Spatial history and neat-o graphics

The spatial history site at stanford.edu was really interesting. The railroad project seemed like a huge undertaking when I first looked at the site, but then looking at other projects, it did not seem so daunting. The programs to look at the demography of a city, like they are working on with students in Sao Paulo, or the visual of prostitution arrests in Philadelphia during a specific time period, is not only beneficial to research, but is also pretty wicked awesome. The Washington Post site with the digital imaging and over-lays of past and present Washington, D.C. was incredible. I can’t even imagine the amount of work that went in to that project. I believe it is the same project we watched last semester, but for some reason it has more meaning this time. Perhaps it’s because I have a new found appreciation for the historically accurate AND tech savvy.
The mobile for museums site I remember seeing before as well, and is more useful for research than it may seem. The the mobile for museums project itself, of course, but the tools available on the homepage of the CHNM website.
Now I feel like whatever application I am involved in developing will obviosly pale in comparison to these projects, but they do give me a huge burst of inspiration, which is always nice when you’re pretty sure you forgot everything you knew how to do.