Author: Peter Keum

The author lives in the Northwest corner of the US and is currently employed by King County Wastewater Treatment Division as GIS Specialist. The content presented herein represents the opinion of the author and do not reflect those of the employer.

Day #2 – Narita & Tokyo

My first full day was in Japan. I traveled from Narita to Tokyo taking the local train. The train ride was about 1.5 hours long. I arrived at Tokyo Station, and its adventure was listed below. The station was incredibly large, and easy to get lost. I had to transfer but somehow I exited the terminal and had to purchase a second ticket to get back into the station at Chiba station on my way to Tokyo, oops.

Exploring Tokyo Train Station

Four River Bike Trail Trip Starts…

Day #1 – Travel from Seattle to Narita, Japan.

Arriving at Narita and a quick walk around the hotel…

Also I noticed there are so many vending machines all around and folks have told me about it before, but I’m going to try to take as many different kinds and post them as a single post. (so far winner is roasted sweet potato, serving still hot..)

Lastly…Google Translate works fairly well so far…

Book List of 2022

Books read during the year with short summary

  1. The Dawn of Everything : A New History of Humanity – David Graeber & David Wengrow
  2. The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and The Life of John Maynard Keynes – Zachary D. Carter
  3. Useful Delusions – Shankar Vedantam & Bill Mesler
  4. Making Numbers Count – Chip Heath & Karla Starr
  5. Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try – Srini Pillay, MD
  6. The Story of More – Hope Jahren
  7. The Waste – Catherine Coleman Flowers
  8. Lab Girl – Hope Jahren
  9. A Natural History of the Future – Rob Dunn
  10. A Trillion Trees – Fred Pearce

Summary Book List

  • 2022
    • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity – David Graeber & David Wengrow (non-fiction)
    • The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes – Zachary D. Carter (non-fiction)
    • Useful Delusions – Shankar Vedantam & Bill Mesler (non-fiction)
    • Making Numbers Count – Chip Heath & Karla Starr (non-fiction)
    • Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try – Srini Pillay, MD
    • The Story of More
    • The Waste – Catherine Coleman Flowers
    • Lab Girl – Hope Jahren
    • A Natural History of the Future – Rob Dunn
    • A Trillion Trees – Fred Pearce
  • 2021
    • The Breadth – James Nester (non-fiction)
    • Geography of Genius – Eric Weiner (re-read, non-fiction)
    • Permission Marketing – Seth Godin (non-fiction)
    • Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman (non-fiction)
    • Listening Woman – Tony Hillerman (fiction)
    • People of Darkness – Tony Hillerman (fiction)
    • The infidel and the professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that shaped Modern Thought – Dennis Rasmussen (non-fiction)
    • War and Peace and War – Peter Turchin (non-fiction)
    • The New Map-Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations – Daniel Yergin (non-ficition)
    • Think Again- Adam Grant (non-fiction)
    • Chatter – Ethan Kross (non-fiction)
    • Pipe Dreams – Chelsea Wald (non-fiction)
    • The Foundation – Isaac Asimov (fiction)
    • Prisoner of Geography – Time Marshall (non-fiction)
    • The Exponential Age: How accelerating technology is transforming business, politics, and society – Azeem Azhar (non-fiction)
    • Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind – Hayao Miyazaki (fiction)
  • 2020
    • Pilgrimage to eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in search of a Faith – Timothy Egan (non-fiction)
    • Life After College – Jeffrery J Selingo
    • A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel – Amor Towles (fiction)
    • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Harari (non-fiction)
    • Post Corona – Scott Galloway (non-fiction)
    • A.I. Super Powers: China/Silicon Valley – Kai-Fu Leef
  • 2019
    • Skin in the Game – Nassim Taleb (non-fiction)
    • Foundation & Chaos/Triumph series – Issac Asimov (fiction)
    • Foundation Trilogy Series and Edge – Issac Asimov (fiction)
    • Everest: The West Ridge – Thomas Hornbein (non-fiction)
    • Thanks a Thousand – AJ Jacob (non-fiction)
    • Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis- Jared Diamond
    • Rethink – Steven Poole (re-read, non-fiction)
    • The Subtle Art of Not Giving Fu$k: Mark Manson
    • Never Lost Again – Bill Kilday
    • Everything is F#cked: A book about hope – Mark Manon
    • Master and Emissary – Ian McGilchrist
    • Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World – David Epstein
    • Sapien – Yuval Hariai (non-ficition)
  • 2018
    • The Undoing Project – Michael Lewis
    • Smartcuts – Shane Snow
    • Dream Team – Shane Snow
    • The Prophets and the Wizard – Charles Mann
    • Nonsense – James Holmes (re-read, non-fiction)
    • The Fifth Risk – Michael Lewis (non-fiction)
    • Life in Code – Ellen Ullman (non-ficition)
    • Scarcity – Sendhill Mullain Athan, Eldar Shafir (non-fiction)
    • The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway (fiction)
    • Bering Sea Strong – Laura Hartema (non-fiction)
    • My Adventures with God – Stephen Tobolowsky (non-fiction)
  • 2017
    • Rethink: The Surprising History of New Ideas – Steven Poole
    • Rise of the Robot – Martin Ford
    • How to fall at almost everything and still win big – Adam Scotts
    • Think like Freak – Steven Dubanar
    • The Power of Habit : Why we do what we do in life and business – Charles Duhigg
    • But What if We’re Wrong? – Chuck Klosterman
    • The Innovators – Walter Isaacson
    • Payoff: The Hidden logic that shapes our motivation – Dan Ariely
    • There is Life After the College – Jeffrey Selingo
    • Learning from the Octopus – Rafa Sagarin
    • Life of Ignatius of Loyola – Phillip Caraman, SJ
    • Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
    • Misbehaving – Behavioral Economics – Richard Thaler
    • Why Buddhism is True – Robert Wright
  • 2016
    • Geography of Genius – Andrew Weir
    • Connectorgraphy: Mapping the future of global civilization – Parag Khana
    • John Adams – David McCullough
    • The Wright Brothers – David McCullough
    • The Great Bridge – David McCullough
    • Race Against Machine – Erk Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee
    • The Second Machine Age – Erik Brynjoflosson
    • The Men Who United the States of America – Simon Winchester
    • Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing – Jamie Holmes
    • The Silo Effect – Gillian Teff
    • Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently – Dawna Markova
    • How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that made the Modern World – Steven Johnson
    • Thanks for Being Late – Thomas Friedman
    • Short History of Progress – Ronald Wright
    • Rejection Proof – Jin Jiang
    • Choose Yourself – James Altucher

NACIS 2022: Oct 19 – 22, 2022

North American Cartographic Information Society Meeting was held in Minneapolis, MN. It started with one Practical Cartography Day (PCD), where presenters shared tips and tricks to build better and more helpful cartographic products.

Day 1: Practical Cartography Day (PCD)

#1 Making Maps Accessible (Amy Ellison, State of Minnesota)

  • Map Design can help with color vision and low-vision users
  • Ask questions to tell a good story, and don’t get lost in the weed
  • Basemap – contrast is imperative and if possible, don’t use color to only convey information.
  • For Imagery, use transparency & mute overuse of basemap
  • Patterns and lines – very difficult for low-vision users
  • Don’t use shadow text 
  • Use the tool to put a filer for vision-impaired users to simulate: https://colororacle.org/
  • Color contrast tool checker: https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/

#2 Bringing the Joy Back to Mapmaking: Sam Hashemi. Felt

  • Web-based map-making tools for everyone: https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/
  • Easy to use and easy to share/create and collaborate (google doc for map)
  • A lot of engineers and developers from Mapzen, Snap, Carto, and Mapbox teams
  • Smart and easy-to-use tools with lots of potential uses to give tools for subject matter experts

#3 Doing Things in R that’s I normally do in Illustrator and Photoshop: Katie Perry (The Washington Post): Katie sharing how to leverage R to do her graphic work for the AP story.

#4 Elevate Your Holo Game: Lauren Tierney, The Washington Post: 

  • Lauren uses the Masking technique for large batches and small batch
    • Large batch – Largest and fastest method: Add white stroke -> Add blur transparency 60%
    • Small batch – Add color stroke (pick the most common color in basemap) ->Add blur

#5 Making Better Bike Maps

  • Make it simple, helpful, clean, and readable without too much information. (cycling centric)

#6 Creating GeoJSON from Images: Casy Miller, Locana

#7 How to Recreate an Old Map Style: Venessa Knoppke-Wetzel, GreenInfo Network. 

#8 Visualizing Floodplain: Dan Coe, Washington Geological Survey (DNR)

#9 Design Web Map Layouts with ArcGIS Experience Builder: Heather Smith, Esri

  • The analogy between Map View -> into Layout is Similar to Web Map -> Web App (layout)
  • Think of Web App as Print Layout (Ability to give layout features around Web Map display, widgets, for example). 
  • Use Experience Builder as a Layout tool for Web App: More customization and modifications.  

#10 Centers of Population: Simple Way to Place Symbols Where the People Are – Jonathan Schroeder, Univ of Minnesota.

  • Census tracts are optimally placed, so you can use them or Block Group
  • Bivariate Proportion Symbol – Counties with population, % of Pop Age Under 18, for example, use the Size of the circle as population and color as Age group. 
  • Graduate color + Size by proportionally (a good way to show). 

#11 Your Next mapping platform: Use and contribute to Open Source Cartography: Dylan Halpern, Univ of Chicago. 

  • This is a platform tool that has frontend and backend open-source tools for managing, analyzing, and communicating geospatial data
  • Introduction to Matico.app https://www.matico.app/

Documentation of this app: https://www.matico.app/docs