Gregory's Server
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1/ This week for #geoweirdness we kick off a two part series about the Caribbean. Initially we thought a single thread would do, but with over 7,000 islands, it's just too much. Instead, we'll break things up roughly along the lines of the regionโs two main archipelagos โ the Greater and Lesser Antilles. 2/ The Greater Antilles contains Cuba ๐จ๐บ, Hispaniola ๐ญ๐น ๐ฉ๐ด (more on this later), Puerto Rico ๐ต๐ท, Jamaica ๐ฏ๐ฒ, the Cayman Islands ๐ฐ๐พ. The region has a rich cartographic history, which is captured in the the irresistible cartography project Caribmap. Hereโs an old map from 1644 showing the Greater Antilles. Flick through the archive, itโs quite something: http://www.caribmap.org/index.php?id=wies&link=1644-wi-jansson 1/ Football is back! The #Euro2024 European Championship tournament kicks off tomorrow. How else would we celebrate? - It's time for some #football #geoweirdness Letโs get started with this map showing each participating country color-coded by their group. 2/ Germany ๐ฉ๐ช is the host country this year, opening the tournament versus Scotland ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ tomorrow (Fri, 14th) evening in Munich. German expectations are high following the return to the team of Toni Kroos (until recently of Real Madrid). In 2014 Kroos became the only East German (he was born in Jan 1990, before re-unification in Oct 1990) to ever lift the World Cup ๐. Will he be able to extend the trophy cabinet to include the European Championship? We're pleased to announce that we are now sponsoring @zverik's work on the Level0 #OpenStreetMap editor 1/ Time for this week's geo thread. We have some fun #geoweirdness planned for the coming weeks, but this week we're back to #geoeducation Today's topic is something we often see people get confused about: browser geolocation. What is it, and how is it different than geocoding? 2/ Browser geolocation is a functionality supported by web browsers which lets users share their location - in the form of geographic coordinates (longitude and latitude) - with a web service. ๐จ HERE WE GO ๐จ The May 2024 #fridaygeotrivia question. What is the longest chain of countries such that each successive country in the chain shares a land border and capital city names are in alphabetical order? Example: SK ๐ธ๐ฐ (Bratislava) - CZ ๐จ๐ฟ (Prague) - PL ๐ต๐ฑ (Warsaw) is a chain of 3. Who can top that? As always, you need the #fridaygeotrivia hashtag and the country flag emoji. 1/n 2/ One other twist to the game: in the case of dependent territories with their own ISO code you can use either the capital of the country or the capital of the dependent territory. So, for example, you can consider the capital of French Guiana ๐ฌ๐ซ (ISO code: GF) to be Cayenne or Paris. Full rules, etc on the blog: https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-may-2024 Good luck! #fridaygeotrivia โฐ less than 10 min to go until we post this month's #fridaygeotrivia question. Get ready everyone! ๐จ Don't forget!! ๐จ #fridaygeotrivia tomorrow (Friday, 31 May) at 17:00 Berlin ๐ฉ๐ช time / 4pm London ๐ฌ๐ง / 12 noon New York ๐บ๐ธ Friends! Once again the end of the month draws near, which means ... #fridaygeotrivia Join us this Friday (31st ๐๏ธ) here at 17:00 Berlin ๐ฉ๐ช time / 4pm London ๐ฌ๐ง / 12 noon New York ๐บ๐ธ to compete for the coveted emoji trophy ๐ All details, including the rules, are up on the blog: https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-may-2024 Past questions: https://blog.opencagedata.com/tagged/fridaygeotrivia See you here on Friday, spread the word! In or near Barcelona? Come along this Wednesday (May 29th) evening and meet some of the OpenCage team at Geomob https://thegeomob.com/post/may-29th-2024-geomobbcn-details Five interesting geo talks followed by relaxed discussion at the pub. Hope you can join us. The weekend is almost here, time for a #geoweirdness thread. The last few times we've covered European territories, today we head south to Africa. Without further ado, letโs explore what's geoweird about Morroco ๐ฒ๐ฆ 1/ 2/ Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ - officially the Kingdom of Morroco - is a country in Northern Africa, part of the Arab Maghreb which includes Algeria ๐ฉ๐ฟ, Libya ๐ฑ๐พ ,Mauritania ๐ฒ๐ท, Tunisia ๐น๐ณ, and the disputed Western Sahara ๐ช๐ญ (more on that later). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb Its English name comes from the Spanish โMarruecos,โ which stems from Marrakech, the fourth-largest city in the country. Rabat is the capital, while Casablanca is the largest city. So far, so good. So what's #geoweird? As is our tradition let's head into the weekend with a #geoweirdness thread! With less than three weeks to go until the next Geomob Barcelona (on 29 May ๐๏ธ) it's fitting that we take a look at the geographic oddities of Catalonia. #geomobBCN details and sign-up here: https://thegeomob.com/post/may-29th-2024-geomobbcn-details Ok, ready for some #geoweirdness facts about Catalonia? 1/ 2/ Catalonia is today the name given to an autonomous region of Spain ๐ช๐ธ Historically, Catalonia's borders extended further. The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees saw Spain cede "Northern Catalonia" to France ๐ซ๐ท 1/ Let's head into the weekend with a #geoeducation thread about a little known, but much loved ๐ฅฐ, feature of our geocoding API: annotations. Annotations are information about the location that we add to the geocoding API results 2/ Why do we add annotations? The whole point of our service is to make using open data easy. Often geocoding is just one step in a data processing pipeline. Adding other useful information helps teams move faster towards the end goal of building whatever they are trying to build. OpenStreetMap US is hiring for two full-time, remote roles: https://openstreetmap.us/about/staff/jobs/ 2/ as always full details and rules on the blog: https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-april-2024 Main rules: 2. You must include the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia and the emoji flag of the countries Today is the day, friends! Final Friday of the month means #fridaygeotrivia Join us here at **17:00 Berlin time **๐ฉ๐ช**, 4pm London time **๐ฌ๐ง**, 12 noon New York time **๐บ๐ธ when we post this month's question. Who will raise the emoji trophy ๐ in triumph? Details / Rules: https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-april-2024 As always past #fridaygeotrivia questions (and answers) can be found on the blog, in case you want to do some practicing before the game. https://blog.opencagedata.com/tagged/fridaygeotrivia Good luck, everyone Our monthly geo trivia contest #fridaygeotrivia played live here on mastodon on the final Friday of the month is this week! We will play ๐๏ธ Friday, 26 April, at **17:00 Berlin time **๐ฉ๐ช**, 4pm London time **๐ฌ๐ง**, 12 noon New York time **๐บ๐ธ Details / Rules / Prizes ๐ : https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/geotrivia-april-2024 See you Friday! 1/ This week some of the OpenCage team were back in London ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ ๐ฌ๐ง for Geomob London @geomob That's reason enough to make this week's #geoweirdness thread the city on the Thames, and it's unique contribution to geography. 2/ Let's start in the beginning. London is an ancient city dating back 2000 years. The Romans founded the first recorded settlements around 47 AD. The Roman conquest lasted until around the 5th century, and various Roman ruins can still be found in the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/where-to-find-londons-secret-roman-sites After a few weeks of #geoweirdness threads, this weekend let's switch things up and do some #geoeducation One topic that often comes up around location data is privacy ๐ต๏ธ If you accurately know where someone spends their time, you can often figure out who they are. Users of our geocoding API have to send us location info. So, how can they ensure privacy? ๐๐งต๐ 2/ From day one, we've known one of the key value propositions of our geocoding API is that some customers really do NOT want to share data with Google and other internet giants. So privacy has been a continual focus for us, not an afterthought. We're a ๐ฉ๐ช ๐ช๐บ German legal entity thus fully compliant with GDPR. Here's our GDPR policy: https://opencagedata.com/gdpr and you can easily see all the details of exactly who we are on our about page: https://opencagedata.com/about This week's #geoweirdness thread is dedicated to our friends up north in Finland ๐ซ๐ฎ since in two day's time (on ๐๏ธ April 9th) Geomob Finland will take place in Turku. So what's geoweird about Finland? ๐๐งต๐ Details of #geomobfin on April 9th: 2/ A famous Finnish geographic oddity is the tiny island of Mรคrket crossed by the Finland ๐ซ๐ฎ / Sweden ๐ธ๐ช border. After Finland built a lighthouse in 1885 on the island's highest point it was realised the lighthouse was actually on the Swedish side, so the border was adjusted via a land swap to include the lighthouse in 1985. |
@opencage Scandinavia (๐ณ๐ด๐ธ๐ช๐ฉ๐ฐ, Norway, Sweden, Denmark)