The World Is What You Make It:
This is a map that takes some time to get your head around; quite literally, because to appreciate it fully, you need to consider it both with its north side and its south side up.
[...] There is no right side up – or rather: there is no wrong side up. For this is a planisphere palindrome, a planet-chart that can be 'read' the same way 'upside up' and upside down.
That Slartibartfast was a sneaky old bugger.
It turns out that differentiating between Holland and the Netherlands is a lot more complicated than I'd appreciated:
[Via iamcal.com]
In the Mediterranean Sea southwest of Sicily, an island comes and goes. Called, alternately and among other names, depending on whose territorial interests are at stake, Graham Bank, Île Julia, the island of Ferdinandea, or, more extravagantly, a complex known as the Campi Flegrei del Mar di Sicilia (the Phlegraean Fields of the Sicily Sea), this geographic phenomenon is fueled by a range of submerged volcanoes. One peak, in particular, has been known to break the waves, forming a small, ephemeral island off the coast of Italy.
And, when it does, several nation-states are quick to claim it, including, in 1831, when the island appeared above water, "the navies of France, Britain, Spain, and Italy." Unfortunately for them, it eroded away and disappeared beneath the waves in 1832. [...]
I spent much more time than I'd intended this evening playing with Old Maps Online, which looks to be another project from the creators of the A Vision of Britain through Time site I linked to a couple of years ago.
The initial map and search interface are more powerful on the new site, but as viewing a particular map usually links out to the site actually holding the map1 the user experience from that point on can be confusing as different sites use somewhat different styles of navigation. However, the biggest and best feature of the new site is that it is global in scope.2
I know it's not the same tactile experience as leafing through an old atlas, but I'll take the convenience, flexibility and scope of the electronic version every time. Definitely a site I'll be exploring a lot.
[Via Flowing Data]
ABC News in Australia have put up some astonishing before and after pictures of Japanese towns and cities in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.1
[Via currybetdotnet]
In June 2010, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of the lava lake boiling in the depths of Nyiragongo Crater, in the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa. The team had dreamed of this: walking on the shores of the world's largest lava lake. Members of the team had been dazzled since childhood by the images of the 1960 documentary "The Devil's Blast" by Haroun Tazieff, who was the first to reveal to the public the glowing red breakers crashing at the bottom of Nyiragongo crater. [...]
This series of images of the expedition into Nyiragongo Crater is plenty spectacular, but as I scrolled down I was still unclear as to the scale of the lake. Then I came to picture #20, and all became clear: these people are several steps beyond brave. I wouldn't feel safe within 10 miles of that thing.
[Via jwz]
Brisbane floods: before and after.
Nice user interface for the gallery: horrifying images.
[Via Bifurcated Rivets]
Dan Hill has posted an epic tale of life in Brisbane as the floodwater started to rise:
We spot a large advert for chocolate milk adorning a building. "Dive into chocolately fun" it says. It seems newly relevant as we see the river, looking exactly like a vast, smooth soup of milk chocolate. The Brisbane River is famously brown at the best of times, being an extremely silty bit of river, but is now browner than ever.
The landscape round here is distinctly suburban. Not quite the manicured suburban of rich Los Angeles suburbs, or even 'Erinsborough', but the slightly more raggedy Australian version, with cars parked on lawns, rampant foliage growing in and around the low, angled roofs, set against straggly gum trees and paperbarks, a most unruly genus. But it's distinctly suburban nonetheless, which adds to the surreal aspect of views like Witton Road, where that chocolately fun engulfs a training shoe, some wheelie bins, and a box of breakfast cereal, and most of the street.
The most striking observation, for me, came as he recounted a trip to stock up on sandbags:
We've run out of sandbags [...] so we have to drive out to Kedron to pick up as many as we can load in the boot of the car. Plotting routes in and around the city is relatively complex, as you're listening for road closures on the radio, looking for the blue wriggle of creeks and rivers on the map, and trying to remember the topography of the city, all those swoops of valleys.
When was the last time you had to stop and think about whether your route took you uphill or downhill as you drove around a city?
Conquering an infinite cave. The term "infinite" isn't strictly applicable, of course, but it'll do. Amazing, awe-inspiring pictures.
[Via The Sideshow]
Take a chunk of anonymised data from British Telecom's database detailing the origin and destination of phone calls made from UK landlines, take steps to strip out numbers that belong to call centres, plot the calls on a map and you get Redrawing the Map of Great Britain from a Network of Human Interactions. Fascinating stuff.
I was surprised to see how Cumbria fared; it always felt to me as if places like Carlisle, Penrith, Whitehaven and Workington had strong ties to the North East, or certainly to Newcastle, but judging by this data that corner of the country seems to be fairly equally interested in talking to Manchester, Scotland and Tyneside.
[Via The Yorkshire Ranter]
The BBC are building an audio map of the world:
Help to create a snapshot of the world in sound!
We're really excited about Save Our Sounds, but we need your help to create an audio map of the world. We're especially keen to preserve endangered sounds for future generations.
You can get involved by sending us sounds from where you live, and then listen your way around the world with our interactive map.
[Via BBC Editors' Blog]
To say that the town of Baarle-Hertog is in Belgium is not entirely accurate:
Baarle-Hertog is noted for its complicated borders with Baarle-Nassau in the Netherlands. In total it consists of 24 separate pieces of land. Apart from the main piece (called Zondereigen) located north of the Belgian town of Merksplas, there are twenty Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands and three other pieces on the Dutch-Belgian border. There are also seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves. Six of them are located in the largest one and a seventh in the second-largest one. An eighth Dutch exclave lies in Zondereigen.
The border is so complicated that there are some houses that are divided between the two countries. There was a time when according to Dutch laws restaurants had to close earlier. For some restaurants on the border it meant that the clients simply had to change their tables to the Belgian side.
