"Piloting London’s distinctive black cabs (taxis to everyone else) is no easy feat. To earn the privilege, drivers have to pass an intense intellectual ordeal, known charmingly as
The Knowledge. Ever since 1865, they’ve had to memorise the location of every street within six miles of Charing Cross – all 25,000 of the capital’s arteries, veins and capillaries. They also need to know the locations of 20,000 landmarks – museums, police stations, theatres, clubs, and more – and 320 routes that connect everything up." Acquiring
The Knowledge changes the brains of those who acquire it.
posted by vidur
on Dec 8, 2011 -
73 comments
Harold Cooper’s
Extend New York takes New York City to extremes, by extrapolating every street and avenue of the Manhattan grid to whole planet. What subway line stops at your front door, wherever you are? Why do all Avenues terminate in
Shaytankuduk?
posted by migurski
on Nov 14, 2011 -
19 comments
Salve! Do you have trouble finding your way from Brindisium to Antium or planning a vacation at your villa in the Appenines because no one produces an online map with directions in good Latin these days? Well, be of good cheer, friend,
OmnesViae has what you need.
[more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit
on Sep 26, 2011 -
23 comments
Jerry's Map: a short film about the fictional world of Jerry Gretzinger, which he has been building for decades through a process of procedural cartography.
His website.
posted by avocet
on Aug 24, 2011 -
20 comments
The official Google Earth plugin is one free download that makes all sorts of cool stuff possible in your browser. There's
a full screen version of the program (complete with underwater views and 3D buildings) which can be searched by entering queries at the end of the URL. There's
a framed version with support for layers, historical imagery, day/night cycles, and the Google Sky starmap.
Less useful but more fun are Google's collection of "experiments" demonstrating the possibilities of the Earth API, including
a "Geo Whiz" geography quiz,
an antipode locater,
a 3D first-person view of San Francisco,
a virtual route-follower, and
MONSTER MILKTRUCK!, a crazy fun driving simulator that lets you careen a virtual milk truck through the Googleplex campus, ricochet off the Himalayas, or explore any other place you care to name.
Lots more can be found in the
Google Earth Gallery -- highlights include
a look at mountaintop removal mining,
a real-time flight tracker,
a guide to trails and outdoor recreation,
a 360 panorama catalog,
geotagged Panoramio photos,
and the comprehensive crowdsourced
Google Earth Community Layer.
And while it's too large to view online, don't miss loading
the Metafilter user location map into a desktop version of Google Earth!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 9, 2011 -
15 comments
The official "StreetView" map of China is eerily reminiscent of SimCity, rendered in perfect isometric perspective without a pixel out of place:
Shanghai, the
Forbidden City,
Guangzhou, and
Hong Kong. That hasn't stopped companies from trying to create a more true-to-life photographic alternative: there is coverage of
Hong Kong and
Macau in Google Street View; sanction to cover the rest of China appears to have been given to
City8, which covers 40 cities. (The latter site is in Chinese, but Chrome or language plugins do a decent job of translating the content).
[more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Mar 17, 2011 -
34 comments
Adults With College Degrees in the United States, by County. Sort by available years (1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 200, 2005-2009), zoom in on counties, and sort the data by the available fields. Uses the U.S. Census Bureau as the primary data source.
posted by cashman
on Jan 30, 2011 -
61 comments
Does a better education really lead to a higher income? Take a map of the USA, overlay census data for high school graduation rates (red), college graduate rates (yellow) and median household income (blue). What do you get?
A patchwork map of purples, blues, pinks and greens, that shows the relationship between education and income by county.
[more inside]
posted by Joh
on Jan 14, 2011 -
61 comments
