Did you know that The Map Center is the only map store in the country that is directly above a brewery? Tomorrow at 6:30 at Discipline Brewing, Robert Isenberg talks about his new book about bike-packing Canada for Lonely Planet. So if you like beer, bikes, travel or beer, you should join us.

The NACIS schedule is out! Particularly excited about our panel on the fantasy maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad. She was highlighted in the NYT series of overlooked obituaries although they annoyingly refers to her as a "novice cartographer" when she in fact was an expert. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/o...

Overlooked No More: Karen Wynn Fonstad, Who Mapped Tolkien’s Middle-earth (Gift Article)

She was a novice cartographer who landed a dream assignment: to create an atlas of the setting of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

nytimes.com

Google can deliver information that is up to date and largely credible. AI can generate pretty (although often meaningless) images. So what becomes of my business? I don't sell information or images. I am in the business of trust. Story. Connection. Accountability. Reliability. I do what AI can't.

The Map Room@maproomblog.com · 2d ago

Ed Parsons, who used to work at Google, has some words about the Google Earth AI image generation debacle. “Veterans of the Geo organization understood an unwritten rule that took decades to build: Geospatial trust is… More

Jake wrote an awesome book and you should read it. But also it's an exquisite printing that FEELS good. Good storytelling, craftsmanship and trains are your ticket to a wonderful reading experience.

Jake Berman@lostsubways.com · 2d ago

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

Did You Know that any three points on a plane (that are not colinear) can be inscribed in a perfect circle?

Brilliant Maps@brilliantmaps.bsky.social · 2d ago

Did You Know Australia's 3 Biggest Cities Line Up Perfectly On A Circle? More maps of Australia: brilliantmaps.com/country-m...

TIL among the popular lexicon that inspired college mascots like Ohio Buckeyes, Indiana Hoosiers and Wisconsin Badgers we had Illinois Suckers and Missouri Pukes h/t @barrypopik.bsky.social barrypopik.com/blog/puke_st... www.northernpublicradio.org/illinois/202... www.loc.gov/pictures/res...

Study Finds Most Americans Can't Find Where They Are Being Deported On Map

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

It's been most of a week and so far of starting paid Yelp ads and so far I have gotten more customers who heard about me from hikers wearing Map Center t-shirts.

I finally gave in on the third sales call. I am now paying for Yelp ads- it's the first paid ad service I've signed up for. Lots of online traffic, no noticeable uptick in sales but we'll see. I'll try it for a month, why not? If it doesn't work it would be a cheap failure.

A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I did a workshop last night in Millbury called A Map for a Cat which invites kids to make maps from the perspective of different animals. Wanna see a capybara map?

It's raining in Rhode Island and it's a beautiful day to listen to Swell Season. RIP to Glen Hansard who died recently in a motorcycle crash. A girl in college said I looked like him. Anyway. Been a fan for a while. www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5KV...

The Swell Season - "Low Rising"

YouTube video by ANTI- Records

youtube.com

I've only been to the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) conference once but it is now my favorite group of human beings. Kind nerds who glide effortlessly between math and poetry. My workshop has been accepted and I'll see you lovely people in Milwaukee!

If you're in the greater Worcester area, join me at the Millbury Public Library tomorrow night, Tuesday, at 6PM for a family friendly activity called A Map for a Cat! It's a bit silly but there are big ideas underneath it. It's most fun for participants aged 10 and up (adults can come too!)

People like cute, handmade stuff. That was the whole point. In person retail is looking better and better. The biggest catch I see is that there is not enough commercial real estate (at reasonable prices) to support the goods and services that folks want.

WIRED@wired.com · last wk.

Once a quirky bastion of amateur vulva jewelry and pet portraits, Etsy is now deluged with mass-produced goods and AI knockoffs. Some customers don’t seem to mind.

Just got another order of 25 'Diving Monterey' atlases from a Monterey-based dive shop. I'm almost out of this printing! I'm nowhere near ready for a new edition with more content but I don't mind making folks wait for the good stuff.

I was out getting a bagel this morning and "Runaround" by Blues Traveler came on and it reminded me how just a few days ago I was chastised for unironically turning up the radio for a Blues Traveler song. While ruminating on this, I noticed the guy behind me started humming along. My. Guy.

National Geographic has been bleeding for years. Disney is not interested in expensive, careful and time consuming journalism. Nat Geo used to be the gold standard of cartography. There are still so many talented folks over there. I wish they were allowed to do as much as they are capable of.

Asher Elbein@asherelbein.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Most of the affected employees were at National Geographic, both at the cable network as well as editorial and operations." 🫠

Map Center in the (alt weekly) news: "Week in Reroute: we live under the despotic fist of the 'normal' map" by Maria Gomberg. www.theindy.org/article/4293 It's mostly true. I have a section dedicated to New York, Jewish, left-wing, intellectual, Central Park West, socialist summer camp fellows.

A map showing the Scottish filming locations in Christopher Nolan's epic The Odyssey has been released, allowing fans to visit the stunning scenery shown in the movie. See it below 👇

kind of obsessed with the idea that someone has mapped the "concentration" of sperm whales in the ocean like they were a liquid also nice to see the whales have ordered themselves so neatly off the antarctic coast

I was so depressed last week. Everything has been fatigue and monotony and slog. This week a friend visited and was just so visibly stoked about what I'm doing, then recommended a bunch of promising leads. Now I'm tracking down a possible collaboration with the Leventhal Map Library in Boston.

A common misconception is that a species that lives in an extreme environment must be "perfectly adapted to it" when in reality, a species has just developed marginally better tolerance that gives it an edge over its competitors. Being good at "hot" does not mean that a species prefers or needs it.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2w ago

Even camels can’t deal with extreme heat. 🐪

@contrapoints.bsky.social made a video explaining that cis folks suck at making jokes about the trans experience because they can only make predictable observations as an outsider. Their jokes never surprise or feel real. This is a big part of why I think generative ai will fail in movie making.

Maps didn't start in Medieval Europe and they didn't end with the iPhone.

Locking talent into positions they are not suited to is a bad allocation of labor resources. Universal healthcare would save money, save lives, improve labor mobility, encourage entrepreneurship and improve the economy overall. Also it would make people happier which is just nice.

NPR@npr.org · 2w ago

About 24% of U.S. employees stay in unwanted jobs just for health insurance, a report out Wednesday finds. Up significantly since 2021, the uptick in "job lock" is a concerning sign for the U.S. economy. n.pr/4gQIY5E

There's too much paper map vs navigation app drama already but I made a quick video that I think addresses a teensy part of it. www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8tjvD2K/

TikTok video by the Map Center

tiktok.com

I love it when kids ask me what my 'best,' most accurate map is. And I tell em: Kid, they're all wrong.

Daniel Huffman@pinakographos.bsky.social · 2w ago

New on the blog: "On Sin," in which I meditate on cartographic ethics, and invite discussion on a thorny problem: how we might decide if or when the inaccuracies embedded in a #map cause it to become unethical.