The map is not the territory ...

I came across this blog item from my work inbox. I subscribe to the daily feed of the San Jose Mercury News (they provided the best info when Knight Ridder -- meaning us at the Daily News and Inquirer -- went on the auction block in 2005-6), and this is from their tech writer, about Google Maps' new features.

NatGeo cartographer takes to the airwaves

I didn't hear the segment in question, but apparently the folks at NPR's "Talk of the Nation" erroneously discussed that the Nile is the only river that flows south to north. To respond to their error, they invited Allen Carroll, Chief Cartographer for National Geographic, to talk about "why people tend to think that rivers run south." The discussion came at the end of Hour 1 today, 11/28, which is located at this link. Not every day that a cartographer appears on the radio. He talked a little about map layout, and our perceptions of which way North is. It was cool to hear his comments after taking this course.

Exercise 10, all four maps here

Here are the four maps for Exercise 10:
New Jersey population density
New Jersey physio-geographic features
Geologic hazards of the Western United States
Rainfall, South Asia cities
These could change between now and Monday, when they are due, but will be updated at these links.
Please note, there was some printing trouble with the South Asia map on Wed., 11/28, which I will try to rectify by using a different computer in the geography lab.

Vendee Globe, less than 1 year to go!

Here's a nice little animated (and slightly interactive) map of the upcoming around-the-world solo sailing race. Just a nice, quiet race -- all by your lonesome -- on the high seas for a few short months. No pressure: One foot on land or one foot on another boat, and BAM! you're out of the race.

New mapping link from UPenn

Thanks to my colleague Ed, for passing on this mapping site from the University of Pennsylvania. Looks like GIS for regular folks!
Here is the home page of this site.

Proposal for my class project on Nike bases

Here is a link to my proposal for my final project. I also will hand it in on Monday.

Exercise 9 (subtitled, Overcoming Cartographer's Block)

I had trouble coming up with something creative from the data presented for Exercise 9, but remembered seeing something in our text that I thought could be applied. I found a county-by-county chart from USA Today on how New Jersey went during the 2004 presidential election between John Kerry and George W. Bush. The Garden State is assumed to be a Democrat stronghold -- a blue state -- but examination of the data, as presented here, shows otherwise. Not the most original creation, but I think I did what was necessary, including playing with fonts (I like Arial, for the most part, though I had to tweak to get it to work well), color and placement of type, colors of the counties themselves (I wonder if the person who decided on blue and red got a patent), locating symbols, and other things. Many thanks, as always, to Dr. Hasse for his help on the legend.
I was unhappy with the scale bar; I just knew it was not right. I went over things in my head and determined that perhaps putting on a scale bar early, before I blew up the map, rendered it inaccurate once I did increase the size of NJ. Sure enough, I deleted what I had, and inserted a new scale bar, and Voila! Accuracy!
Now, who wants this info for 2008 ... Rudy? Hillary?

Putting the "urban" back in "New Urbanism"

Here's an interesting article about a new "development," Spring Arts Point, um, springing up in Philadelphia.

Navajo seek remedy for uranium sites

Here is an interesting map about uranium sites in Indian country out West.