A look at all the factors that went into choosing the Apollo landing sites, including this gem:
Famous amateur astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore, also produced a hand drawn map of the moon from his own observations using his homemade telescope at his home in Selsey, Sussex. These detailed pen and ink maps of the Moon’s surface were used by NASA as part of their preparations for the moon landing.
The Decolonial Atlas is a growing collection of maps which, in some way, help us to challenge our relationships with the land, people, and state. It’s based on the premise that cartography is not as objective as we’re made to believe.
For example: Names and Locations of the Top 100 People Killing the Planet — a cartogram showing the location of decision makers in the top 100 climate-hostile companies.
This map is a response to the pervasive myth that we can stop climate change if we just modify our personal behavior and buy more green products. Whether or not we separate our recycling, these corporations will go on trashing the planet unless we stop them.
Lighthouses of the world, mapped.
How cartography made early modern global trade possible.
Maps and legends. Beautiful!
Oodles and oodles of data on cities, including gorgeous animations of urban growth over time.
These diagrams of early networks feel like manuscripts that you’d half expect to be marked with “Here be dragons” at the edges.
A list of alternatives to Google’s products.
Minimalist cartography.
Procedurally generated medieval town plans. Pick a size and then have some fun with the “warp” option.
While a geographical map is helpful if you want to find your way around the world, a population cartogram is the representation that we need if we want to know where our fellow humans are at home.
This ever-growing curated collection of interface patterns on CodePen is a reliable source of inspiration.
This is a fascinating way to explore time and place—a spyglass view of hundred year old maps overlaid on the digital maps of today.
I really like getting Paul’s insights into building his Bradshaw’s Guide project. Here he shares his process for typography, images and geolocation.
A fascinating bit of cartographic reverse engineering, looking at how Google has an incredible level of satellite-delivered building detail that then goes into solving the design problem of marking “commercial corridors” (or Areas Of Interest) on their maps.
You can use Google Maps to explore the worlds of our solar system …and take a look inside the ISS.
I quite like this proposal for geo element in HTML, especially that it has a fallback built in (like video). I’m guessing the next step is to file an issue and create a web component to demonstrate how this could work.
That brings up another question: what do you name a custom element that you’d like to eventually become part of the spec? You can’t simply name it geo because you have to include a hyphen. geo-polyfill? geo-proposal? or polyfill-geo? proposal-geo?
When it seems like all our online activity is being tracked by Google, Facebook, and co., it comforts me to think of all the untracked usage out there, from shared (or fake) Facebook accounts to the good ol’ sneakernet:
Packets of information can be distributed via SMS and mobile 3G but also pieces of paper, USB sticks and Bluetooth.
Connectivity isn’t binary. Long live the papernet!
In this English language alternative to latitude and longitude coordinates, the Clearleft office is located at:
cross.rooms.quick
Everything you never wanted to know about conveying elevation information on maps, delivered in Peter’s always-entertaining style and illustrated with interactive examples.
A wonderful Zooniverse-like project from the New York Public Library:
Help unlock New York City’s past by identifying buildings and other details on beautiful old maps.