The Map Room

“Who’s to say really?” says Complicated Shoes. Via Fuck Yeah Cartography!

Today’s xkcd: “The World According to a Group of Americans, Who Turned out to Be Unexpectedly Good at Geography, Derailing Our Attempt to Illustrate Their Country’s Attitude Toward the Rest of the World.”

Only the Weekly World News could bring you the story that the lost city of Atlantis has been found on Google Maps.

“The photo taken by Google Maps is most definitely the Lost City of Atlantis,” said Yale Mythologist Anthony Braxwell. “It displays all the trademark characteristics of the legendary metropolis. A shimmering castle, glistening drawbridges made of gold, crystal spires — yep, it’s all there.”

“I’m just surprised it took so long to find,” added Braxwell.

Atlantis is, apparently, in plain sight 10 miles southwest of Dingle, Ireland. (No word on whether Bat Boy has been spotted on the town’s streets.)

“I’ve lived here for 75 years,” said Brian MacElhose, a farmer and lifelong resident of Dingle, “and never noticed that gigantic city floating out there in the ocean. How could I have missed it? Oh well, I guess that’s what Google Maps is for.”

There’s a bonus in the search results for the “screenshot” of Atlantis in Street View — see if you can catch it.

Via Cartophile, @mrgeog, and @gergmuure, here are three maps of the world according to stereotypes. The second map is by our old friend Yanko Tsvetkov. I think the third map is the most offensive of all.

Previously: Mapping European Stereotypes; Yanko Tsvetkov’s Beloved Europe.

Dear Sir, France is bacon. That is all. You’re welcome. Via @cartophilia.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comes up with an interesting example of humanity’s sense of entitlement: how long it takes a GPS receiver to get a satellite lock. Via @wilw….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Seen on Fail Blog: North America as a dragon — with Newfoundland apparently as a flaming booger. Is that a good thing? Via @cartophilia….  •  Continue reading this entry.

xkcd’s updated map of online communities “uses size to represent total social activity in a community — that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Yanko Tsvetkov continues to create more maps of European stereotypes beyond the one we saw in May 2009. Add to that one maps of Europe according to the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, and Britain. Via Mapperz. Previously: Yanko…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The United States of Star Wars assigns a planet from the Star Wars universe to each state (list here), which then illustrated appropriately. According to the creator, Rebecca Crane, “Planets were assigned based on partial terrain, landmarks that correlate…  •  Continue reading this entry.

xkcd again. Oddly enough, I was like this before GPS: give me your address, I’ll find it on a map and figure out how to get there. People navigate differently; those who don’t navigate like this don’t get those…  •  Continue reading this entry.

First Darth Vader, now Yoda….  •  Continue reading this entry.

It’s a little over a year old, but I’ve only come across it now: Europe According to Estonians. Worth it for the cartography alone….  •  Continue reading this entry.

You know, xkcd does have a point there … Previous xkcd entries: xkcd on Google Latitude; East Is West; xkcd on Driving Directions; Upcoming Hurricanes; D&D Map of Online Communities….  •  Continue reading this entry.

John Horrigan recounts his encounter, in a local travel shop, with a hand-drawn “Texas Globe,” which depicts the world as seen by a stereotypical, bigoted Texan. “Half the Earth is filled by a swollen United States, with Texas taking…  •  Continue reading this entry.

To be fair, New Mexico Soap is the name of the company, and among their products is a line of soaps in the shape of various states. Via Cartophilia….  •  Continue reading this entry.

It’s Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you), and TomTom is announcing Star Wars voices for its navigation devices (press release). Darth Vader is available now, with others to come later — but who cares about them? This…  •  Continue reading this entry.

McSweeney’s: Realistic Google Maps Walking Directions When in a Different Country, by Zach Jones. If you know McSweeney’s, you already have an idea where this is going….  •  Continue reading this entry.

In last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, Homer got a GPS. I think you can figure out how that went. Via GPS Tracklog….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The shmoo-like Google employees from College Humour’s “Google Street View Guys” video return to image the world for Google Earth from a balloon. (Note: it’s not entirely clean.) Via Google Earth Blog. Previously: Google Street View Guys….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Onion reports that Fritolaysia has cut off chiplomatic relations with Snakistan, in another one of those Onion riffs on geography: “The dispute over increased prices and decreased serving sizes escalated when Snakistan, swayed by the influence of the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Fail Blog does maps, too….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Onion: World Map Rearranged to Accommodate Poor Geography Skills of Americans — Nations Ordered Alphabetically. Via Cartophilia….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google Street View Guys, a video on CollegeHumor in which two shmoo-like Google employees go on a road trip taking Street View imagery. Via Very Spatial….  •  Continue reading this entry.

This fun short video from Sheepfilms reminds me of the funny videos done about Google Earth and Street View a while back — they all intersect the map and the interface with reality. Via Gadling. Previously: The Vacationeers: Google My…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Web comic xkcd’s take on Google Latitude’s privacy implications is … about what you’d expect. And as succinct an explanation as there will likely ever be of why location services will probably never take off….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Apropos of the whole OMG-GPS-is-going-to-fail thing, the Grauniad’s Tim Dowling has some advice for drivers who might suddenly have to do without their in-car navigation systems, in the form of a FAQ for paper maps. Some examples: I need to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Yanko Tsvektov’s sharp-tongued map of Europe, Where I Live, was created in response to last winter’s gas shortages triggered by the spat between Russia and Ukraine. Via Boing Boing….  •  Continue reading this entry.

David Mumford writes to point to Roger Pountain’s curious story of a map his son created on the unfinished wall of their kitchen: I had found my oldest son Alistair (25) up a ladder with a felt-tip marker and…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Apart from some rather obscure industry in-jokes and an atrocious pun, the focus of this year’s geospatial-industry silliness seems to be Google Street View and its impact on privacy. Google Earth Blog announces that the next-generation Street View will include…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Dead Pixel in Google Earth (2008) is a work of concept art by Helmut Smits; the 82×82-centimetre square of burned grass represents one pixel from an altitude of one kilometre. Via La Cartoteca. (Photo credit: Jeroen Wandemaker.)…  •  Continue reading this entry.

When you’re on an expedition to the North Pole, and you’re too close to magnetic north to use a compass, it’s too cold for GPS, and it’s cloudy and you can’t see the sun, how do you navigate? Answer: lacy…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This is silly: Gizmodo’s Photoshop contest inviting people to make up things you’ll never see on Google Street View. Above: Kevin Foster’s first-place homage to Blade Runner; as you might expect given the Giz’s readership, science fiction tropes abound….  •  Continue reading this entry.

xkcd is back again, with some questions about terminology. It’s all about your starting point. (Thanks, Frank.) Previously: xkcd on Driving Directions; Upcoming Hurricanes; D&D Map of Online Communities….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Onion also has an election map. It’s what you’d expect. Via MAPS-L….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment recently took a swing at the touchscreen interactive electoral maps that have become nearly ubiquitous in U.S. election coverage (i.e., John King on CNN). Here’s the entire segment: Via Very Spatial….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Earlier (yes, I know I’m late), Web comic xkcd had some fun with driving directions — the printed-out-from-Google-Maps sort. Via Very Spatial and Google Maps Mania. Still earlier (would it kill Randall to use datestamps?), how about this take…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Web comic xkcd imagines upcoming hurricanes. Via Cartophilia….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Vacationeers, they are at it again: Via Cartophilia. Previously: Google Maps Street View Is Right Behind You….  •  Continue reading this entry.

A few quick map and map-related gems to share with you: Claire showcases another collection of map tattoos. Indiana Jones and the Fonts on the Maps: Mark Simonson notes that the maps used in the Indiana Jones movies are anachronistic….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Hilarity ensues when road painters marking no-parking areas on a road in Waltham Abbey, Essex, paint the wrong side of the road because they read the map upside down. (This is not the upside-down map the Australians had in mind.)…  •  Continue reading this entry.

GPS Review has a clip from an episode of (the U.S. version of) The Office that satirizes the news stories about GPS-navigation-related accidents….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Roundups of April Foolery related to Google Maps and Google Earth are available at Google Earth Blog and Google Maps Mania. X-ray and thermal imagery, copyrighted landscapes, and smiley faces abound. And how is this not an April Fool’s joke?…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Times has the 10 most bizarre sights in Google Street View; Valleywag has the pictures….  •  Continue reading this entry.

John Krygier points to the “Longitude and Latitude” song. Performed by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans, the song comes from Space Songs, one of several science-education albums recorded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Six of those albums can…  •  Continue reading this entry.

At least a year old, but I only saw this FedEx ad for the first time this morning:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Vacationeers take Google Maps Street View a little too far: Via Valleywag. Previously: Real-Time Satellite Imagery: EarthNow vs. The Simpsons; The Truth About Google Earth….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Introducing the Hipster GPS: “Inspired by 43Folders’s Hipster PDA, the Hipster GPS takes a similarly low tech approach. Also, the price of entry is far below that of an electronic GPS system.” Photo by James Foreman. Via 43Folders….  •  Continue reading this entry.

XKCD’s map of online communities purports to represent the estimated size of each community by geographic area; more noteworthy is that it’s in the style of a D&D (or fantasy trilogy) map and has lots of little in-jokes, web-related…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Live, accessible satellite imagery is a pipe dream, but EarthNow is probably as close as we’ll ever get: it’s not live, but (updated; see below) it is real-time — just delayed a few hours. It’s essentially a Java applet…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This didn’t turn up on MapHist until April 2, but I think there’s an even chance that you’ll enjoy it all the same. It’s a riff on Peter Trickett’s claim that the Portuguese discovered Australia, and it apparently comes to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Holy crap. A Welsh man sent a letter to a friend in Cornwall with no address or even the name of a town on the envelope — just a map with an arrow labelled “somewhere here” — and it…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Oh. So that’s how it’s done. Via Matt….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Canadians in general must have maps on the brain; it’s not just me, and it’s not just the Canadian bloggers, cartographers and geospatial pros that keep getting featured on this blog (see, for example, the two previous posts). Otherwise, why…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Screenhead draws our attention to this ad for Google Maps (QuickTime), which is almost certainly not legit, but rather a production done on spec by a firm. Still. Giggle away….  •  Continue reading this entry.