The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

The Webpage For The City Council Of The District of Columbia’s “Special Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination” Is Now On-Line
|| 12/18/2009 || 11:36 am || + Render A Comment || ||

Yesterday I noticed this important committee now has it’s own webpage. I have been involved with this committee since it’s inception earlier this year and feel strongly about making sure as many people as possible know about it. If you are a DC resident or concerned citizen interested in becoming involved, please e-mail Amy Bellanca ( abellanca@dccouncil.us ) to be added to her “citizen stakeholder” e-mail distribution list.

The next meeting of the Special Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination will be on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at the UDC Law School and will involve a discussion with the students about DC Statehood and voting rights. This committee will also be involved in planning some DC Statehood events next year that I am very excited about. A big thank you goes to Chairperson Michael A. Brown for his steadfast leadership on this committee.

Screen grab of the website for the DC's government's Special Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination

Copied from the webpage:

The Special Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination’s primary task is to develop a comprehensive strategy to achieve statehood along with preparing cost-benefit analysis of statehood, proposing draft legislation to enact the initiatives, studying and tracking current and proposed Congressional District Voting-rights legislation and establishing a statehood database relating to the ongoing endeavor to attain statehood.

The Committee will also provide analysis of Congressional legislation and its potential impact on proposed Council legislation or initiatives, encourage communication between stakeholders, and encourage collaboration and coordination of statehood and voting-right initiatives and events within and outside the Council.

Committee Chairperson: Michael A. Brown (At Large)
Committee Clerk: TBD
Committee Members: Kwame R. Brown, Yvette Alexander, Mary Cheh, Harry Thomas, Jr.

Committee Contact Information
Office: 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 406, Washington, DC 20004
Tel: (202) 724-8105
Fax: (202) 724-8071

Key Staff
Amy Bellanca
Legislative Counsel
(202) 724-8271
abellanca@dccouncil.us

+ Also see: https://statehood.dc.gov

The 2008 Washington, DC Orthophotography
|| 10/21/2009 || 4:30 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Screen grab from https://www.nikolasschiller.com/blog/wp-admin/post-new.phpGraphic Converter showing the entire dataset of the 2008 Washington, DC Orthophotography

A couple weeks ago when I was writing the entry about crime in my neighborhood, I discovered that the DC Government’s Citizen Atlas was using aerial orthophotography taken in 2008. I subsequently checked the USGS website to see if they had obtained the dataset, but they were still using the imagery taken in 2005. I decided to e-mail one of my contacts in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. I asked if the dataset was available to the public or if it was going to be ported over to the USGS’s distribution system, and to my chagrin, the offer was extended to mail me a copy of the entire dataset. About a week later I received the CD in the mail and today I started to explore all the brand new imagery that I now have at my disposal! I now have the ability to use aerial orthophotography of Washington, DC taken in 2002, 2005, and 2008.

I first must note that the roughly 67 gigs worth of aerial orthophotography of Washington, DC was all compressed using the Mr. SID file format and was able fit on one CD-Rom. While that level of digital compression is pretty insane (80 to 1), I still have my reservations about it. Almost two years ago I wrote about how Mr. SID has been the bane of my cartographic explorations, and well, not much has changed since then. There is still only one software program for Macintosh that I am aware of that allows users to uncompress the imagery locked away in the proprietary file format, GraphicConverter X for PowerPC-Macs.

Worse, I am having difficulty extracting the imagery that I want to use! The screen grab above shows the selection screen that pops up after I open the Mr. SID file containing the 2008 Washington, DC orthophotography. At first I was really excited that I could quickly and easily draw a box around the portion of the city I wanted to extract. However, after testing it out, I found that there is some latent bug in either the program or the file.

After I draw a box around the area I wish to extract, Graphic Converter spends a few moments decompressing the portion of the file, then it opens up the imagery. There is just one catch: the box I draw does not correspond to the imagery that opens up! For example, if I draw a box around the White House, a few moments later I am looking at imagery from Woodley Park neighborhood. After experimenting for about an hour, I discovered that the imagery is being extracted from somewhere northwest of where I am selecting. This is frustrating to say the least! Instead of quickly and easily obtaining the exact imagery that I want, I now have to do a series of trial & error selections in order to obtain exactly what I am looking for.

Moreover, due the level of compression used in Mr. SID, the uncompressed imagery contains small artifacts that diminish the overall quality of the original aerial orthophotography. To visualize this, imagine for a second that you decided to save a photograph using JPEG compression, but instead of selecting a high number (less compression) you select a very low number (high compression). When you look at the file that you saved, you can see little bits of digital static in the image. These artifacts are the result of high levels of digital compression in the Mr. SID file (80 to 1) and while its not excessive, it is present. I prefer uncompressed TIFFs because they generally look better.

The only way I’ve figure out how to reduce this annoyance is to actually reduce the size of the source aerial photography and in doing so, I’m reducing the overall spatial resolution of the original aerial photography. Released at approximately 15 centimeters per pixel, the imagery is so sharp that you can see people walking on the ground and be able to identify types of cars, but any reduction in size results in less precision and detail.

Nonetheless, I am very excited to start making more maps of Washignton, DC using the 2008 imagery! I look forward to exploring the nuances in development that have taken place over the years. I am also very appreciative of the DC GIS Program for providing me the new imagery free of charge. Thank You!

DC.gov website confuses Statehood with Voting Rights & Representation
|| 11/14/2008 || 6:52 pm || Comments Off on DC.gov website confuses Statehood with Voting Rights & Representation || ||

DC Statehood shown as an option for visitors to learn more about

The other day I was looking around on the DC government website and noticed this lexical ambiguity. When a visitor hovers their mouse over the “DC Guide” section they are given the option of learning more about DC Statehood. However, when a visitor clicks on the link that says “DC Statehood,” they are taken to a page that only mentions the word “statehood” once and uses the term voting rights. Instead of being given more information about how citizens can achieve DC Statehood, visitors are given cursory information about voting rights and the struggle of DC residents to attain representation in Congress. Moreover, the text incorrectly explains the role of the shadow delegation– that are elected to lobby for statehood, not “lobbies Congress on District issues and concerns.” I am not going to expound on the difference between Statehood & Voting Rights in this posting because I have already written at length about the difference between the two in earlier entries (see list below). However, the more important issue, and the reason I am posting this, is to shows how little effort the DC government is currently putting into DC Statehood, especially now that there is a favorable climate for the enfranchisement and that goal of DC Statehood is undermined by using “Voting Rights” as the method of providing equality for DC residents. I believe the page should contain more information about the history of DC’s struggle for self-determination and more information about routes to achieve statehood.

UPDATE – The DC Government has updated their website to include https://statehood.dc.gov

Related Colonist Entries:

+ MORE

The Daily Render By

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future.

::LAST 51 POSTS::

Fair Use

46 queries. 1.633 seconds.
Powered by WordPress

Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: