Maps of zombie escape routes

Toronto studio Design Different sells these maps of escape routes to zombie safe zones for various cities around the world.   They’re actually an environmentalist message about the value of state forests and national parks around the world.

Neutrinos & GPS

Here's a GPS mention in an older xkcd strip by Randall Munroe

The "title-text" at the actual webcomic says:

I can't speak to the paper's scientific merits, but it's really cool how on page 10 you can see that their reference GPS beacon is sensitive enough to pick up continential drift under the detector (interrupted halfway through by an earthquake).

And while we're at it, we should mention that the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to some scientists who discovered how the brain understands where the body is, i.e. the brain's GPS.

Going crazy

This is Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson. I'm not sure why she's having any confusion  She seems to be pointing in relatively the correct directions to match her app.

Not London

This image was brought to us by friend Mary who provided an article in the London Evening Standard that caught the Falcons football team showing fans how thoroughly lost they'll make themselves on their way to an exposition match in London last weekend. Thank you Mary.

Germany in the late 1940s (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here, permanently derailing your regularly scheduled Monday morning world map cartoons with more images of Germany in these Herblock cartoons from the US Library of Congress:

Herblock - Now as we were saying - 17 May 1949

Herblock - Well, here we are again - 21 January 1947

Fun afternoon on acid

Here's the cover of a book from a collection of ... "odd" covers of children's books

US according to Okies

My friend Wendy posted this on Facebook a little bit ago.  I'll re-post it here for those who didn't see it:


There are a lot of these types of "Views of the world according to..." map jokes:

You bastards!

This is a Game of Thrones thing:


For reference:

Ebolaids

So there's some unwarranted stereotyping here, but this does seem like what all the media hype is driving at:

Barak Obama: Time Traveller

Here's a photo of a guy sitting in front of a NYC transit map... and another photo of his younger self?  Maybe he's a time lord?

Batch 'o New Yorkers

Here's a batch of map-related comics from recent New Yorker magazines:

Jack Ziegler

Kim Warp

Drew Dernavich

Danny Shanahan

Germany is puzzling (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here, officially derailing your regularly scheduled Monday morning world map cartoons with more images from Europe. This time, Germany in a cartoon from the US Library of Congress:

Edwin Marcus - "How do we fit this one in" - circa 1930-40?

60+ Great Maps

Looking for something for the cartophilliac in your life?  Here's Great Maps: The World’s Masterpieces Explored and Explained, by Jerry Brotton (and a review) with 60-some maps to ponder for hours on end.

Cartophilia

We've mentioned other sites on the interwebs that are compilations of maps.  Here's another on Pinterest by Christine L and some excerpts:

Making Maps: Japanese Maps, Tokugawa Era, 1600-1870

Daniel Gray - Map of Tokyo for Computer Arts Magazine

A Literary Map of Britain

Live Fall colors map

Need to know the status of beautiful Fall foliage in your part of the US?  Here's an interactive map that will show you from SmokyMountains.com

The United [equitably populated] States of America

Last week Slate.com did a series on re-drawing the United States in order to get states of roughly equal population sizes.  There have been various attempts at this.  The one from urban planner Neil Freeman has been popular on the interwebs:


Slate came up with its own version, as well as more light-hearted versions, such as a division into 13 districts a la The Hunger Games and 4 states names after a popular Dr. Seuss classic:
 


The series went on to explore divisions based on sports players' homes, fast food/junk food joints, and other criteria.  Perhaps the most fun is the interactive map that lets visitors click to see how much of the rest of the country is needed to comprise an area with the same population as, say, New York City.

Among the questions this raises is whether such an equal-population-based division would disrupt some advantage that may currently exist in Congress due to the small-state, large-state interactions there.  What, if any, are those advantages?  Would rural communities'/citizens' interests be better served in the current system or one of more demographically equitable representation?  Would this make the House operate more like the Senate? 

All of this is somewhat different from the related question as to whether there should be more representatives per citizen in the first place. Most functioning democracies on the planet have a much, much higher ratio of representatives to citizens, around 1 representative per 100,000 rather than the USA's 1 per 700,000.  Granted such a ratio would result in about 3000 representatives... but then the Founders had originally envisioned a ratio of about 1 rep per 50k - 60k residents which would've made for about 6000 representatives today.  That seems like a distressingly large number of Congresscritters.  However it could also make room for more third-party candidates from smaller congressional districts... and that could challenge the entrenched power of the two major parties and heaven knows the US political systems needs more competition.   

Maps in the style of Tolkien

Mapsburgh sells delicate hand-cut paper street maps and fantasy maps in the style of Tolkien.  They'll make one for any place you please:

Pittsburg

Philadelphia

Winsor McCay Changed the World

A couple weeks ago we posted some excerpts from the Dr. Seuss section of Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World.  Here's another review of that compilation with images from all the sections including the section on Winsor McCay, who I already knew did the iconic Little Nemo comic. But I didn't know he drew the first-ever animated cartoon "Gertie the Dinosaur". the bird's-eye view drawings from the section below are compelling.

Italy kicks butt (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here, interrupting your regularly scheduled Monday morning world map cartoons to bring you some more images of Italy as (of course) a boot (as well as a sock):

Clifford K. Berryman, 4-10-1922

James Berryman, 7-26-1943

James Berryman, 7-30-1953

Jan Sluijters, De Nieuwe Amsterdammer # 149, Amsterdam, 3 November 1917

Clifford Berryman, 1915

John Collins, "Christmas Sock," The Gazette (Montreal), 26 December 1940

(Forgot to grab the full size image of this one while I was at the Library of Congress, but may be useful for other researchers to have this citation.)

The Economist, 8 January 2011, page 51