Today we so goodbye to yet another week and hello to another weekend. While we do so, let's recount the #DailyBrainCandiii articles we have shared through out this week. Dive into a lot of history, a little intrigue, and soar into the sky country with this week's #WeekliiiRoundUp!
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a… Well, it is just a plane after all. We shared a fun article from the New York Times this week about airplanes and the science of flying. We as map makers, map readers, and geographic gurus are so used to studying the areas around us – preferably those regions where our own two feet have stood. It isn’t often we think about the mapping of other planes, the sky country. Every pun intended.
If you love history, maps, and devastation, this article is for you. Throughout Word War II, the German Luftwaffe dropped thousands of bombs on London. Throughout the span of six years, rescue groups combined with the London Country Council to record the extent of damage – as well as what caused it – onto 1916 Ordnance Survey maps. These maps, along with diary entries, have survived all this time to become a look into the challenges citizens faced in the past, the potential damages of a wartime error, and emergency response practices.
Let’s get visual. As you already know, creating a clear visual hierarchy within a map is incredibly important. Not only do you want to properly represent the features you have included in the map, but you also want to lead the reader into the most – and thereby, least – important features. Besides, it does not hurt if there is a certain aesthetic charm to your overall design. This article gives you tips on the best ways to employ transparency and blend modes (think Multiply, but without the math) to create such effects.
It sometimes happens that our #DailyBrainCandiii posts follow a theme. Whether intended or not, my lips are sealed. This week seems to have been one of those instances, throwing in not just one – but two – posts on the mapping efforts made throughout the second World War. While the previous article speaks to using maps for emergency response, this article discusses the value of employing maps for intelligence. This intel? Stolen Japanese military maps scattered across the United States for safekeeping.
Not all the land we spend our lives mapping or studying over is solely a result of Mother Nature. When it comes to some of it, man had a hand in its creation. IJsseloog in the Netherlands is a great example of this. In this article, the author talks about the man-made island as well as how it came to be.
Giovanni Maria Cassini, an Italian globemaker living from 1745 – 1824, produced a globe called the Globo Celeste in his lifetime depicting astronomical observations consisting of Ptolemaic and later constellations, with stars varying in size according to magnitude. These shapes are also designed in a way as to create intrigue and three-dimensional observations. This production is one of kind and an incredible feat for the age in which it was created. It is also very rare - Even rarer? A view of it that does not solely consist of its rings and plates. Recently, the Osher Map Library has made an interactive view of this full globe available online.
Not Over Yet
Did you catch our #MarcoMonday post? This week, we covered how to identify geographic transformations from your data with the help of Integrated Marco Commander and Integrated Marco Mystic.
#DailyBrainCandiii and #WeekliiiRoundUp are inspired by brain candiii, a division of Integrated Informatics that develops Geographic Information System (GIS) training for Energy and Natural Resources professionals.