Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
AP has a map here (interactive flash) on local economic conditions; my home county (DuPage) has (in the last two years) seen unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies double, and we’re nowhere near the bottom. Check it out.
Just a followup note here from me on a topic broached earlier in my LJ version of the journal about the Chinese explorer Zheng He. I was gassing on about ‘we need fresher AH situations’ and Steve Silver brought up the idea of Zheng He’s expeditions finding Australia and colonizing it (as it would have [...]
An online, detailed map of Henry VIII’s London and Westminster. (pre 1530s) Add in an 1801 map of the area, with some country detail. Also, an 1801 London map, and a 1799 one.
Coming Anarchy also highlights multiple historical places with the same name; Albania, Iberia, Alexandria, various African nations, and Guinea. They don’t have one for Galicia, but they ought to.
From the Coming Anarchy site: projected maps of Europe in the future and the former Yugoslav areas, along with their tag on microstates. Personally, I strongly doubt some of this; France has been doing a thorough stomp of its minority groups (linguistics-wise, especially) for the last 100+ years to Make Everyone Parisian, and the Bosniak [...]
I’m looking at a point in the history of the Kingdom of Qin during the Warring States period that would have most easily short-circuited the Qin efforts to conquer the other kingdoms and establish an empire. Suggestions welcome. What I’m looking at is that the idea of China as a unified imperial state is nowhere [...]
I can deal very well with a President who is a Geography geek (like yours truly).
Some GIS professor thinks that by using his systems for tracking flora and fauna that he’s figured out where Osama bin Laden is. I think it’s crap, but he might find the ghost of Marlon Perkins.
As we have cable here, I don’t worry much about the conversion from Analog to Digital broadcasting. However, I do have friends who will be affected, rabbit-ears and all, and this set of maps should show you what the difference will be in your area as to the range of broadcasting with digital. Of course, [...]
Many countries have come into being and changed their public names since they became a separate nation. For this one, I’ll give you the old colonial name, and you tell me the modern name. Note that some of the places I’m giving you were eaten up by a larger local state and don’t exist as [...]
Old and “future” Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority maps. Good also for alternate history types who want non-present stuff and map / mass transit fans everywhere.
Ohio Department of Transportation has a whole bunch of map information online; some of them are in MrSid versions, and some in TIFF. If you need help with those, ask, and I can recommend converters. Their basic state (and localities) maps are here. You can also request a printed map for free online. The historical [...]
Silliness in boundaries, where fusses first created before 1750 have made the boundaries between India and Bangladesh a serious mess of someone-else’s problem. Of course, this all should have been settled out long ago…
They’re teaching Meredith cartography in 4th grade; she brought home some materials with her and asked me to put them in recycling. “That’s *baby* cartography”, she said with a grimace. Wow. Well, she takes after her old man on that one…
At various times, I get into research projects; some simmer on for decades in various forms, and some break off and pick up speed because I happen to run into something that really fuels the fire, so to speak. My library here is largely one that I use for reference. I have a huge amount [...]