See you later alligators!

Farewell Fall Semester 2010, you shant be missed.
Have a merry Christmas and what not, see some of you in the spring or never again whateve.
In hindsight I'm not really getting to where I want to be with this GIS stuff yet and am really getting close ot jumping the shark on the whole thing...I dunno. The end of this semester was not fun, I think it should have been but I didn't enjoy it.
Maybe I'm just an ass.

FF2

My second atlas map was based on the obesity rate in PA. I wanted to do an arc scene map with 3-D men who bloated in proportion with obesity rate in their given county, unfourtunantly there were several graphic and sizing issues that made doing this a
lmost impossible, so after wasting 8-10 hours I finally scrapped the idea.
The one thing that has pissed me off about doing these maps and the one for my advanced final is all the work put into procurring information and manipulating data, left so tired of dealing with the given project I honestly don't fell all that proud of my end maps. Looking at them I can't imagine what I would do differently but it's not like I can stand looking at them anymore anyway.
In hindsight I should have done something I had a more personal interest in or something that wasn't so dependent on gathering such a wide array of data.
Not kiss her butt anymore, but Kristi's idea is perfect. It's totally something I could see in an Atlas, it meant something to her, and yeah she had to digitize but I can't imagine it was a mind-numbing as all the data management I had to do.
If the project weren't limited to PA I might have had more ideas...but I dunno. I just wish I had it to do over again maybe I wouldn't be so burnt and bitter. Anyway here's my other map enjoy.....

Final Fantasy 1

Well if you're reading this you haven't quite on this blog project yet...good for you. As soon as this semester end I am deleting this content and starting the Blog over as something more personal...maybe. So check back and follow it could be interesting.
I'd like to share my first Atlas page here. I did this one on the weather of PA. For this and both atlas pages really, I poured a LOT (I MEAN A LOT!) research hours in looking for data, analyzing data, looking for better data. I got trapped on the AWFUL government sites that just take you in a circle and never let you actually download anything.
I finally found a program from USC called the SHELDUS program, it stands for something but I don't remember what. It had dates of weather events, county affect, number of injuries, number of deaths, and what kind of weather event is recorded. Totally awesome site if you want to do something like I did here in the future. You can pick your data and get it downloaded into an xls file. I took the xls and simply combined data for counties and copy pasted into my personal geodatabase mdb file. Bing bam boom.
Lo and behold my map.

it is, of course, very much a Justin Bradley project but I got a tickle out of reading what I had written.

I'm a rocket man.

I think this is one of the coolest clips I've ever seen.
It's a map that animates every flight path on the globe in a 24 hour period.

If I knew this in the 80's.....

I came across this Rumsey map and never knew just how close Russia was to Alaska. I knew that we were only separated by the Bering strait but I had no clue that was only like a mile.

Having grown up in the 80's and hearing about nuclear war from birth until Reagan saved us from the Red Menace in '89; I would have feared for the safety of Alaska's safety 24/7.

Tulsa is a strange place when the sun goes down.

Not sure if this is really all that map related but I thought it was kind of funny.
I was messing around on Google Earth the other day in the street viewer and noticed something I found humorous.

It's a little odd when you see someone you know having a yard sale...trapped in time forever.

I have always tried to find my car in all of the web-map photos, because I am always curious as to where I was when the pictures were taken...to this day I have not found myself. If anyone is actually reading this damn thing can you relate?

Almost....

Well this is winding down and I couldn't be happier. Just a little further to go and I can breathe again.
Anyway I wanted to share my project from advanced class on here so everyone knows what they can look forward to.

I did a bunch of research in regards to wind potential and how to optimize it in regards to small wind turbines that the average homeowner may install. I did a comparison of Dauphin and York Counties. There are more suitable sites in York Co despite having less wind potential than Dauphin. PA in general isn't very conducive to harnessing wind energy anyway but there is some applications for it.

 I did a little more of an in depth study of Dauphin Co. I took all the criteria for good wind mill sites and cross-referenced that with the individual municipalities building ordinances. I got a really good response from the municipalites with half of them actually calling me back. Most people were really helpful. I found that some townships allow and even promote wind mills but don't require any ordinances.
Show up to the classroom on Tues. the 14th And I'll go through the whole riga-ma-roo for you.
I am aware that these maps have some errors they were from an earlier draft of my maps.

Are we there yet?

I've kinda slacked on these blogs but to be honest I am simply burnt out. Finishing these last two atlas pages is going to be a struggle. I do have the data I need all squared away but the formatting and layout need to be done.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I really don't feel in my heart that this is what I want to do with my life. It's so mundane and the minimal amount of creative license I can with making a map provides little solace as I could never see myself actually making maps for a living, in fact I think I would kill myself if it came down to that.

I dunno I'm in a great spot to rape pillage and plunder until I can shift gears, hell I'm only thirty and fairly confident I am far more clever than most so I think this is doable.

The Wreck of The Edmond Fitzgerald

35 Years ago TODAY the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

In spite of it's course being estimated and the storm tracked across it's path many mysteries remain about the wreck. The ship was torn in half and no remains of the crew were ever found.
The only thing we know for sure is that one year later Gordon Lightfoot hit the charts with this musical eulogy.


See there is a map and I referenced charts....It's GIS related!

Left Behind

Wow! I have really slacked off on this. I can't wait for this semester to be over. I am so close to finishing my Advanced Final and just need to spruce up my Cartography final. My advice to anyone is to not double dip these two particular courses. It has been a TON of work. Feel really crappy about the last two maps I turned in so hopefully my finals make up for it.
Just want to sleep.........

Cancer of unemployment

http://www.latoyaegwuekwe.com/geographyofarecession.html
Shocking.
I love all this Obama change. Stimulus packages rule!!!!

Stupid Flanders

 http://adn.blam.be/springfield/

Link to an interactive map of Springfield. I thought it was very clever.

Big Kahuna Burger? That the HA-WHY-AN Burger Joint??

I think I would hang this on my wall. It's a wild map and the colors make me happy.

Living La Vida Loca

In putting together my Pub Crawl Map I realized that I just so happen to pick the Gay District of Harrisburg. So what was going to be a bad-ass rock-a-billy map turned into the gayest thing I have ever produce. Comments welcome, and yes the north arrow is a buttplug.

The ground is sour

http://www.satellite-sightseer.com/id/14122/United_States/Wisconsin/Milwaukee/Jeffrey_Dahmer_Residence
Be gay, kill a few people, eat them...and they tear ur house down.

Fun fact: John Wayne Gacy's last words were "Kiss My Ass!"

I'm not gay, but my music is.

This has nothing to do with mapping, but for the last 6 months i have done nothing but listen to this band. Maybe I can turn someone on to something different.
PS I got up at 5am to download this album
PSS The singer is pretty hot, so give me that at least.
let's make this double faggy.

Ask and you shall receive...

This is the response I received from asking the cartographer...so it really works!!!

Dear Justin Bradley,
The answer to your question: Dynamic 3D Symbology? is below. It is also posted on the Mapping Center Archive at http://mappingCenter.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=ask.answers&q=1528. We hope this helps you!
Your Question: Dynamic 3D Symbology?
I'm making a map that displays the weight problem in PA and I'd like to make a little 3D Man who will inflate based upon a value, in this case Percentage of people overweight. Anyone have any clue how I would do this?
Our Answer: There are a few ways to represent your 3D Man symbol, depending on whether you'd like the end product to be a 2D map (ArcMap) or a 3D map (ArcScene or ArcGlobe).

Starting with your 3D Man symbol, you can either make one from scratch (e.g., using SketchUp) or import an existing 3D model (for example, a SketchUp or Collada file) to use as your 3D symbol.

A quick search of the SketchUp 3D Warehouse turned up a number of qualified 3D people, including a rotund fast food clown I've used in the images below (by Max Grueter). Assuming you already have point data that includes an attribute for % overweight, you can import your 3D Man into ArcMap using the Symbol Property Editor. Set your symbol Type to 3D Marker Symbol and click Import to select your 3D model file (SketchUp v6 or Collada file formats are most common).

To size the 3D symbol in ArcMap, use the Advanced drop-down menu on the Symbology tab of the Layer Properties, and specify your % overweight field. Depending on your reference scale, you may need to add a factor in to increase or decrease the size of the symbol using the expression builder (the calculator symbol), such as "[Overweight_pct]*10". Here is an example using Pennsylvania county centroids and fabricated obesity data:



For a 3D map in ArcGlobe, the above approach still applies. One additional step you have to take is to check the Scale 3D symbols with distance option in the Globe Display tab of the Layer Properties menu. You may also need to use a much larger scaling factor (perhaps even in the thousands) before the symbols are visible:



If you want all your symbols to be the same height but different "weights", you can specify the X,Y dimensions of your 3D symbol independent of the Z dimension in the Symbol Property Editor by un-checking the Keep aspect ratio option. However, if you use this approach you will need to create a set of symbol classes and adjust the X,Y dimensions incrementally for each class. I've used 5 classes in the example image below:

Seek and Destroy

Found a shp file for old faithful (and other geysers). Follow link and see image.

Never say no to me...

If it hasn't become clear yet I name all of my post on song Lyrics or movie quotes. Figure them out and you will know me...perhaps. Anyway; would it be vainglorious to attempt to map one's own personal success in fantasy football? I truly believe that everything in this universe is dictated by a series of patterns and therefore a prediction may be decoded if a tangible control point outside of gut-feeling could be determined... I think the solution lies in PI; because I saw it in a movie once...called PI.

I lost? Wait a second, I'm not supposed to lose. Let me see the SCRIPT

I hope this link works for you guys, it worked for me. I was able to take information (i.e. geocoded customer data) that was produced in Google Earth and convert the KML file to SHP. The KML needed to be loaded into google earth and re-saved, but it worked like a dream.
It was built on the Arc 9.3 engine but it worked totally fine with 10, Download the file to disk and simply follow the easy to understand PDF instructions and you can be going in less than 15 mins.

"Go get the GIMP"/"He's Slepping"/"So Go Wake Him"

Not sure if doing a custom install will help, Gimp downloaded a bunch of SHIT bloatware files on my computer. I feel like Marsellus Wallace in Zed's basement. {Do you get the Pulp Fiction References?}
I can't wait to waste the next 20 minutes of my life uninstalling them. Thanks for the heads up! :-(

Easy Places to Get Away to....

Reading the first chapter of the book was like reliving a couple of nightmares I've been involved with. At one point I had to draw a plan for a family bathroom and the PM was colored blind (and a micro-managing pain). I only mention this because I am a creature of habit and tend to use the same colors and linetypes for certain things over and over and in this case I couldn't use Yellow, Orange, or Red in the same plan. The end result was in my opinion ugly as all get out, but it got the job done.
The other thing I'd like to note is that taking a projector into account is CRUCIAL! I attend the 2009 PA GIS conference and was treated to a demo of a very complicate script that someone had written to digitize building footprints onto parcels...and I couldn't see it. The person putting on the demo, of course, blamed the projector and then mumbled his way through a painful 30 min presentation I got nothing out of. So test you equipment and if you're not a strong public speaker you probably shouldn't be giving a lecture.
I'll get off my soap-box now.

I think my friend said....

Well this ought to be oodles of fun. This is the bane of my existence and my reason for being here...shoot me.