Earlier this year my ad revenue increased nearly tenfold. This obviously led me to conclude that it’s probably time to stop relying on ad revenue, and try moving to a model based on reader support. If you’d like to understand how I came to that contradictory conclusion, read on; otherwise the tl;dr is that you can now support The Map Room via monthly payments at both Ko-fi and Patreon. When monthly payments reach a certain level (see below), I will discontinue ads on this site.
Continue reading “Help The Map Room Go Ad-Free”Solar Storms and Precision Agriculture Don’t Mix
We were warned that this weekend’s solar storm could have an impact on GPS and navigation systems. 404 Media reports that it’s causing outages in the GPS and real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning systems used in many farmers’ tractors, right in the middle of planting. This is a bigger problem than you might think: quite a lot of crops are grown using precision agriculture, “with farmers using increasingly automated tractors to plant crops in perfectly straight lines with uniform spacing. […] If the planting or harvesting is even slightly off, the tractors or harvesters could damage crops or plant crooked or inconsistently, which can cause problems during the growing season and ultimately reduce yield.” To say nothing of the harvest. Precision agriculture achieves centimetre-level accuracy, but also relies on it, and losing it at one step of the process can’t be good. [Engadget, The Verge]
G5-Scale Geomagnetic Storm in Progress
The Earth is being hit by a solar storm at the moment; NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has observed severe (G5) geomagnetic storm conditions for the first time since 2003. Among other impacts, this may disrupt GPS and other navigation systems. On the other hand this also means aurorae where they’re rarely seen: see SWPC’s aurora dashboard for maps.
Previously: NOAA’s Aurora Forecasts.
Napoleon’s Adriatic Atlas
An online exhibition by the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) focuses on an atlas of Adriatic sea ports commissioned by Napoleon after the French Empire’s annexation of Italy in 1805. The Library’s English-language announcement:
Commissioned by Napoléon Bonaparte himself and marked by exceptional scientific and artistic value, the 1806 atlas consists of charts and topographical views of the eastern part of Croatia’s Adriatic coastline, whose annexation to Napoleon’s empire prompted the atlas’s creation by famous cartographers Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré, Ekerlin and Paolo Birasco.
The atlas’s significance in documenting the first scientifically based hydrographic surveying of the Adriatic in history and thus being an indispensable resource in any Adriatic-related research is matched by its exquisiteness in terms of its purely artistic features.
The Library’s copy of the atlas was acquired at a public auction in London in 1979. More about the NSK’s map collection (in English; all links in Croatian unless otherwise indicated).
A Very Personal Map Exhibition
An exhibition of maps from the personal collection of our friend Alejandro Polanca Masa is taking place at the municipal auditorium of his home town of Guardo, Spain. Free admission, runs until September 15. Alejandro writes (link in Spanish): “Quien pase por allí, puede disfrutarlo gratuitamente. Y mola, porque he seleccionado mapas desde el siglo XVIII hasta 1960, todos originales, que se pueden ver y tocar, incluyendo atlas y libros sobre cartografía. ¿Te lo vas a perder?”
Flooding in Rio Grande do Sul
Devastating floods in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, have killed at least 95 people and displaced 150,000 more. NASA Earth Observatory posted the above Landsat 8 image of downtown Porto Alegre (population: 1.5 million), as well as MODIS images of the overflowing Jacuí River. CNN has before-and-after Maxar imagery of Porto Alegre.
The Evolution of U.S. Time Zones
A short video from Vivid Maps showing the evolution of time zone boundaries in the United States. (The trend was inexorably westward: Michigan started out completely CST.)
Carl Sack
Carl Sack, activist, cartographer, professor and NACIS stalwart, died last week of a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 41. Here is his memorial page. On Mastodon, Daniel Huffman wrote: “I will have more words about him later on, but for now I will say that Carl was a beloved educator and member of the NACIS community, and a valued friend. It’s still pretty hard to believe he’s gone.”
Russia Accused of Jamming Civilian Flights’ GPS
BBC News: “Russia is causing disruption to satellite navigation systems affecting thousands of civilian flights, experts say. […] The persistent disruption led Finland’s flag carrier Finnair to suspend daily flights to Estonia’s second largest city, Tartu, for a month, after two of its aircraft had to return to Helsinki due to GPS interference. ¶ Tartu Airport relies solely on GPS, unlike most larger airports which have alternative navigation systems that allow aircraft to land even if the signal is lost.”
Chinese Academy of Sciences Releases 1:2,500,000 Geologic Maps of the Moon
Last month the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a set of geologic maps of the moon at 1:2,500,000 scale—twice the resolution of the USGS’s 1:5,000,000 scale maps. Available, it seems, as a geologic atlas as well as quadrangle maps—though it’s not immediately apparent from where. News: Nature, Popular Science, Universe Today.
North Yorkshire Bans Apostrophes on Street Signs, Outrage Ensues
North Yorkshire council announced that apostrophes would be removed from street signs to avoid running into problems with geographical systems; as the Grauniad reports, this move has “provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike.” Okay, several things. One, the standard being cited, BS 7666, from what I can gather (I can’t actually find BS 7666 online, just several guides to it), doesn’t ban apostrophes and other punctuation marks, it just deprecates them as a best practice. Two, removing apostrophes breaks Irish names—no O’Reilly Street, for example—and as such in an English context is Not a Good Look. And three, any database that breaks in the presence of an apostrophe is incompetently done. [Brian Timoney]
Why Oh Why Does an Alphabetical Cartogram Have to Be a Thing?
More proof that Randall hates us and wants to hurt our eyes comes from last Wednesday’s xkcd, which does what I’m pretty sure no cartogram has ever done: size by alphabetical order.
Pokémon Go Users Are Adding Fake Beaches to OpenStreetMap
Some Pokémon Go players are apparently adding fake beaches to OpenStreetMap in order to improve their chances of catching a new pokémon. The pokémon in question was added to the game last month and only spawns in beach areas. Pokémon Go uses OpenStreetMap as its base map. It’s not hard to see how players can cheat by adding natural=beach nodes where no actual beaches exist, and indeed beaches started turning up in odd places in the game—and in the real-world map as well, because the game uses real-world map data, and that’s what gamers have been messing with. Receipts at the OSM community forum thread. [Atanas Entchev]
Online Maps Roundup: April 2024
Custom route creation and topographic maps are rumored to be coming to Apple Maps in the next iOS release, iOS 18. Google Maps has had custom routes since approximately forever; on Apple Maps we’ve had to choose between Apple’s generated routes without being able to edit them.
Google Maps announced updates focusing on EVs (EV charger search, nearby chargers in the in-car map, suggested charging stops, forecast energy consumption) and sustainability (lower-carbon travel options rolling out in 15 cities, estimated flight emissions). Also, Street View came to Kazakhstan last month. Meanwhile, Ben Schoon at 9to5Google says that while Google Maps on Android Auto is “a pretty solid experience,” it’s a different matter when you use Google Maps via Apple CarPlay, an experience he calls “a bit of a dumpster fire.”
Google-owned Waze announced updates last month that include roundabout assistance and notifications for the presence of emergency vehicles, speed limit changes, and things like sharp curves, speed bumps and toll booths [TechCrunch].
The History of Etak Navigator
It used a vector display and cassette tapes for data storage. It was too early for GPS; instead it invented a process called “augmented dead reckoning” that snapped the car’s position back to the known road grid whenever you made a turn. It was the Etak Navigator, and it launched back in 1985. James Killick explores its history in the ninth installment of his series, “12 Map Happenings that Rocked our World,” with some surprises in how it influenced later GPS-based navigation systems (among other things, Etak eventually ended up in the hands of Tele Atlas). See also this 2015 article in Fast Company.
Previously: Guidestar and GM’s Early Attempts at In-Car Navigation.