Happy Human Spirit Day!

Perhaps in 20 years we’ll be celebrating AI Spirit Day? Or the LLMs will be? Alas, until then, we have coffee.

Keep slamming coffee my friends. (Sorry, to any colleagues who don’t much like it. May tomorrow’s find will bring more joy.) It prevents dementia, cancer, and is loaded with prebiotics. Even better, recent research suggests 2-3 cups of coffee a day is good for your heart, including irregular heartbeats. Coffee prices are skyrocketing this year globally, but keep drinking, my friends. For humanity!

Original Prompt

Please come up with three different map themes, with readily accessible public data (doesn’t have to be spatial yet but needs to be able to joined to spatial data) regarding the theme “Smells Like Human Spirit.” I’m going to use one of these ideas to create an interactive web map for Human Spirit Day tomorrow. I will probably use Mapbox or Leaflet. 

Sadly, it didn’t go with my “Smells Like Human Spirit” theme.

I was originally going thinking of highlighting all the conflict and economic disparity in the world.

Alas, these damn LLMs are made by tech bros who seem to want to keep topics sugary sweet. And who am I to fight tech bros on a Monday evening? 🙂 So coffee we get!

Happy Recognize Singles Day!

Presumably this day is inclusive of those who were rejected on Valentine’s Day or just want to remain single. Regardless, it’s a day. And I thought I could celebrate it by mapping where in the US one can move to join other single people — presumably for singular solidarity or to increase one’s odds of not being single much longer? I don’t know; don’t overthink it, please. It’s just a map!

View Map Here

Original Prompt

Please come up with a map design idea, aesthetic, and motif for a tongue-in-cheek “Recognize Singles Day” map of the United States that will use the attached dataset of single-adult led households, etc., by state. The map should “Recognize Singles” and perhaps imply where to move if you’re single and want to meet other singles. As for style, I would love it if the map were in a conformal or equal area conic projection. Perhaps a MapBox globe bounded to the United States, Alaska, and Hawaii area — no panning outside of it? The title should be Masthead style. It needs to work on mobile. The interactivity should be minimal — if possible show total percent of singles by county, percent of all singles that are female, percent of all singles that are male, county name, etc. Once you’ve designed the two motifs, critique them — 300 words or less. Give a logical answer to which is best or if further ideation may be useful.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Send a hopeful Valentine a poem in a variety of languages by clicking on your country of choice and entering their email. (Warning: carrier fees may apply…?)

View Map Here

Original Prompt

Hi. I want to create a map for Valentine’s Day that is pretty straightforward. When a user clicks on a country, I want it to open a “mailto:” link with the subject line of “Will you be my valentine?!” and a sweet poem in that country’s majority or official language. Please come up with the short but sweet poem here, in English, and we will use the same one (translated for all languages). The user will need to enter the email address. It will not fill it automatically. The map should be in the Bonne Projection (a heart-shaped map. Users should be able to zoom in far enough to click on whatever country they wish. The countries should be colored the same. The map should have Valentine like cherubs and arrows and hearts on it. Very Valentiney. Not too corny but also definitely not serious. It should work on mobile. When the user clicks on the country, a pop-up should appear that says: “Would you like to send a poem to your Valentine in {country name}?” “Yes” will open the default email app with the pre-populated text and info. This will require a countries dataset with the following fields: – geometry – Name – 3-Letter Country Abbreviation – Language If the user clicks yes, it should read the country’s language and populate that version of the poem in the email. The subject line should read: “Will you be my Valentine?” in that language as well. — Before we proceed: is this doable? Can you help me make this map? What more info or data do you require? I can provide country shapefiles (Natural Earth) if it helps. Thanks!

World Radio Day by the United Nations because… well… maybe because people were forgetting about the importance or radio for emergency communications, etc.? I’m not quite sure.

Personally, I love radio. Have ever since I saw Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater (about a high school pirate radio station!) in the 1980s when I was an impressionable kid.

I decided to make a map that highlights some major moments in European and US radio broadcasting history. My goal was to try a narrative (okay, fine, story map) style. I used Dataset Doctor GPT to create the historic datasets (one for the technology development and one for the broadcast history. Then I asked Web Mapper GPT to come up with three styles or plans for the map. I chose the Cold War theme/vibe.

Here we are… Enjoy! And happy world radio day!

View the map (or click the image above)

Provenance File (The whole process is now stored and exported automatically in Web Mapper GPT with every map, including metadata for datasets, summary of every prompt, result, hash of final map, ethics overview, accessibility overview, etc. You can now reproduce it, by-and-large.)

Original Prompt

Happy Paul Bunyan Day!

Paul Bunyan is a Minnesota (and northwoods) legend. He carved the Grand Canyon with his glorious ax. And Babe the Blue Ox? Well…

Today’s map offers places named after Paul Bunyan that you can visit to celebrate this wonderful day! 😉View the Map Here.

Original prompt

Hi there. I’d like to make an interactive Paul Bunyan map to celebrate Paul Bunyan Day. I have created a Mapbox basemap in Cartogram and have the API token to use it. I would like to use that basemap. It’s a Lambert Conformal or Equal area projection. I forget, but it’s centered on the US.

I also have a geojson dataset of places named after Paul Bunyan or Babe the Blue Ox. I would like to make the map fun and somewhat folksy.

Please use a cool, folksy font that hovers over the map in the upper-left-hand part of the map.

Title Ideas: “Place to Celebrate Paul Bunyan Day!”

When a user clicks on one of these spots, please have a tool-tip pop up that gives the name of the place, the type of place (I forget which field this is but there is one), it’s city and state/province, and a little button that says: “Take me there.” When the user clicks this button, the default map application on a mobile device or computer should open (e.g., Apple Maps, Google Maps, etc.).

Do not have arrows connecting the tool-tip/info window to the point. Use rounded rectangles 4px max for all borders and windows, etc. Do not put any background rectangle behind the title. In the lower right have a hamburger menu button. When the user clicks it, please provide attribution for Mapbox (for tiles and design), Turbo-overpass.eu (for data), and Minnesota for being the Paul Bunyan state. Also, add a “Provenance Doc”, which will link to your provenance JSON when our conversation is done. You don’t have to produce that document until the final package is exported as a zip file.

Below is the cleaned dataset. If you can save it as a separate .geojson file in the export or just load it in the JS/HTML files directly, that would be awesome.

It’s World Cancer Day.

I decided to create a global map of the leading cause of death by cancer for males and females by country. The data was collected and cleaned using Dataset Doctor GPT. Map created with Web Mapper GPT.

View Map

Web Mapper GPT Prompt

I would like to make a map highlighting the leading cause of death by cancer in each country with data in the attached dataset. This will be for International Cancer Research Day. It should be a serious map, minimalist with a journalistic feel. Quite simple. On desktop, I would like a donut chart showing the number of deaths caused by each type of cancer world wide. Any that fall beneath 8% of total deaths should be included in an “Other Cancer” category. When the user clicks on a country (equal earth projection, please) I would like a pop-up to display showing country name and leading cause cancer cause of death, as well as any death numbers and a source in the popup if possible. Please us a dark background. Color each country by the type of cancer that leads in that country. Up to seven unique colors. The eighth color (if necessary, as I don’t know how many unique types of cancer are in the dataset) should be a gray that represents “Other Type of Cancer”. It will displayed if a user clicks on that country. Countries without data should not be filled in. If possible, since I don’t believe the CSV has geometry, can you link this dataset to a polygon boundaries dataset of countries (e.g., Natural Earth Data?) so it can be a category by color map? Thank you!

Dataset Doctor GPT Prompt

Please create a global dataset that provides the type of cancer leading to the most deaths in each country of the world (for which there is data). I’m not sure where this data might live: perhaps the WHO, UN, World Bank, or elsewhere. Please scour high or low. Any data within the past 20 years can be included. If the dataset does not yet have geometry, or is compiled from a bunch of different sources, I would like to link it to Natural Earth data, so please include or add a field that makes it easily joinable. Field examples that would be useful: – Country Name (English) – Most common cancer leading to death (broad categories, simplified… e.g., Lymphoma, not particular types of Lymphoma, etc.) – Count of deaths from this cancer (when available), null if not – Country population estimate (perhaps in Natural Earth data already) – Per Capita GDP (or similar economic indicator data just for context) – any other field data you find relevant – please include ISO country codes too. Thanks! – source – year or years for data Thanks!

On a serious note: it’s National Missing Persons Day.

The United States has a serious problem. People go missing… a lot. And they are often never found. Complicating matters, the FBI reports on national missing persons statistics, but it doesn’t report state-by-state.

Many states create annual reports of missing persons, but they use different statistics and standards. Some differentiate between minors and adults. Others do not.

I asked Dataset Doctor GPT to scour the web for all state reports it could find and create a (semi-) comprehensive state-by-state dataset. It took a while… but after checking in on it a few times, it finally assured me it found all that it could. (I had it search in batches.)

I then asked my other handy GPT agent, Web Mapper GPT, to map the data.

View Map

Tools Used

• Dataset Doctor GPT
• Web Mapper GPT

Dataset Doctor GPT Prompt

Hi, for national missing persons day, I would like to create a state-by-state dataset of missing person reports. I’ve heard the FBI has a lot of records and there are other public records. The map the dataset will be used for will primarily be designed to build awareness about missing persons and have a rhetorical / empathetic affect, not data exploration or analysis. I envision having statistics such as adults versus juveniles missing, as well as a filter that allows people to view state totals compared to one another using proportional symbols: either adults only, juveniles only, or totals. My ask from you: can you search the web for good sources where I can download or scrape together such a dataset, please? If there is a dataset available, please create a geojson with geometry or shapefile. Clean the dataset to show only State Name, Data Source, relevant counts to my needs, percentages, and any other relevant information to missing persons (e.g., year). The more recent the dataset the better, but anything within the past few years is fine. Thank you! Please report back with existing datasets you have found or places where you think you or I may be able to piecemeal together a dataset to help make this map. I’ll give further instructions from there. Much appreciated!

Web Mapper GPT Prompt

Happy Groundhog Day!

I’ve never been that into Punxsutawney Phil’s special day. I always doubt his wisdom. So I thought I would go to iNaturalist and download every sighting of a groundhog in Pennsylvania since January 1, 2021, so we can ask them what they think. The best part… the pop-ups have pictures. They really are cute rodents — even if they are crap at predicting weather patterns. 🙂

View Map

Tools

• iNaturalist
• Web Mapper GPT

Web Mapper GPT Prompt

Hi, I need to make one more map today. I’d like to make a map for Goundhog Day.

I have an iNaturalist dataset of ground hog observations in the US and Canada. Can you, using an Esri or other open topographic or natural landcover base map create a cute little map with every one of these sightings?

There are a lot, so I’m not sure if it’s best if this is loaded as a CSV or a geojson or what? If it’s not possible to load this data easily, perhaps I can create a similar map that is only the state of Pennsylvania (just 2800 or so sightings). I have a separate dataset for this if that is better.

The map should be funky, like the groundhog day event!

Please come up with three witty titles regarding how… if Puxatawny Phil its own shadow, well, we can always ask another one. Or Best of Seven…? etc. Something witty.

Please design the map to have similar fonts (feel free to use Google fonts) as the website here: https://www.groundhog.org/. Same color scheme too for accenting, etc. (It’s not exactly color blind friendly, so don’t use thse colors to differentiate values).

Finally, please create a little groundhog silhoutte icon, SVG for leaflet, or PNG for stacks, that is green or blue. A little drop shadow, very light, would help.

Thanks! If you use clustering, and I assume you will need to, please use a larger version of the silhouette as the cluster symbol.

Finally, don’t let the user zoom out to show more than 5 degrees in any direction past the the range of data. Also, in a hamburger menu, please add a year filter, with each year listed and an “All Years” reset button. Also add a sources button please. The sources Modal should begin closed no matter what and close when someone clicks outside of it.

Sources:
– Dataset: [iNaturalist](https://www.inaturalist.org). Ueda K (2026). iNaturalist Research-grade Observations. iNaturalist.org. DOI: 10.15468/ab3s5x)
– Map creation: Web Mapper GPT
– Attribution: {add all required and relevant stack attribution here}

Happy World Hijab Day!

Around the world there are meetings and get-togethers, as well as a free online conference for people to celebrate the hijab. You can learn more about the online celebration and local chapter meetings and support here: https://worldhijabday.com.

This map shows all the countries in the world that have World Hijab Day Ambassadors appointed. You can find and contact them on the official website. I thought the spatial distribution of official ambassadors would be interesting. I added information about each country’s predominant religion and type of government too, just to add some interesting contextual elements.

For those who celebrate, Happy World Hijab Day!

View Map

Tools Used

• Dataset Doctor GPT
• Web Mapper GPT

Web Map GPT Prompt

I would like to make a map to celebrate international hijab day. I have a global dataset regarding Hijab Day. Can you please review it and come up with some ideas for a simple interactive map to celebrate this day?

Dataset Doctor GPT

I would like to create a dataset of all the countries in the world and emphasize which celebrate International Hijab Day on February 1st and which don’t. Fields included should be: – Country Name – Type of Government (from Wikipedia) – Hijab Day Celebrated: Yes | No | Not Sure – Majority Religion (basic categories Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Aetheist, etc.) – Hijab Required in Public: Yes | No – Rule: (only if yes, otherwise blank) brief 1-5 sentence description of who must wear hijab and penalty if you don’t Good sources you can find information about world hijab day from: – https://worldhijabday.com/ – https://wikipedia.org/ Please output your dataset as a geojson file or shapefile download. If possible include geometry information from Natural Earth Data at the 1:50 million scale (no lakes version of countries). Thank you!