
Mitchell Chp1
M F 9
What I Presented on:Mapping Density – Mitchell Chp4
M F 16
Pictograms
ArcGIS Tutorial
Possible Project Idea: OWU & Delaware Local & Global Impact
Disorientation OWU – some links
Proposal for Global/Local OWU Map
Final Project Contributions
Shop Delaware
A Brief History of Shopping In America
Starting in the 1950s, large trade centers or what we today call shopping malls were constructed across America and gradually caused the demise of downtown retail stores in communities. In the 1960s, a new type of retail outlet emerged – the discount department store. In 1962 alone, K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target all opened up for busines. Such companies would erect large buildings for their stores generally on the outskirts of towns where land was cheap. Wal-Mart started operations in small towns in the American South and methodically spread across the country. Their proliferation plan was to only open new stores within a day’s drive of one of their pre-existing distribution centers. In this manner, it took WalMart 30 years to become a nation-wide retailer.
According to a 10-year study of 34 communities in Iowa that had WalMarts vs 15 that did not: “The general merchandise stores in the non Wal-Mart towns began declining immediately after the Wal-Mart stores opened. Their sales declined by two percent after the first year and continued declining to a cumulative 34 percent after 10 years.”
This same study also came up with several tips on how small businesses can stay competitive with retail giants like WalMart:
Small businesses should:
Extend hours
Try to handle different/complementary merchandise
Look for voids in the mass merchandiser’s inventory
Consider upscale merchandise
Improve business skills/Relentlessly find ways to reduce operating costs.
Adopt “no hassle returns policies,” on-site installation and service, etc
Greet customers
Train employees more, call them “associates”
Adopt modern technology
Stone, Kenneth E. (1997). “Impact of the Wal-Mart Phenomenon on Rural Communities”. (Published in Proceedings: Increased Understanding of Public Problems and Policies – 1997. Chicago, Illinois: Farm Foundation). Iowa State University. Retrieved on August 4, 2006.
Walmarts of Central Ohio http://tinyurl.com/ceb7p6
Coffee – what’s in that cup?
Originally from Ethiopia, coffee was supposedly discovered by goat herder named Kaldi who watched his animals eat the tree’s berries and act unusually frisky soon afterwards. Word of the energy-inducing berries spread quickly and by the time of Mohammad, people in East Africa were drying the seeds of coffee berries and using them as a trade commodity with people on the Arabian Peninsula. The Turks brought started trading coffee to Europeans have discovering the commodity when they invaded Yemen in 1536. Within two hundred years, coffee spread to everyone locale that had the necessary environmental conditions (rich soils, 1800-6300 ft elevation, 31-90 inches of rainfall/year, and average mean temperature of 70F). After their independence, the developing states in these regions needed the income coffee could generate. This resulted in the implementation of drastic political and economical policies starting in the mid-19th century that led to a tremendous boom in coffee production, but also increased social inequality and dependence on the consumption of coffee by Europe and North America.
Today, coffee is the largest legally traded agricultural commodity in the world and grown throughout the majority of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia (Vietnam recently became the #2 coffee producing country in the world). Coffee is grown on farms great and small, from polycropping (growing multiple crops on the same plot) to latifundia (huge plantations setup to purely produce quantity over quality – especially true in Brazil). While large coffee farms are generally more productive, shade-grown coffee – coffee grown under some sort of canopy – is often touted as better tasting and better for the environment, as it is a self-mulching environment and a good habitat for insects and migrating birds. While this is the case, don’t be taken away with environmental bit – shade-coffee compares poorly to natural ecosystems.
Coffee Arabica – From Ethiopia, grown at higher elevations, accounts for 70% of global coffee production, most gourmet coffees are this type, has more body and is less acidic than other types, thus it is often mixed with lesser quality coffees.
Coffee Robusta – Overall, it is more tolerant and easier to grow (lower altitudes and higher temperatures), therefore it is cheaper. Also contains more caffeine, but has a generally undesirable taste – therefore, it is used a filler, instant coffee, or in espresso (adds the foamy “head”)
iPODS
Apple’s iPods first started putting “1,000 song in your pocket” on October 23 of 2001. The original iPod was met with some skepticism – after all, what could Mac’s MP3 player do for $400 that others couldn’t? Well, multiple generations and over 173 million units sold later, we have our answer. The iPod has come to completely revolutionize the way we listen to music. A entire ecosystem has sprung up around the iPod – protective covers, car chargers, arm-bands, music management software, podcasts, – the list could go on forever. The latest and greatest iPods – the iPod Touch – could surf the web, show you your location on a map, and allow you to peruse through your music or video collection as if it were a rolodex in your hand! But where does these wonder machines come from?
iPods are manufactured on contract to Inventec Appliances based in Taipai, Taiwan. Interestingly, iPods then somehow circumnavigate major international political divisions and are physically assembled by Inventec (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. in Shanghai, China. According to a 2006 report in the British newspaper Mail on Sunday, iPod assembly line workers are paid only $50 a week and work 15 hour days! Of course, Apple denies these claims and has since launched an internal investigation. But low labor costs and high manufacturing standards are the reasons iPods are made in Asian. That combination make them very attractive (read: affordable) products to consumers in US and Europe. Would you pay twice as much of an iPod made in the U.S. of A.?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/969790/Why-iPods-Are-Made-in-China
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14915
BANANAS
A banana is a simple treat that every American knows, because we all like bananas – they’re tasty, nutritious, and always affordable. And that’s the end of the story, besides, how much of a story could be behind the bananas…
Bananas were first domesticated thousands of years ago in Papua New Guinea and today they only exist because of human intervention. Bananas cannot reproduced on their own, they require humans to making cutting. Bananas spread from New Guinea throughout Asia and made it to Africa by the time of Muhammad. Bananas were brought to the Americas by Portuguese sailors shortly after the discovery of the New World.
Bananas did not enter popular culture until late in the 19th century, when the United Fruit Company began a concerted effort to make bananas a popular food in the Global North (North America and Western Europe). United Fruit was able to gain immense power in small Central American countries by building infrastructure (namely railroads) in exchange for huge parcels of uninhabited land. Some of this land was converted into sprawling banana plantations, but most of it was held in reserve. Banana plantations were harsh places to work, often managed by the children of former slave owners from the American South. The epitome of United Fruit’s power was the the 1954, coup in Guatemala. Prior to that, the government of Guatemala tried to nationalize millions of acres of unused United Fruit-owned land. United Fruit was enraged by this and went to the U.S. government for help, but U.S. had no legal right to intervene in Central America. So United Fruit created a media agency and started spreading rumors in United States that Guatemala’s government was actually communist. This Red Scare did the job and the CIA assisted the United Fruit friendly forces in taking power in Guatemala.
Today, bananas are one of the most widely consumed foods in the world, although most bananas consumed are the variety that needed to be cooked first, what Americans would call a plantain. “Sweet” bananas, the variety we are all familiar with, are still grown predominantly in Central America on sprawling plantations. The United Fruit Company has been re-organized and renamed – for both legal and reputation reasons. It is now the Chiquita Brands International and still provides us all with bananas.
Delaware County Data Review
Delaware Address Points: A map of all the addresses in Delaware county, includes data (Street #, Town, Zip code, etc) for each.
Annexations: All the annexations made by the townships of Delaware Co since the establishment of the county.
Archeological Sites: All the archeological sites are points, but dont contain any data, at least when the Identify tool is used.
Bench Marks: Not quite sure what this layer is, but it is called GPS and is pairs of data points evenly distributed around the county. Apparently it was part of the aerial photography/orthophotos.
Building Outlines: Pretty obvious, but not very helpful without streets or property parcels – couldnt find OWU right away.
Census Block: Not exactly sure, but puts the other layers in perspective. Seems to be a rough outline of the roads and blocks.
Census Block Group: Divides the county up into tracts, by population density if I had to guess.
Census Tract: County is divided up into fewer tracts than the previous data set, again, apparently by population density (Delaware township area has several small tracts).
Farmlots: Entire county is divided into a rough grid, probably originally by the government for homesteaders.
Floodplain 100yr: One hundred year floodplain – Smith Hall and the psychology building would be underwater if we have one!
Floodplain 500yr: Not much different than 100yr Floodplain in terms of damage to OWU, but anywhere near the river would obviously be pretty screwed.
Floodways: Rough outline of the Delaware Run and Olentangy River plus the other waterways in the county.
Historical Local: Points for all the “historic buildings” in the county based on some local standard – Downtown Delaware has quite a few, OWU not so much, just the stadium. No info when using the Identify Tool.
Historical National: Same as above, but by some National Standard – far fewer data points overall, but OWU has more!
Hydro: Major waterways are outlined (or colored-in really), not the Delaware Run however.
Hydro Detail: Two layers, same as above more-or-less. Delaware Run is one of the layers, so now it is colored-in too!
Landmarks: Several layers, each adds-in data points for some type of landmark, such as: post offices, fire stations, public parks, golf courses, cementaries, etc.
Municipalities: This layer colors in the townships of Delaware Co.
Natural_Heritage_ODNR: No clue what this layer is. Just some random data points along the river and outside of the towns as far as I can tell. Identify Tool is useless once again. No metadata to be found on DALIS.
Orthophoto 2008: Hi Res aerial photo of the county. Very slow.
Orthophoto Detailed 2008: Even higher res and slower version of the previous data set. Split into North and South files because it’s so big, Delaware is in the North half.
Parcels: Finally, property parcels! Not by owner though. Kinda strange, even OWU’s continuous campus is divided into various different parcels.
Precincts: Several layers. City wards divide the townships up into parcels, but areas of the county are not included. Voting precincts divided up the whole county. Polls are data points.
Public Land Survey System: Divides the entire county into a neat grid, although the Western edge of the county is a sloppy grid.
Railroad: Shows the rail lines that traverse the county.
Road Center Line: Puts colored lines where the center of roads are, helps deliniate between parcels and roadways.
Road RightofWay: Not quite sure, just seems to put a red border on all the streets apparently delineating their right of way?
School Districts: Divides the county into school districts, which there are surprisingly few of. The ones near towns are smaller.
Soils: One of the crazier layers, this one divides the entire county into hundreds of amorphous blobs that are apparently each a certain type of soil.
Subdivisions: Not what I expected, this layer joins large tracts of residential? property parcels together, but leaves some parcels (I guess, the oldest parcels?) unincorporated. Metadata was lacking.
TaxDist: Divides the county into parcels based on something Im not exactly sure of (tax Districts – which are??). Most of Delaware Township is one parcel, but there are random little seperate parcels – industrial areas?
Topography: Many layers, one for each township I believe. Obviously adds in the topography, in two foot increments I believe.
Townships: This layer is a map of the county split into townships. It is very similar if not the same as the TaxDist layer.
Townships Historical: Divides the county into 18 townships, fairly grid-like, lacks annexations, but combined with the annexations layer and I think one would get the modern Townships.
Watersheds: Divides the county into dozens of small, irregular parcels each of which is apparently a drainage basin of some sort.
Wetlands: This is two layers, they show maybe over a hundred tiny wetland areas in the county. Largest concentration appears to be up near Delaware Park or whatever is by the Delaware Reservoir.
Woodland ODNR: A layer of irregular parcels apparently representing wooded areas. More in the northeast region of the county.
Zip Codes: Divides the county into maybe a dozen zip codes, the largest of which is the greater Delaware Township area.
Zoning: Two layers. Zoning200 is a bit mysterious, just a large rectangle around Delaware Township and a rough outline of the streets and buildings within it. HistoricDist highlights the downtown area of Delaware Township and nothing else in the county (take that Powell!).
Tutorial Notes 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, & 20 = the end!
Chp15: First exercise had me draw some simple lines between features – piece of cake, although I moved the Editor Toolbar and was unable to move it back, which was annoying, but trivial. Exercise B was pretty much the same deal, although I had trouble with the Parallel feature of the sketch tool. It created a line that was in no way parallel to the property line – ? This wouldnt work for the exercise, so I skipped the whole parallel part and just eyed out what parallel shouldve looked like. The second part of B was very straight forward, just entering the tutorial’s data to create a new property parcel.
Chp16: Exercise A, parcels eliminated as instructed. Exercise B, parcels subdivided while others were merged. No problems. The final exercise had me rename a parcel 4001 and then add acrage to the parcel attributes table.
Chp17: Ran into trouble – couldnt locate the Address Locator (ironic). Turns out someone had to have created an Address Locator on the computer prior. It was found in the File -> New. Various problems arose throughout 17B. Importing the Atlanta Customers address locator required me to re-do 17A. Adding an address as “Add as Graphics to Map” was not an option, instead added it as a Point. This exercise was generally unclear. 17C has some problems as well. While trying to Match Interactively, some address in the tutorial did not show up. I worked around this and ended up with the same results. At the very end, I realized that I had not had Editing on, I bet this caused some if not all of my problems.
Chp18: Exercise 18a was extremely routine. Opened up a map of Asia, fooled around a bit with how it looks, and the exercise was over. However, 18B was riddled with problems. I added in data as instructed, but couldnt rename the layer after I had created it? Also, the tutorial shows points on the map, but no points showed up when I followed their steps? The next few steps concerned changing the symbols of the points, but not having any points made these steps impossible (I was jealous of the tutorial’s little hurricane symbols though). Eventually figured out that I was trying to rename the wrong layer, so that was my fault. But never did resolve the lack of points showing up. 18C was problem free. I connected the little hurricane symbols with a lovely curved line of the same color and then retitled the map like a true GIS pro.
Chp19: Was very amused by the power of GIS that was displayed in exercise 19a. Three different maps, but I was able to quickly make the two maps of India the same size and then adjust them so that they show the same view of India – very cool. Exercise B was more like a Word exercise, it had me make a background for a title… which couldve just been done by double clicking the title and choosing a background color instead of making a rectangle and putting it farther back as a layer. Exercise C has me put in map keys – exciting stuff. Exercise D was just some fine tuning, adding in a lovely tiger picture = boring.
Chp20: 20A had me create my very own tool – woohoo – easily completed, not quite sure what the purpose was. In exercise B, Im pretty sure the model I made was completely screwed up because some of the steps in the tutorial were different that what I was able to do and I improvised instead. Exercise C was very difficult. My model was completely whack. Will attempt exercise again.
Yet more tutorial notes (12, 13, 14)
Chp12: Exercise A presented no major problems in complete, although I do not understand what I did during this exercise. The same is true for Exercise B. I easily completed the exercise, but do not understand the finer concepts – but generally, I get that I used ArcGIS to combine layers (or features?) to create some new data. Exercise C had some discrepancy between ArcGIS and the tutorial. In the attributes table, when you right-click an attribute, no “Calculate Values” option exists – but Field Calculator does and is mentioned in the next step, so I opened that instead. Again with C, I followed the directions but ended up with a graph of “Frequency Distribution” which had no meaning for me.
Chp13: Exercise A was easy and mildly entertaining because I totally understood what I was doing. Same goes for B, it was easy, I understood what I was doing to the map, and the results were as the tutorial predicted.
Chp14: Nothing to say about 14A, other than completed without problems. 14B ran into trouble right away when the tutorial and ArcGIS didnt match up once again. This time with CityData -> New -> Feature Class. The tutorial said keep on clicking next, but ArcGIS wanted me to pick a coordinate system – which, I have learned, is somewhat important. Not knowning what to do, I chose “unknown” for the coordinate system, but this led to further problems. The next step was to switch SHAPE from polygon to line, but no drop down menu appeared when tutorial said it would. This was a critical step. I went back and fooled around with various drop down menus that I had passed, but none allowed me to change the shape later on. UNABLE TO COMPLETE EXERCISE 14b. So I moved ahead to 14C, followed the steps, but this exercise ends abruptly and I am not sure what the purpose of it was.
Tutorial Notes
Chp9: Exercise A was standard fare, mapping ecological sites in the state of Louisiana. Felt that the sites should have been labeled, but the tutorial didnt mention that. Exercise B, consisting of looking at the data tables of various Metals, was a hoot.
Chp10: 10A was interesting in that it had me create a map of features within walking distance of other features. 10B was a fairly entertaining exercise. I learned the term “centroid” exists after first thinking a programmer somewhere out there was trying to get a laugh out of me. Using the “neighborhood” feature was also notable – “How do they define a neighborhood?” I wondered. Furthermore, the final few steps of this exercise were as close to jawdropping as ArcGIS has gotten thus far. Zooming in on the commercial area and THEN turning on the “buildings” feature and Viola – a shopping mall.
Chp11: Exercise A was very unremarkable, just reducing the hundreds of parcels to several large parcels. Exercise 10B was complicated because the OWU version of ArcGIS is a new version that the one that was used in the tutorial. The steps for creating a graph were completely different, which created some small problems but nothing major. More version-differences were noticed in exercise C. Arctoolbox -> Extract had many more tools than just Clip. Ran into more version problems in the final exercise. At one point, the tutorial read “the drop down list is also correctly set” when in fact it was set to nothing in ArcGIS – leaving me high and dry. Looking at the tutorial closely, I recognized the file it wanted me to import – however, after much browsing around, I could not find ANY layer files within the Chp11 folder… I was unable to make the features be little Eagle symbols:(
More Tutorial Notes
Chp7: First exercise was very easy, although something was up with the Draw toolbar and I could not locate the add text button. After about 5 seconds of poking around, I found a different add text feature in the Insert drop-down menu. The next exercise was standard fair, although did not like what the book recommended for Placement Properties, it seemed just as cluttered as what it was changed from. During the final exercise I found the missing Draw toolbar, it was at the bottom of the window – whoops.
Cp8: Nothing really note-worthy in the first exercise. I enjoyed the second exercise which covered the use of “Select by Attributes.” This reminded me of entering programs into a TI-83 back in high school. It was also visually pleasing to watch a search get narrowed down on the screen. Learning how to create reports was the subject of the final exercise. After starting the report, I got the feeling that the rest of what this exercise went over could be figured out by any computer literate person.
Tutorial Notes
Chp3: I was entertained by my first experience with ArcGIS. The ability to quickly rearrange layers was cool. Although I knew GIS can contain tons of info, I was still impressed by the ability to bring up lots of info about a city with just a click of the mouse. The Statistics feature was also impressive, at least compared to the difficulty of making similar graphs in Microsoft Word.
Chp4: Ran into trouble while learning how to use the Search function (exercise 4c), which seemed like a potent tool (it was afterall, going to show me where Earhart went down). My “earhart” search results had no value, nothing was showing up. Carefully repeated tutorial’s steps twice, turned out I hadnt checked “Find data overlapping location.”
I was very pleased with myself and enjoyed making the “Area of Disappearance” sub-map below the map of Earhart’s final journey, although it would be hard to do again from memory.
Chp5: First exercise was a breeze, probably could have figured everything out without the tutorial, with the possible exception of choosing the background color. Second exercise was also completely with no problems. Third exercise also presented no challenge, although the colors of the animal symbols did seem watered down compared to the book. In the last exercise, it was fun to mess with the transparency of layers.
Chp6: Exercise 1 was easy to follow, but would be hard to do on my own. I did finally get to choose my density groupings – right out of the Mitchell readings! The second exercise presented no problems. Same goes for the next exercise where I made a dot density map of Africa, no problems. Was impressed by the final exercise in which I made pie charts for each country in Africa’s Fossil/hydro/other, although I disagree with the tutorials decision to make them 2d instead of 3d.
Getting to Know ArcGIS
This intro chapter gives a very brief rundown of GIS, pretty much a rehashing of what we already have read a lot about. This book is very easy to read. It also gives a great explaination of how combining multiple layers can create new features.
