Bruce Rapson McLennan - Dead at 42.
Bruce was one of the good guys. He liked maps and music and coffee and cigarettes and whiskey and technology and Central Otago and photography and the Internet. Bruce liked many other things but I missed the chance to find out.
He died over the weekend.
I am shocked.
I miss him but I’ve missed him for a while. He used to work down the corridor where we would shoot the breeze about the Brian Jonestown Massacre (he introduced me to this band and I’ll be forever grateful), iPods, great British menus, Subarus, glassy icons, type, digital photography, buildings and bush (me) versus barren-rock-strewn landscapes (him) … pretty much anything, anytime.
His dry, mischevious humour was precise and witty but you had to be quick else you missed these softly delivered remarks. The moderation of the tone barely concealed the stength of the bite they often comprised. Funny.
He was dedicated to morning tea which was good because he liked espresso alot. We talked about the qualities of good espresso many times; strength and purity is key! A short-walk and a cigarette around the School of Business always followed.
He moved out of here a few months ago to a new job. He liked maps and technology so a GIS career was a perfect fit. A cruel irony then this turn of events. We planned to keep in touch despite the physical separation but our conversations tailed off (despite our mutual use of multiplex communication). Sadly.
I saw him for the last time about two weeks ago. He seemed relaxed and happy; clearly the new job was working out as were opportunities to take more photographs of the Central Otago landscape (he had a healthy obsession with the shist and hills).
He even made a cameo on this Website; the only person that has so far. It was his idea. But this is what he did - came up with an interesting idea then with dogged determination worked on it until the result was good and with that perfectionist eye for detail, it nearly always was.
In addition to these thoughts and others, remnants of Bruce’s life will remain through the places and traces he cultivated on the Internet.
These are some:
http://mercatornz.spaces.live.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercator_nz/
http://www.bikely.com/listpaths/by/mercatornz
http://www.last.fm/user/mercatornz/
http://ma.gnolia.com/people/mercatornz
So long buddy.
Neogeography: Say what now?
This is a guest post from a friend of mine - Bruce McLennan about neography (or social mapping). He is a geographic data specialist currently working for AgResearch where he thinks about maps, locations, topography, space and other stuff I don’t understand. He also takes photographs of the New Zealand landscape that are quite beautiful (see below) and is a heavy user of social networking sites that support photo sharing.
So take it away Bruce:
Came across a cool new word today: neogeography, which apart from sounding like something out of The Matrix is a term coined to describe the phenomenon of social mapping, or map mash-ups. But neogeography sounds more respectable, apparently. Although I suspect is only crusty old geographers and cartographers that feel this need.
It’s basically people mapping their personal experiences on top of online mapping apps like Google Maps, Google Earth, Yahoo! Local maps (used by flicker, but a very poor cousin to Google in terms of map content), MS Live Search Maps, NASA’s World Wind, etc etc etc.
For example, I use Bike Radar to draw my favourite mountain bike rides on top of a google maps interface. Once I’ve done that, others can search for and find the trails I’ve sketched, read the route descriptions – whether it’s a 2km cruise to the shops your granny could do, or a hard bastards 100k killer over the rock & pillar range. Actually it’s only 46km, but it feels like a hundred. And you get an elevation profile graph. It shows the up and down hill sections of the ride and you can work out gradients – if you’re a masochist. It also total elevation gained and descended over the length of the ride (I’ve got to peddle up how many vertical kilometres???). But I digress.
Supposedly Platial.com was the first site to coin the term neogeography, although it’s still mostly only used on that site. Basically it boils down to map blogging; that is, kind souls are using these sites to point you in the direction of wee gems that are worth looking up in your travels that you won’t find in any tourist brochure. There is also Tagzania whose raison d’etre is to ‘tag the planet’. National Geographic Magazine picked up on it and wrote an article – want to know where to get the best fried cheese sticks on Route 66? Er, no thanks but you can bet some neogeographer has “push-pinned” it just in case you ever do. Thanks.
But I was glad to discover that the best ham sandwiches to be found in NZ are to be had at the Mt John observatory café, on a hill top (that’ll be Mt John) near Tekapo. Well, I was sort of glad – four types of specially baked bread, a choice of four kinds of mustard and thick slabs of ham-off-the-bone does sound good; will check them out next time I’m passing by. The views are supposed to be outstanding, too. Hang on, I’ll take a look; yep, they sure are. Look for yourself.
I didn’t find that in a neogeography blog. It was in an in-flight magazine (one for the print media). Perhaps I should blog it – there, done! Guess that officially makes me a neogeographer. Whee.
