Via Hyperallergic, we are referred to a nifty tool that lets one explore the geography and lifeforms that would have informed one’s hometown over the รฆons. Developed by engineer and palaeontologist Ian Webster, Ancient Earth ploughs through millions of years of tectonic shifts and rising and receding oceans with insights about fossils found nearby at the time and events defined the particular age and epoch. Despite the until recently relative inhospitability above the waves, one is always hoping that one’s home stays above water—especially in our current Anthropocene. Much more at the link above.
Friday 29 April 2022
Sunday 17 April 2022
8x8
trebizond: explore this detailed map of Eurasia in the year 1444—via the always interesting Nag on the Lake
gotham nocture: a Batman gothic opera in pre-production
passion project: former store worker curating every last Gap in-store playlist
out of black ponds, water lilies: an Easter Sunday poem from Better Living through Beowulf
crisis on infinite earths: Marvel’s inspired splintered dimensions and alternate timelines
neoliberal pieties: the organised religion of social media is vulnerable to same corruptions and is no substitute for a public good
latent diffusion: an AI generates maps (plus other artifice) from a text-prompt, via Maps Mania
Saturday 9 April 2022
8x8
r/place: Josh Wardle’s (previously) first viral success with this collaborative subreddit
modern screen: an annotated read along of a February 1961 celebrity magazine
hey hey, rise up: Pink Floyd reunites to support Ukrainesee you later, percolator: a gallery of vintage, commercial coffee makers
spotifictional: a streaming back-catalogue of bands from television and the movies
cheese heist: dairy crime-rings around the world—see also
scratchcard lanyard: a song from Dry Cleaning
explordle: guess the global cities as webcam images flit by—via Web Curios
Tuesday 22 March 2022
8x8
situation of opportunity: a giant soft pillow urban intervention on the streets of Amsterdam—via Messy Nessy Chic
floor plan: highly detailed drawings of Japanese hotel rooms
you can’t take it with you: the coffin tradition of the Ga people of Ghana
photogenic: Tom Hegen captures the symmetries of solar farms
hobbiton-across-the-water: maps and paintings of Middle Earth curated on-line—see previously
this is a test—this is only a test: a look at the history of the US emergency broadcast system—see previously
long life to the lord of men: jade burial suits from the Han dynasty
anchors in the afterlife: a collection of non-human resting-places
Friday 18 March 2022
8x8
the fiume endeavour: Neutral Moresnet and other countries that fell off the map
international male: thirty-three national costumes from the 2022 Mister Global pageant via Miss Cellania
odette and odile: a diminutive chihuahua and human handler perform Swan Lakesmpte colour bars: a BBC test pattern jumper and mural—see also
bad actor mode: an AI normally tasked with developing new, novel medications had its parameters switched seek out toxicity and suggests tens of thousands of chemical weapons and poisons in the space of a few hours—via Slashdot
cameo appearance: Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams portrayed the President of United Earth on the season finale of Star Trek and brought the planet back into the Federation
state-of-the-art: ten breakthrough technologies online now that could change our trajectory for the better—via Kottke
geopolitics: charting the advance of democracy
Saturday 12 March 2022
7x7
w / n / p / a/: the beauty and brutality of the natural world—via Web Curios
fly around: a happy tune from Bill Wurtz—via Waxy
skramm-ellegepladser: what Scandi culture can teach the world about fun and playfulnesstheatrum orbis terrarum: the first modern world atlas, created and published in Antwerp in 1571 by Abraham Ortelius
llรชn gwerin: illustrated Welsh cats from 1910
grand tour: visit the great cities of Europe all within the confines of Ohio—see also
best in show: a selection of the superlative entries for the 2022 Sony World Photography Awards—some are quite accidentally like a Renaissance painting
Sunday 6 March 2022
8x8
wayfinder: Polynesian palm frond and seashell navigational charts
zoned for resimercial: reaction offices and the future of the workplace
the final nail in the coffin: a proposal for a casket one drills in the groundsuch freedom: a convoy of truckers whose grievance is less clear picks up some hitchhikers along the way in the form of a la carte conspiracy theories
fashion forward: RIP to Elsa Klench (*1930) host of the long running Style segment on CNN
don’t know much about geology: James Sowerby’s 1884 illustrated study of catastrophic British mineralogy
the neutra house: the hilltop compound that belongs to Red Hot Chilli Pepper Flea has strong evil villain lair energy—and is on the market—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
glonass: mapping tools and satellite imagery as a prelude to the information war over Ukraine
Friday 18 February 2022
synchronoptic view
Our trusted cartographer presents a medley of historical-dynamic maps that transport one to different epochs and eras, redrawing borders and boundaries through the course of human events, each specialising in a certain enhanced visualisation of neighbourliness and development, and we especially were taken with Running Reality with a sliding timeline that macroscopically traces the advance and retreat of kingdoms or zoomed in, the growth of cities and towns, by day, decade and century. Explore the entire tool-box at Maps Mania at the link up top.
7x7
pigeon fancy: Emil Schachtzabel illustrates unnatural selection in prize breeds
act local, think global: a twenty-question quiz about one’s bioregion, immediate surroundings and a challenge for low-scorers
onomastic terminology: petrichor, overmorrow, interrobangs and other proper orthonyms
wysiwyg: Jane Austen used straight pins to edit the rough drafts of her manuscripts before word processors and correction-liquid
device orchestra: various peripherals, gadgets and appliances perform “Seven Nation Army”
pandemic cartograms: our unvaccinated world
hodowla goลฤbi: profiling Poland’s pigeon keepers, moving up in the pecking-order
Tuesday 15 February 2022
6x6
taxon: vintage animal family cards
property values: Trump family accounting firm drops them as a client, disavows the validity of a decade’s worth of business assessmentsable baker: a collection of US museum ships—via Things Magazine
daily constitutional: map out one’s lunch-hour ambulations
wobo: Heineken breweries in the early 1960s produced brick-like bottles that could double as construction material, via Messy Nessy Chic
metamates: Facebook staff receive a new official monicker aligned with corporate branding
catagories: ๐ป, ๐️♂️, ๐บ, ๐ฅธ, ๐งฑ, ๐ข, libraries and museums, networking and blogging
Thursday 10 February 2022
worldle
Always game for a geography challenge and admittedly a Wordle enthusiast (see previously), we are now obsessed with this puzzle from Maps Mania that invites players to guess a country by its cartographic outlines, as opposed its place in the gazetteer, with prising out world cities becomes a fun expanded version too. Just as with the original challenge, there is only one country listed per day.
Sunday 6 February 2022
enhance
Trusted guide Maps Mania refer us to an incredible useful heuristic tool under development by Josh Nelson and Jinnan Zhange called Optica, which allows users to explore terrain at three different zoom scales at once with a variety of interactive, concurrent topography emphasised. Much more, including a simpler method to fetch a quad-chart of a plot of land, at the link above.
catagories: ๐บ
Saturday 5 February 2022
8x8
eye-in-the-sky: a collection of superlative drone photography
gravitational lensing: tentatively, astronomers find evidence of the first rogue, marauding black hole over a backdrop of nebular clouds
wheel of fortune: Wordle but with common quotations and idioms—via Memo of the Air
para||el: a short film about divergent realities by Mรฉnilmonde
building & loan: more on the economics of gift-cards—see also
staying toasty: bread hats and loafers, see also
three little words: what3words (see previously) solves some problems for vehicle guidance and navigation, causes others—via Duck Soup
to open every kind of lock: burglars’ spells and incantations
scotus: a former law clerk writes the Wikipedia articles on Biden’s prospective nominees to the US Supreme Court in order to insert doubt and skepticism, via Super Punch
bird’s eye view: a parrot in New Zealand pilfers a family’s Go-Pro and films some nice scenery
Sunday 16 January 2022
6x6
teed-off: the worse examples of gerrymandered voting precincts in the US portrayed as formidable mini-golf hazards—via Print Magazine
blursday afternoon is never ending: time reforms for 2022
toponymy: Wordle (previously) place-names editions—see also
la pista automobilistica: Nag on the Lake gives us the chance to revisit the incredible Fiat factory in Turin with rooftop test-track
crying is for plain women—pretty women go shopping: season one Golden Girls are younger than the cast of the Sex in the City reboot and other essential reading
undercounted: email traffic reveals how Trump interfered with US census to ensure polities with large immigrant populations didn’t gain clout
Monday 10 January 2022
6x6
curiosity cabinet: virtually explore the museum house of Sir John Soane (previously)—via Things Magazine
glitchy terrain: users and clients report bugs in fly-over features (see previously)—via Super Punch
debate club: let’s thrash out these ongoing arguments once and for all
low, heroes, lodger: a look at the Eastern European literature that influenced David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy and beyond
medico-mechanical gymnastics: the nineteenth century work-out regiment of Gustave Zander—see previously
ex libris: a look into some of the great libraries of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria
catagories: ๐จ๐ค, ๐บ, ๐คธ, libraries and museums, networking and blogging
Friday 7 January 2022
tetsudล-eki
Via ibฤซdem, we are directed towards a really engaging visualisation of the precision feat of civil engineering behind the transit systems of Tokyo and environs (see also)—animated in realtime (so activity may vary throughout the day) with schedules, further information and street-cams to complement the blocky trains and buildings.
Thursday 23 December 2021
liber chronicarum
First published as a German language translation on this day in 1493, the well-recognised illustrated, encyclopaedic incunabulum of world history as told through the lens of mythology and biblical accounts, originally printed under the above title (July of the same year) in Latin, English speakers call the work the Nuremberg Chronicle, after the location of the publishing house, is referred to in that native Sprachraum as die Schedelsche Weltchronik after the author Hartmann Schedel, humanist, scholar and cartographer whose work presents some of the first depictions of major cities of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire. The book divides human history into seven parts informed by canon—the first age aligning with the chapters of Genesis, from creation to the Deluge. The sixth age—the largest part—relates events after Jesus Christ up to the present, with the following chapter presenting outlook for the future and the End Times. Godson of the printer Anton Koberger, a young Albrecht Dรผrer likely contributed to some of the woodcuts and prints.
Tuesday 7 December 2021
6x6
temporal distortion: an xkcd comic that references every ambiguous birthday scenario
check out those gams: a pair of pageants with a narrower focus on beauty—via Nag on the Lake
menty-b: Macquarie Dictionary’s short-list for Word of the Year
qed: an overview of maths in film and television
hungry eyes: the canon of Western art as viewed through the lens of food
Thursday 11 November 2021
9x9
silent haitch: the voicing of this letter is “still a significant shibboleth”—a look at h based on modern usage and notes on wh by Alfred Leach
kinship and pedigree: genealogical mapping shows historic spread and retreat of surnames for British Isles and much of Europe
rural free delivery: a superb, thematic collection of vintage picture postcards—via Things Magazinezeta reticulans: a tarot deck from Miguel Romero features the history of UFOlogy
ัะต ัะฐะผัะต ะบะฐััะธะฝะบะธ: collection of avant-garde children’s book illustrations from the USSR
retromod: Hyundai brings back its 1986 luxury Grandeur with a fully electric powertrain
trebuchet: another start-up envisions flinging satellites into space via spinning centrifuge—see previously
get lost losers: a rock band flotilla entertaining the cargo crews stuck in the seemingly insurmountable backlog waiting to unload containers at the ports of Los Angeles
agent of chaos: agnotology, the study of deliberate spreading of confusion
Monday 8 November 2021
l'arbe du tรฉnรฉrรฉ
Sadly destroyed by a careless truck driver hitting the only landmark in a hundred mile radius sometime earlier in the year, the remains of the solitary acacia, considered among the most isolated in the world, the Tree of Tรฉnรฉrรฉ, a guide for decades for caravans embarking on or returning from crossing the Sahara, were collected a put on display in the National Museum of Niger in Niamey on this day in 1973. Incredibly, the tree was included on maps of the desert, even at scales of millions-to-one. Memorialised in popular culture (see also), the tree’s story and metal sculpture that now stands in its place were featured prominently in the 2006 film La Gran Final on the 2002 FIFA World Cup final between Germany and Brazil and the challenges for a group of nomadic Tuareg to find the power and reception (using the monument as an antenna) to watch the match.