hans ø

Namesake of Hans Hendrik, Arctic explorer and Kalaallit interpreter, whom in Greenlandic was called Suersaq, the small island (Tartupaluk, Île Hans, ᑕᕐᑐᐸᓗᒃ) in the Nares Strait with no permanent human presence is disputed territory, claimed by both Greenland (and Denmark which represents the autonomous realm in foreign affairs) and Canada.
While the legal status of Hans Island does carry consequences for the range of both countries territorial waters in terms of drilling and fishing rights and negotiations continue, practically it is administered as a condominium—with the imaginary border bisecting the island and delegations from Canada and Denmark periodically visiting, upsetting the opposing flag and depositing a bottle of signature libations for the trouble, waging a “whiskey war.” More to explore at Messy Nessy Chic at the link up top.

beltway

Incorporating two pre-existing settlements of Alexandria in the state of Virginia and Georgetown in Maryland, with a survey team delineating the boundaries (see previously), a new federal city was constructed on the northern bank of the Potomac—the overseeing commissioners named their capital on this day in 1791 in honour of President George Washington, the district called Columbia—the feminine post-classical Latin form of Cristoforo Columbo and a toponym to mirror Britannia, et al.

u-bahn

As Futility Closet informs the transit map of the metro network of the city of Stuttgart, subways, trolleys feeding into on the railways and airport, commissioned in 2000 is uniquely projected thirty degrees askew to create a three-dimensional isometric layout. Other peculiarities of the transport scheme include the only urban Zahnradbahn (cogwheel railway and nicknamed Zacke) in addition to a Standsielbahn (see also here and here) a funicular narrow-gauge track that ascends a forested hill. This clever representation, however, has since been replaced by more conventional diagrams.

6x6

a jay ward production: rediscover the classic cartoon Hoppity Hooper

distance learning is the art of applying the bride to the child: Dorothy Parker’s (previously) take on remote kindergarten

long in the tooth: a Greenland shark is recognised as world’s oldest veterbrate type specimen: explore the extensive Letter Form Archive—via Pasa Bon!

nimby, yimby: mapping applications that reveal percentage of golf course and parking lots in your town

casa azul: a virtual exploration of Frida Kahlo’s Blue House—via Messy Nessy Chic plus the edible sunflower and a tiny tug

owls to athens: a look at how our avian friends influenced language and limn thought (see also)

flora, fauna, fire

Via Maps Mania, we are directed to an engaging and impactful look at the devastation that Australia’s wildfires brought at the beginning of 2020 in the form of this interactive scrollytelling presentation that shares stories of recovery, prevention and links to the toll it has taken on 119 representative plants and animal species, whom may face extinction without human intervention. Though 119 is the number for firefighters and emergency services in many other jurisdictions, it’s triple zero you want to dial on the continent.

7x7

r.o.u.s. (rodent of unusual size): a LEGO Princess Bride playset

fifteen men on the dead man’s chest: beach sand skeletal impression kit

colouring london: an ongoing project amassing architectural statistical data from Maps Mania

antimandering: redistricting software that illustrates the trade-offs of proportional representation, via Waxy

splinternet: discouraging trend championed now by the US towards compartmentalising the once global web—via Slashdot

duly appointed rounds: another one of Trump’s antithetical department heads bent on dismantling the institution he is in charge of (see previously)

mind the gap: subway and metro announcements from around the world

6x6

nestbox: Czech firm designs a modular trunk extension to turn any car into a camper

kintsugi court: a rundown basketball blacktop restored with the ancient Japanese art that cherishes the cracked

your 2020 bingo card: researchers discover a population of sharks thriving in an undersea volcano

earth science: a treasury of minerals mapped out—via Maps Mania

green tea ice cream: Linda Diaz’ soulful rendition wins the NPR Tiny Desk competition

cosmic architechtonics: multipart exploration of Eastern Bloc monolithic housing estates

omiyage—voyage, voyage

This Japanese word for souvenir (お土産) are representative meibutsu (名物, literally famous things) applied to regional specialties and are often exchanged among work colleagues and family members upon the return of one who was away not just as a keepsake but as a way to apologize for one’s absence and a consolation for those whom did not get to make the trip this time. Via Present /&/ Correct we are directed towards this rather brilliant and wonderfully granular map of the country from Haconiwa design studios. One can explore on any section on the grid to learn about local delicacies and take a virtual vacation. Much more to explore at the links above.

bathymetric globe

The always interesting Map Room directs our attention to a centenary celebration of the pioneering cartographer and oceanographer Marie Tharp (*1920 – †2006) whose contributions mapped the Atlantic floor (see also), revealing detailed topography and landscape features no one suspected. Her discovery of rift valleys on the bed of the ocean caused a rather seismic shift in the accepted understanding of geography and earth sciences and convinced colleagues to acknowledge the relatively new theories of continental drift and plate tectonics. Much more to explore at the source and with Columbia University at the links above.

kps 9566

Though only in use domestically, the DPRK (North) Standard Korean Graphic Character Set for Information Interchange, is ISO compliant and renderable across all platforms and is an efficient approach to translating the large repertoire of Hangul into a format for programming and transmittable all around the world.
While not all glyphs in the standard have Unicode equivalents (like the symbol of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Hammer and Sickle and Brush, or personal cartouches for the country’s senior leadership) the standard is responsible for several indispensable emojis, like HOT BEVERAGE (☕) originally proposed as a map marker for a tea house, the black and white flags—again as map markers indicating battlefields, the ☔ and the ⚡, used as a lightning bolt or electricity but first used to warn of the dangers of high-voltage lines in the vicinity.

snapmap

Whilst not a panopticon of what the situation on the ground is for an unfolding crisis, like the protests spreading across America, telling only the narrative of a set of witnesses that use a certain platform and are choosing to share their experiences—and a fleeting (by design) glance at that—this tool, via Maps Mania, is certainly a fascinating and informed one that provides important perspective and more or less live-views as new rallies form and take to the streets.
One can also drift away from the hot-spots, turmoil and revolt to get a real-time video dispatch from virtually any point on the map.

6x6

mistress don’t harm me, mistress don’t harm me henceforth: What is Love medieval style (see also)

octopi, occupy: a history of caricature and other persuasive maps (previously), via Nag on the Lake

degenerate states: a look at myriahedral map projection (see also) and related attempts at squaring the circle

distance disco: your dance party at a safe range, via Swiss Miss

television and telephot: video-conferences envisioned in 1918

knight industries two thousand: Knight Rider theme for eight cellos (see previously)

segoe print state of mind

Friend of the blog Nag on the Lake directs our attention to a neat project that explores font families by the localities that inspired them.
Created by foundries to build up their portfolios and offer a greater range of styles—most debuting well before the trend of cities hiring a designer to give them a united, corporate image, the United Fonts of America allows one to triangulate in a sense geographic coordinates and style with hometown pride and mediate on what the association signify. Whose namesake is Tahoma exactly? Plus there’s all the other aspects of toponymy to consider besides. This map is focused on the US and it’s a good heuristic tool to get one thinking further afield.
Is there a typeface for where you live or do business, the product of a marketer or otherwise? Inspired I found that there was in fact a digital script commissioned by Linotype, designed by Rosemarie Kloos-Rau and released in 1992 named for a place we’re associated with. Within the framework of the industry standard DIN (see previously) 16518 governing handwriting and calligraphy, it is commonly used for brochures, greeting cards and call-out boxes in articles.

8x8

🚏: the ad hoc bus stop benches and chairs of suburban Tokyo has personality—via Super Punch

pop! six! squish! uh-uh: an homage to Chicago’s Cell Block Tango for confining times

crenellation: a virtual tour of some fortified cities around the world—we’ve been to a few of these places ourselves

as was the style at the time: a treasury of Old English customs and superstitions

sneezeguard: personal barriers designed to lure diners back in restaurants

signs point to no: ProPublica charts out the trajectory on America’s states’ road to recovery and a safe reopening—via Maps Mania

pilot programme: the shareware history of Photoshop’s prime competitor and driver of innovation

🏝: reminiscent of this exotic travelogue, we are enjoying these Pacific voyages—via Boing Boing

theatrum orbis terrarium

First printed on this day in Antwerp in 1570, the collaboration “Theatre of the Orb of the World” from Abraham Ortelius and Gillis Hooftman van Eyckelberg is considered the progenitor of the modern atlas and informed charting, seafaring and to a large extent the Golden Age of Exploration—transforming worldview from older, staid conceptions.
The edition of some seventy uniform, bound maps with keys, legends and explanatory text with a section called a nomenclator that was a registry of place names from Antiquity as well as table of endonyms and exonyms. Though more immediate literacy accrued with this publication and plate tectonics and continental drift would not be articulated or scientifically accepted until l centuries later, it is believed that Ortelius, while compiling his work, was one of the first people to notice the correspondence of the landmasses and postulate that they might be mobile.

the united states of voronoi

Named after the mathematician who defined their properties, Georgy Feodosevich Voronoy (*1868 – †1908), a Voronoi diagram triangulates and parses cells or regions (previously) by their spatial affinity to a given seed or site.
Redrawing borders of the continental states, as Jason Davies has done, so that each point within those bounds is geographically closer to its own capital city than the capital of any adjacent polity yields an interesting distribution that somehow aligns with the character of the capitol not being necessarily the largest city and representative of the population as a whole and preserves (with notable distortions) to an extent the shape of the states on the map.

6x6

artbreeder: a fascinating, generative branching experiment that makes unique, derivative art from participant’s choices—via Things Magazine (a lot more to explore there)

may the fourth be with you: a disco tribute to the first film of the franchise (see previously)

topocom: mapping a better tomorrow – a 1971 US Army short

econowives: the trailer for a 1990 adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale (previously) starring Patricia Quinn, Elizabeth Montgomery, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall that’s a strange reverse case of the Mandela Effect (I feel I ought to have known about this yet have no memory of it)—via Messy Nessy Chic

wpa: a look at how the US government funded the arts during the Great Depression

such car: machine learning’s mixed meme metaphors, via Imperica

texarkana mayorate or major metros task force

Via Boing Boing, we are introduced to the work of artist and activist Alfred Twu who has been carefully charting coordination efforts among the US states (see previously) for regional responses for a controlled, graduated reopening of schools, businesses and civic life once the risks of relapse have subsided—absent a national strategy—and generating these maps that document the changes, which not so long ago would have been confused with the plot of the dystopian fantasy A Canticle for Leibowitz or war-gaming the next civil war.
Twu’s research and appraisal of an evolving and consequential situation is an admirable one and certainly deserves further study and illustrates that decisions, with or without pressure external and internal, are not easy ones but it also speaks to the terrifying balkanization of America and the legacy of the ideological divides.

simcity

The always interesting Maps Mania introduces us to a trio fantasy urban map generators that automatically create cityscapes according to a suite of user-defined criteria—which is an especially fun and safe way to expand the bounds of one’s daily circuit and imagine all the paths that one can take to get from point a to point b. Here’s a procedurally rendered street grid made by ProbableTrain—a random layout but can also draw from real world metropolitan environments for reference.

the admiralty regrets to inform

Whilst on a mission to circumnavigate the globe passing from the South Atlantic to the South Pacific in December 1683, surveyor William Ambrosia Cowle, whom significantly charted the Galápagos, aboard the gunship Bachelor’s Delight, spied an island north of the Falklands, which he named Pepys Island, in honour of the diarist and also Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. Although describing the avian residents, geographical features and quality of its harbour and anchorage in great detail, Pepys Island never again materialised, for centuries evading rediscovery, and was ultimately declared a phantom island.