Google Hiking

At a demo event last week, Google showed off the Street View Trekker, a backpack-mounted camera that the company is using to get detailed footage of trails where cars can’t tread.

I'm not really so sure how I feel about this. It seems great for looking at places I have no intention of visiting, but totally would kill the experience of seeing somewhere for the first time.

Europe by Stereotype

AlphaDesigner's Maps of Europe. Above, Europe according to the USA. Below, Europe according to gay man. More at his Flickr site.

Lost vs Lost

Two separate maps based on Lost, showing the main island. I am fuzzy, which is correct, or should I just overlay?

Every Continental McDonalds Mapped

To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there’s no better barometer than McDonald’s – ubiquitous fast food chain and inaugural megacorporate colonizer of small towns nationwide....

Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!

This actually makes me miss the days of Manifest Destiny when the land was wide open and not clogged with 13,000 horrible locations of just one of many fast food chains.

Upside Down World Map

How perception changes everything.

NY Times Rearranges the US

So, evidently, Nevada and Wisconsin have become fed up with their normal places to exist and have invaded neighboring states. Or, the atrazine levels in New York are so high the contamination has led to the graphics department of the New York Times being incompetent at geography.

Where (And How) Evolution is Taught in the US

..via Strange Maps