Sunday, December 26, 2004

Our Land


Fuller Projection

This map keeps not getting used because of various scary reasons. It's way accurate, so maybe the Russians will beat us at geocaching. And look, the nations are missing (scream!). Plus it looks funny. The colors shown here have to do with average temperatures, but I'm sure the data is old, plus there's a lot of other data that might be of interest. If it's on television, your viewpoint might zoom in, and dissolve to closer areal views while swooping in on some actor -- like they do in Hollywood.

BFI once sold plain white versions, really big ones, and suggested we color 'em with our own data. I did so, probably with crayons. But I think it deteriorated. Kiyoshi told me it's this map which brought him to BFI in the first place: he was an architect studying the global grid lines used to site streets and buildings in Philadelphia (a kind of Feng Shui those spacey Europeans knew about).

Critical Path
suggests doing one of these maps (or more than one) as a lit score board, but higher rez, like you've probably seen: billboards that're almost TV-like seen from a distance -- distracting to freeway drivers. Back in the early '80s, I kept pushing for one to appear on the back wall of Loew's Theater in Jersey City, right outside my front door on Magnolia Street. OK, so I was being self-serving. My neighbors might've hated it. Plus I wanted to use the close-by Stanley Theater for like IMAX movies. Jehovah's Witnesses got the building before I did though. So maybe they like the idea?

Chris Rywalt has done some nice animations, folding and unfolding the map.