8-BIT IS BACK

I hate to be blunt, but if you're reading a blog about mapping, then you're also probably interested in fantasy games & novels, and you are therefore my friend, a nerd - Nerd! So instead of denying the truth, you might as well click on the latest April fools day stunt by the good people at google maps... similar to a previous Choice map post a few years back called retro get it yo, google has gone and turned our world into an 8-bit fantasy quest. Nerd!

CIUDAD NAZCA

If (like me) you find yourself fascinated by the mysterious Nazca Lines in Peru, or perhaps you enjoyed the imaginary 'set' construction within the excellent movie Dogville, or if you're some weird Choice Map Tuesday fan who has actually read my other posts: castles made of sand or the mysterious sliding rocks of the racetrack Playa (?), then this post's for you!!! If not, well to be honest then I got nothing for ya and you're not welcome here anyway!... just joking, I desperately need you to watch this video of a 1:1 scale imaginary city mapped-out in the middle of nowhere.

WISDOM OF THE WIND

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south then it turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. All the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, like chasing after the wind
- Ecclesiastes 4:14

WATER-COLOUR COOLNESS

Most people are probably familiar with the water-colour paintings of Monet or Kandinsky and assume that this style is no longer relevant to us in this day-and-age, but then again most people are idiots, and aren’t familiar with Stamen designs. Stamen (pronounced in a similar way to ‘Newman’ of Seinfeld) are always doing such cool things, that they make us fellow map-makers jealous. One such work is this dynamic water-colour world-map. "Stamen!"
If you're actually interested in this (?), here's how they did it... water-colour and texture.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Ah, gay Paree, you beguiling city you - your irresistible cobbled streets, smokey bars and red wine indulgences flood the romance of our hearts like subway stations filling with people - each stop; another dream, another twinkling star, another delicacy in a moveable feast. Gaze here my friends at the celestial city

WHITE MEN CAN'T MAP

As the wolf will lie down with the lamb, so too will the jock lie down with the nerd. In this week's post, the shooting positions of basketball's NBA superstars are deconstructed by a geeky b-ball fanatic. What we see are not only visually satisfying images, but also, I think we see mainstream acceptance of how mapping can be used to unlock spatial potential, and literally change the shape of the game.  click here to view

BIT OF A STRETCH

Let us my friend, consider the intriguing case of 'art imitating life... imitating art' - what the hell? Well, first came the City of London (with all it's multitude of tubes and buses), and then came the tube-map of London (which took stylistic liberties with spatial accuracy for the 'good' of representational comprehension) and then along comes this street-map based on the tube map (which turns the whole thing on its head). Phew, maybe just click this link and let the people who made it, explain it better.

WON'T YOU TAKE ME TO A FUNKY TOWN

Warning, read no further if you think you may have any reason at all to regret a bleary-eyed ruckus karaoke night (this means you!); orientating yourself with this map (which replaces street names with song titles) will probably cause you to sing the song over in your head, and thus recall those awful sessions that time and alcohol had mercifully repressed for you.

ZOOM IN AND ENHANCE

Look away from this geographical phenomenon if you can, but the chances are you're not even reading this. It's a shame, because I was going to tell you exactly where in the world this is located.  Yes, captured here is the recorded process of zooming in upon an actual location in google earth - some say this particular location is the gateway to Hell, others ponder the fractal nature of our universe - as a map maker though it presents an intriguing situation where every map of the area is always at the perfect scale.

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

There are some folk who think that Man never landed on the moon in 1969. The conspiracy theorists look at the footage of the fluttering flag, or they look at the shadows on the rocks and they say; 'no way!'. Strangely enough though, there has never been any address by those theorists of these awesome maps of the far side of the moon - perhaps because they offer incontrovertible proof of a moon landing?! Put simply, there is no way to fake this lava-lamp palette of browns and oranges (ie you would need to be a child of the age) and have it be spatially accurate (ie posses modern satellite technology). Get your printers ready people, you'll be wanting prints of the pdfs for your wall.