Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

The title says it all really, Archaeogeek’s second birthday snuck by the other day without me even noticing. Mr Archaeogeek says this means I have to take him out for dinner. I’m sure he has it the wrong way around, but maybe he needs rewarding for putting up with me! Anyhow, happy birthday to Archaeogeek. I’m even more astounded than I was this time last year that my attention span has lasted this long, given that it has actually been a pretty tough year around these parts. Ah well, here’s to the next year- let’s hope this toddler doesn’t have too much of the “terrible-twos”!

In other news, there was a pretty low-key announcement from the British Cartographic Society about their 2008 Awards for “Excellence in [cartography]“. Props to the Openstreetmap/OpenLayers powered OpenCycleMap, and the Thames Estuary Coastal Habitat Atlas (can’t find a link to this) for triumphing in the Electronic Mapping category. However, tucked away at the bottom of the article was the following telling statement (slightly paraphrased): “(The Ordnance Survey Mastermap Award for Better Mapping was not awarded because there) was minimal or no innovative use of OS MasterMap data”. So… that’s what happens when you make the data too expensive to use… you get no innovative uses of it!

And finally, if you were worried about the affects of the switch-on in Cern earlier this week, well don’t worry. This website will help, and there’s even an rss feed for it. Phew!