Hello World and oh, how I have missed you… It has been a couple of weeks since I have published a scribble. To be honest, I definitely experienced some burn out after my last post. I put my heart and soul into writing about my new learning process. So much energy that when I finally hit ‘Publish…’, it was a relief to be done. No doubt there are some lessons to learn from that experience, but nonetheless I am grateful that some people have benefited from a new perspective on how to process the world around us.
In looking through the links that I have collected over the last few weeks, there were too many map related saves to not make this volume for all the cartophiles out there:
- I love the ability to smell. So many of my favorite memories are brought back to me via my nose. The moments where a smell brings be back to a certain place and time are also fun memories within themselves. Smelly Maps is an experience that displays crows sourced smell data in different cities around the world. If you select the building-looking icon on the left, you can choose a different city, then select a street and see what the dominant smell is on that street. Brilliant.
- Halcyon Maps are drawn by an artist named Martin Vargic from Slovakia 🇸🇰. Their maps are more of infographics, but are also fun to examine for the tiniest of details and cultural brilliance. My favorite is the Map of the Internet 2021. Once you see these, you will get it.
- A couple of years ago I visited Iceland and one of the things that came to my mind over and over again was, “The country I grew up in is so young”. Nearly everywhere we went, there were remnants of another era, long before the United States was formed. Parallel is an example of showcasing a different part of the Old World (the Netherlands 🇳🇱) and how old some of their buildings are. The colors in this map are beautiful, and I really enjoy the interaction. The oldest building I found in Amsterdam was built in 1606. Amazing.
- Ever been curious where all of your rainfall goes when not being soaked up by the Earth? This map called, River Runner, allows you to click on any spot in the conterminous United States 🇺🇸 and see where rainfall would connect to the nearest creek, river, channel, gulf, and/or ocean. It then animates this path and brings you to where it empties, miles away from your starting location.
- This last recommendation is a listen. ‘Two Mountains’ by The Dirtbag Diaries is a great podcast episode on learning about how places get the names they do. Believe it or not, humans love to name things and rename things. I have always enjoyed the process of naming my technology or giving a project a codename, etc. This podcast gave me a perspective I am grateful for and that is the care and perspectives that should be considered when it comes to naming the geological features we climb, the mountains we ski, and the hills we camp on.
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I hope everyone’s summer is going well and this finds you in higher spirits. It feels good to be back. I’m still thinking about whether I am going to go back to a 2-week cadence with these. Regardless, I hope to publish more words here soon.
keegan cherry 🟠 