Maps Are Fun!

[livius drusus]

I had loads of fun playing with this (http://nationalatlas.gov/natlas/natlasstart.asp) killer interactive map of the US. You can draw maps picking your own layers from the huge selection and learn about demographics, industry, population, geology, history, energy and more, at a glance. Like, for instance, there are no Western Lesser Sirens in the west. Maybe they don't like shitloads of arsenic in their ground water. Or maybe it's all the calderas.

I also love historical maps. Whether its ones with beautiful artwork, or even the plainest ones published in textbooks, they speak volumes about the time and place.

Which explains why I bought this book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060931809/qid=1101068174/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-8611658-6521763?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) on sight. It purports to be a history of William Smith, who published (and hand-colored) the first stratiographic map of England. You'd think given the man's checkered life and the incredible coolness of his work the book would be a guaranteed page-turner. Suffice it to say, I have a bone to pick with Mr. Simon Winchester.

Are there any other map fans here? Do you have any cool sources to share, online or off?

[JoeP]

Maps, ahh. I love contour maps, fictional maps, maps that show me where people or places I don't need to get to are, maps that show something other than the usual road routes.

I'll post some ideas and sources tomorrow. :yawning: :bed:

[Skep]

I'm a map lover as well. One of my most prized possessions is my National Geographic Atlas of the World. :)

[livius drusus]

Oh yes, Skep. I've spent more than a few hours turning those giant pages myself. Also, you know those removable maps that came in the middle of National Geographic magazines? The map side was always a thousand times cooler than the crap on the other side.

[livius drusus]

Maps, ahh. I love contour maps, fictional maps, maps that show me where people or places I don't need to get to are, maps that show something other than the usual road routes.

I had no idea you were such a map fetishist. Had I known, I would have made the Dallas to Ann Arbor project way fancier. :lostmap:

I'll post some ideas and sources tomorrow. :yawning: :bed:

I'm very much looking forward to it. Sleep tight.

[Ex-zombie]

I am a map hound. I even have maps for places I have never been to that I have purchased at flea markets.

Liv is the :pitch:
I spent an hour playing with the maps in your link.

[godfry n. glad]

Oooooooooo! Maps!

When I started planning my trip along the Silk Roads, I kept running into the problem of the area I wished to see tended to be at the corners of all other maps. Half in the area with China, part in the maps with Pakistan and India, part in the maps of Russia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, and part with Siberia and Irkutsk. Getting a decent map of Central Asia was difficult. A friend of mine happened to own a $$ atlas of central Asia...Lots of variations on the theme, all with Samarkand at the center of the maps. Kewl.

I'm interested in the mapping of urban areas and the resource delivery systems: roads, railroads, airports, pipelines, ports, shipping lines and the like. Having maps that show movements of people and goods over time is a charge to me, so I like historical maps. I like human migration maps, too. And diffusion of knowledge, materials, techniques and products over space and time...that kinda stuff.

I also love etchings of hand-drawn panoramic skylines of old cities....London, Edinburgh, Jerusalem, and Oxford I have. I'd like Quebec City, Halifax, Penzance Harbour with St. Michael's Mount, and the Kremlin at Moscow.

godfry

[Dingfod]

I've got boxes of road maps. When I was a kid, I would write to chambers of commerce and state tourism boards all over the place asking for whatever they could send. I've got a map of Houston dating to about 1963. What a different place that is now.

The neatest thing I've run across is the one Google had a link to this morning, keyhole.com. The free trial version is so cool I'm tempted to upgrade to the subscription version so it'll show more detail. This not only has mapping, but it is three dimensional, you can fly above the terrain like an airplane, tilting the view as desired. It is way cool.

[JoeP]

Maps, ahh. I love contour maps, fictional maps, maps that show me where people or places I don't need to get to are, maps that show something other than the usual road routes.

I had no idea you were such a map fetishist. Had I known, I would have made the Dallas to Ann Arbor project way fancier. :lostmap:
Maybe you still can? I'd love to see the actual roads followed & the topography along the way. (I love profile maps that just showed altitude along a route as a graph.)

I last visited the US in 1988 and I still have all the maps I got from the AAA. I have tourist and walking maps from just about every place I've been.

I'll post some ideas and sources tomorrow. :yawning: :bed:

I'm very much looking forward to it. Sleep tight.
This is a drive-by posting, at work, and not the ideas and sources promised. Yet.

[livius drusus]

Maybe you still can? I'd love to see the actual roads followed & the topography along the way. (I love profile maps that just showed altitude along a route as a graph.)

Hmmm... Well, the weekend ship has sailed, but we've got a short week on account of the Thanksgiving long weekend, so if you're willing to be patient I'm willing to give it a shot.

I last visited the US in 1988 and I still have all the maps I got from the AAA. I have tourist and walking maps from just about every place I've been.

Damn. Do you keep them in some kind of carefully arranged filing cabinet or are they a big stack or pile somewhere? Do you reread them at all?

This is a drive-by posting, at work, and not the ideas and sources promised. Yet.

That's cool, baby. Take your own sweet time.

[livius drusus]

I am a map hound. I even have maps for places I have never been to that I have purchased at flea markets.

What made you want to buy them? Were they attractively designed, or of really cool places, or of historical interest, or...?

Liv is the :pitch:
I spent an hour playing with the maps in your link.

Excellent. My plan for map nerd domination is finally coming to fruition. Now all I need are the sharks with laser beams on their heads and I'll be unstoppable.

[JoeP]

I last visited the US in 1988 and I still have all the maps I got from the AAA. I have tourist and walking maps from just about every place I've been.

Damn. Do you keep them in some kind of carefully arranged filing cabinet or are they a big stack or pile somewhere? Do you reread them at all?

The ones I can think of are probably in filing boxes marked North America 1988 or Kenya 1992 etc, along with the other junk I like to keep like entrance tickets. I admit I don't often look at them ... but now I have the urge. If I find a very obscure one I'll scan it and post it. :popcorn:

[JoeP]

Excellent. My plan for map nerd domination is finally coming to fruition. Now all I need are the sharks with laser beams on their heads and I'll be unstoppable.
I have a secret map that shows the location of the sharks with frikken laser beams on their heads (you forgot the frikken). What will you pay me for it?

[livius drusus]

I can pay you in frikken cheese grits and frikken fried okra.

[Corona688]

[edit] Right, I'll read more carefully. :p Might have something interesting to post later if I can find it...

[ceptimus]

I too, am a map lover. I often sit by the fire on a winter's day 'exploring' an area by studying a map. My friends don't believe me when I say I enjoy reading an interesting map more than most books. They just think I'm weird.

They're perhaps right about my weirdness, but I think it's their loss that they don't understand how map reading can be so absorbing.

[livius drusus]

What kinds of maps do you usually peruse by the fire on wintry days (I think that's a lovely, totally non-weird image, btw)? Are you an atlas man, a collector of rarities and antiquities (which I would totally be if I could afford it) or are we talking boxes and boxes of trip souvenirs like Joe has?

[beyelzu]

you know, before this thread, I would have said that I had no interest in maps.

but I would kill for one of the handmade maps drawn by explorers back in the 1600-1700s or a copy of them.


does anyone know where a guy can get a book with lots of really old maps in it?

[livius drusus]

New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415920264/qid=1101148834/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/102-8611658-6521763) might be up your alley.

[Dingfod]

I've got a gigantic book of Civil War battlefield maps. I don't know why I just stated that. Perhaps because I'm not that interested in that, but it was a gift last year and it's just gathering dust. Perhaps I could donate it to a library or something. I'm thinking this out as I write. Sorry. Nothing to see here, move along.

[livius drusus]

Send it to bey. I bet his plantation owning ass will love it.

[Dingfod]

I'm sure anyone that is a War of Northern Aggression or War On the Rebellious South buff would love this book. Shipping would probably cost as much as the book did unless I sent by barge, muletrain, or something equally slow.

[ceptimus]

I prefer paper maps to atlases. My maps aren't at all valuable, as far as I know.

Some are tattered old friends that bear the scars of journeys we have made together: ordnance survey maps of the mountains of Britain; Michelin road maps used for motorbike tours around Europe; air maps of England and Scotland that I've used during glider flights.

Others maps are still crisp and new, but hold the promise of future adventure. There are lots of mountains and hills in Scotland and Ireland that I would still like to climb. In truth I will probably never get round to most of them, but if and when I do, they won't be strangers, as I know them already by their maps.

Maps of places I never intend to travel to, or can't, as they exist only in the past or in the imagination or at interplanetary distances, are almost as interesting.

Have you ever seen the hybrid map / drawings made, mainly of the English Lake District, by A. Wainwright? His pocket guidebooks were entirely hand drawn and hand written, but he justified the text on both sides of the page, after the manner of typesetting.

[The Lone Ranger]

Anyone here familiar with GIS? It stands for Geographic Information System, and what it allows you to do is to use a computer to input data onto a map, so that you can make customized maps of just about anything. You can download data from Landsat photographs to include water features (streams, rivers, lakes, etc.), vegetation type, elevation, etc., etc. Once you've included all the data you're interested in, you can then manipulate it in the computer to your heart's content.

Want to find a place to go camping that's at least one mile from the nearest road? No problem. Download a "roads" overlay onto a digitized map of the area you're interested in, then a few keystrokes, and Presto! It'll show you a revised map with all areas that are a mile or more from the nearest road highlighted.

Want to know what you can and can't see from any given point? No problem. Download a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) onto your map, pick a point, and the computer will take into account the elevation of the surrounding terrain to tell you how far you can see in each direction, and then color-code the "visible" and "non-visible" areas on your map.

I have some really neat maps I've made of some of my favorite hiking areas with GIS. Cool stuff!

Cheers,

Michael

[Shake]

Cool link, liv! I just played around with it real quickly and found out that (if I read the legends correctly) there are definitely more women in the east (and esp. southeast) than in the western US. I'll definitely have to go back and play with that map some more!

Yeah, I love maps! Always been a big fan, and on road trips as a kid, I liked knowing where we were and where we were going. Consequently, I'm a pretty good navigator on trips. But any kind can be fun. Being a military history buff, you have to look at maps a lot. It makes you understand terrain and why the easiest path isn't always a straight line. (E.g. why it's damn near impossible to go through PA quickly heading north-south.)

That said, sites like Mapquest and Mapblast are not always to be trusted. I've found several times where they'd have sent us well out of our way. I like to use their directions in conjunction with my own maps (just to make sure they're not on crack).

One of the more interesting and surprising maps I've seen within the last year or so was a map of global blood type distributions. I found it very fascinating that a rare blood type in one part of the world could be very common in another.

-Shake
Map junkie

[beyelzu]

I've got a gigantic book of Civil War battlefield maps. I don't know why I just stated that. Perhaps because I'm not that interested in that, but it was a gift last year and it's just gathering dust. Perhaps I could donate it to a library or something. I'm thinking this out as I write. Sorry. Nothing to see here, move along.
uh, I second livs recomendation.

I would love to see that book.

if you arent using it why dont you send it to me?

I promise that I would read it more than some librarian.

[JoeP]

Well, this is still not a serious post of mapping ideas, favourites and sources. In fact it's a derail because it's not about maps at all. While leafing through the box file "North America 1988" I found a receipt from Reeves Wrecker Service, Raleigh, NC for $10 labour (OK, labor) described as "Ford Thunderbird Rental Car - Winch out of ditch". Now, I remember the rental T-bird (I worked in Raleigh for a few weeks), but I sure as hell don't remember no ditch. :?

[JoeP]

I can pay you in frikken cheese grits and frikken fried okra.
What the frik are cheese grits? I'll take the okra though.

[beyelzu]

I'm sure anyone that is a War of Northern Aggression or War On the Rebellious South buff would love this book. Shipping would probably cost as much as the book did unless I sent by barge, muletrain, or something equally slow.
well, you can send by ups ground for about 5-7 bucks anywhere in the lower 48 states.


and by the way it was the war of northern aggression.:tmtongue:

[beyelzu]

I can pay you in frikken cheese grits and frikken fried okra.
What the frik are cheese grits? I'll take the okra though.
do you not know what grits are?

really?

they come from a grits tree it grows here in the south, so quothe Lewis Grizzard

[wade-w]

I can pay you in frikken cheese grits and frikken fried okra.
What the frik are cheese grits? I'll take the okra though.

Hominy is corn with the yellow shell removed from the kernels. Grits is a porridge made from hominy. Cheese grits is grits with cheese melted into it. It's generally served with breakfast, and as far as I know is only eaten in the southern US.

[beyelzu]

I can pay you in frikken cheese grits and frikken fried okra.
What the frik are cheese grits? I'll take the okra though.

Hominy is corn with the yellow shell removed from the kernels. Grits is a porridge made from hominy. Cheese grits is grits with cheese melted into it. It's generally served with breakfast, and as far as I know is only eaten in the southern US.
damn you, he would have believed me about that grits tree, if you hadnt intervened. :tmgrin:

[livius drusus]

Some are tattered old friends that bear the scars of journeys we have made together: ordnance survey maps of the mountains of Britain; Michelin road maps used for motorbike tours around Europe; air maps of England and Scotland that I've used during glider flights.

I had never heard of an ordnance survey map before, so I did Googled (http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/) only to find that they're insanely cool. A map showing every house, every fountain, every stop sign... A body could spend hours on something like that.

Glider flights over England and Scotland sound more than a little cool too. Do you actually read a map when you're up there? Pardon my ignorance, but can you, well, use your hands?

Others maps are still crisp and new, but hold the promise of future adventure. There are lots of mountains and hills in Scotland and Ireland that I would still like to climb. In truth I will probably never get round to most of them, but if and when I do, they won't be strangers, as I know them already by their maps.

If you have ordnance survey maps, I imagine you know them very well indeed.

Maps of places I never intend to travel to, or can't, as they exist only in the past or in the imagination or at interplanetary distances, are almost as interesting.

That reminds me of another map category I love: old city maps where you can compare and contrast. Needless to say, Rome is particularly well-suited to that kind of exploration because the city has been mapped for a few thousand years.

Have you ever seen the hybrid map / drawings made, mainly of the English Lake District, by A. Wainwright? His pocket guidebooks were entirely hand drawn and hand written, but he justified the text on both sides of the page, after the manner of typesetting.

I have not, but they sound breathtaking. All I know about the English Lake District I learned from Pride and Prejudice, so you can imagine that's not very much. Google tells me that he was an amazing artist. The detail in those drawings is magnificent, and I love that he was basically an amateur from meager circumstances who got a white collar job and went walking with pen and paper in hand. Very reminiscent of William Smith.

[livius drusus]

Anyone here familiar with GIS? It stands for Geographic Information System, and what it allows you to do is to use a computer to input data onto a map, so that you can make customized maps of just about anything.

And here's another map I had never heard of before. Man, am I glad I started this thread. It sounds fabulous, Michael. I Googled it (whatever did we do before search engines?) and it seems we just missed GIS Day (http://www.gisday.com/), which was last Wednesday the 17th. I hope you celebrated in grand style. :conga:

[Corona688]

Here's a fictional map I always thought was beautiful... S'from an old Accolade game that since then has become open-source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/).

http://burningsmell.dyndns.org/sc2maps/SC2map5-thumbnail.png (http://burningsmell.dyndns.org/sc2maps/SC2map5-fixed.png)
Clicky to see whole thing. Warning -- big!

[Corona688]

do you not know what grits are? Hell, even I've had grits, and I live in the frozen white north. :p It's kinda the cornmeal-equivalent of oatmeal...

[livius drusus]

Cool link, liv! I just played around with it real quickly and found out that (if I read the legends correctly) there are definitely more women in the east (and esp. southeast) than in the western US. I'll definitely have to go back and play with that map some more!

It's a blast, isn't it? I was amazed at how almost all the glacial aquifers are in the midwest, with a smattering in the northeast. And did you get a load of the arsenic in the water out west? :damn:


Being a military history buff, you have to look at maps a lot. It makes you understand terrain and why the easiest path isn't always a straight line. (E.g. why it's damn near impossible to go through PA quickly heading north-south.)

Do you look at historic maps when you're on a military history jag? Do you have any particular wars/battles/terrains that are favorite studies?

That said, sites like Mapquest and Mapblast are not always to be trusted. I've found several times where they'd have sent us well out of our way. I like to use their directions in conjunction with my own maps (just to make sure they're not on crack).

That's a good point. I can't say I've ever questioned directions I've gotten off Mapquest, but I've definitely seen a suspicious thing or two. Paper maps are still very much necessary.

One of the more interesting and surprising maps I've seen within the last year or so was a map of global blood type distributions. I found it very fascinating that a rare blood type in one part of the world could be very common in another.


Wow, that is fascinating. Where did you come across this map, may I ask? Was it online, by any chance?

[livius drusus]

Well, this is still not a serious post of mapping ideas, favourites and sources. In fact it's a derail because it's not about maps at all. While leafing through the box file "North America 1988" I found a receipt from Reeves Wrecker Service, Raleigh, NC for $10 labour (OK, labor) described as "Ford Thunderbird Rental Car - Winch out of ditch". Now, I remember the rental T-bird (I worked in Raleigh for a few weeks), but I sure as hell don't remember no ditch. :?

It was a long time ago and in another country. And besides, the winch is dead. :beaugest:

[Dingfod]

Naw, grits is hominy, which is hulled corn kernels soaked in lye water, and then boiled. Mmmm, fried grits.

[livius drusus]

Here's a fictional map I always thought was beautiful... S'from an old Accolade game that since then has become open-source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/).

It is beautiful, I agree. (It is also insanely large. I'm at work and it's taking minutes to fully load.) Astronomic maps, real or fictional, are totally engrossing. ceptimus mentioned perusing them, and I know I've spent hours on them ever since my parents bought in the Star Registry scam and named a little twinkler in Triangulum after me. Once the star named after me thrill was gone, the fascination with astronomic maps remained.

[Shake]

Yes, liv, the blood type map was online somewhere. Damned if I know where, though. I'll take a look for you though, as I think I have it on email somewhere. If I find it, I'll post it.

As for arsenic in the water or glacial aquifers, I must confess I only played with it very briefly, so I haven't explored it much yet. I fully intend to play around with that some more, though.

I know I'm answering somewhat shotgun style here, so I apologize if it's hard to follow. As far as military maps, it all depends on what I'm reading up on at the time. My father is also a huge history buff (with an emphasis on the Civil War), so he's shown me maps ranging from battles involving the Spartans and Persians all the way up to the Vietnam era. It's nice seeing maps used in the movies too. Patton for instance, shows a good deal of map work.

I even remember checking the fictional maps in Tolkien's books to follow along with where the characters were.

Finally, this page (http://www.longacrefarms.com/maze.html) only goes back to the '02 maze, but I was the mapholder when we did the maze in '01.

edit: liv, blood type maps are on this page (http://sophistikatedkids.com/turkic/63%20Blood%20Types/Blood%20TypesEn.htm)

[Skep]

Here's a fictional map I always thought was beautiful... S'from an old Accolade game that since then has become open-source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sc2/).

It is beautiful, I agree. (It is also insanely large. I'm at work and it's taking minutes to fully load.) Astronomic maps, real or fictional, are totally engrossing. ceptimus mentioned perusing them, and I know I've spent hours on them ever since my parents bought in the Star Registry scam and named a little twinkler in Triangulum after me. Once the star named after me thrill was gone, the fascination with astronomic maps remained.
I think you'd like StarCalc (http://www.m31.spb.ru/StarCalc/main.htm). I use it all the time. Couldn't live without it.

StarCalc is the fastest professional astronomy planetarium & star mapping program for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP (StarCalc version for PocketPC computers you can found here). It illustrates star positions of any instance of the day observed from any geographic locations on the Earth. The star positions can be viewed and presented as images of semispherical whole sky or any of the user defined sub-areas. These images can be zoomed at different scales, rotated, screen-captured and printed. Also, StarCalc has many other functions of calculation and showing of sky objects. Best of all StarCalc is freeware.

[Clutch Munny]

Maps are kick-ass conveyors of information. I wish they were much, much more common. For instance, if I'm reading about the riots of the Blues and the Greens in Constantinople, I'm thinking, "Show me where it happened! Where's a map?" I always feel like I don't understand some description of events unless I can see the terrain.

[livius drusus]

I know I'm answering somewhat shotgun style here, so I apologize if it's hard to follow.

Not a problem in the least, Shake. Thanks for answering.

As far as military maps, it all depends on what I'm reading up on at the time. My father is also a huge history buff (with an emphasis on the Civil War), so he's shown me maps ranging from battles involving the Spartans and Persians all the way up to the Vietnam era. It's nice seeing maps used in the movies too. Patton for instance, shows a good deal of map work.

Do you mean they show maps with blinking red dots and moving lines and whatnot on the screen, or they show people using maps? I like the former a lot too. The first one I remember is from Raiders of the Lost Arc, though. :blush:

I even remember checking the fictional maps in Tolkien's books to follow along with where the characters were.

I always refer back to maps in novels, particularly in fantasy and science fiction books. In fact, I scrutinize them at some length because otherwise the story won't flow well for me. I can't just follow along ignorantly on a mission to save worlds. It seriously annoys me if I don't have the geography clear in my head.

Finally, this page (http://www.longacrefarms.com/maze.html) only goes back to the '02 maze, but I was the mapholder when we did the maze in '01.

Well that's just insanely cool. Insanely cool. :bow:

edit: liv, blood type maps are on this page (http://sophistikatedkids.com/turkic/63%20Blood%20Types/Blood%20TypesEn.htm)

Awesome, thank you. And they come complete with essays co-written by Isaac Asimov. It doesn't get much better than that. :)

[livius drusus]

I think you'd like StarCalc (http://www.m31.spb.ru/StarCalc/main.htm). I use it all the time. Couldn't live without it.

That's just delicious. I bet you have every plug-in they offer. Do you use it for work purposes, personal study, fun, all of the above?

[livius drusus]

Maps are kick-ass conveyors of information. I wish they were much, much more common. For instance, if I'm reading about the riots of the Blues and the Greens in Constantinople, I'm thinking, "Show me where it happened! Where's a map?" I always feel like I don't understand some description of events unless I can see the terrain.

This (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Anecdota/home.html) is what I was reading not a week ago, and this (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/constantinople1.gif) is what I used to back up the relatively meager information I got from the appendices (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Anecdota/maps*/Constantinople.html). I call that freaky.

[Skep]

I think you'd like StarCalc (http://www.m31.spb.ru/StarCalc/main.htm). I use it all the time. Couldn't live without it.

That's just delicious. I bet you have every plug-in they offer. Do you use it for work purposes, personal study, fun, all of the above?
I just use it for personal study and fun; mostly to keep track of planetary motions, locations of bright stars, and eclipses. :)

[wade-w]

I too love maps. But I've worked with charts a lot as well, much more than I have with maps. How many of you know the difference between a map and a chart?

[Skep]

How many of you know the difference between a map and a chart?
I only had a vague idea 10 minutes ago. Now that I've edumacated myself, I'm an expert. :D

http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/staff/map-cht.htm

[ceptimus]

Glider flights over England and Scotland sound more than a little cool too. Do you actually read a map when you're up there? Pardon my ignorance, but can you, well, use your hands?
I've flown two sorts of glider. On hang gliders, you either don't take a map at all, or have one in a holder strapped to the control bar. You can take your hands off the A frame, but it would be very difficult to fold a map, so we don't!

In a sailplane, it's quite easy to use a map, and we even write on them with a soft pencil, to record where we've been. It would be a bit dangerous to unfold a big map in the cockpit, but the maps we use cover a large area of country, and so we can usually fold them before we take off to show all the areas we intend to fly over. You don't want too much detail when you're flying - it's difficult to identify small villages from the air, so a large scale map just makes you feel lost. Generally you are looking for linear features like rivers, railway lines and major roads.

I have not, but they sound breathtaking. All I know about the English Lake District I learned from Pride and Prejudice, so you can imagine that's not very much. Google tells me that he was an amazing artist. The detail in those drawings is magnificent, and I love that he was basically an amateur from meager circumstances who got a white collar job and went walking with pen and paper in hand. Very reminiscent of William Smith.
I'll try and post some photographs of A. Wainwright's work, and some air maps too. Tomorrow, if I get the time.

[Clutch Munny]

Maps are kick-ass conveyors of information. I wish they were much, much more common. For instance, if I'm reading about the riots of the Blues and the Greens in Constantinople, I'm thinking, "Show me where it happened! Where's a map?" I always feel like I don't understand some description of events unless I can see the terrain.

This (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Anecdota/home.html) is what I was reading not a week ago, and this (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/constantinople1.gif) is what I used to back up the relatively meager information I got from the appendices (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Anecdota/maps*/Constantinople.html). I call that freaky.


I call it beautiful.

:yup:

[ceptimus]

Here's a photo of a page from Book one of A. Wainwright's 'A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'.

Note how the 'maps' show contours, but they are also drawings, showing the skyline. The text is all handwritten. The pages with large blocks of text are both left and right justified. Not only that, he never split a word by using a hyphen.

Wainwright started the guides at age 45, and set himself 13 years to complete the task. There are seven books in the series. He completed the job on time, despite not being able to drive and having to make all his journeys on foot, or by public transport. He also held down a full time job as Borough Treasurer of the town of Kendal.

[livius drusus]

It's astonishingly beautiful, cep. I hardly know what to say. Someone should make a Wainwright font.

[Clutch Munny]

Here's a photo of a page from Book one of A. Wainwright's 'A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'.

Gorgeous. And a charming commentary, by the look of it!

I hiked the Lake District with a boring old Ordnance Survey 1:50,000. Wish I'd known about Wainwright.