Lee Stranahan Video Blogs on Syria, Lebanon, and Refugees

Because of crowd-funding filmmaker and journalist Lee Stranahan has been in Beirut, Lebanon reporting on Syrian refugees.  He is making small videos to help explain the situation.  Here is a sampling:

Free Online Archaeology Magazine: AncientPlanet

AncientPlanet is an online archaeology journal published bi-monthly by a staff of American and Greek archaeologists.  What I prefer most about this journal is that it is very readable, one does not need an advanced degree to understand what is being discussed.  It is also currently free for online viewing.  Be sure to check the archives which include articles such as beer in the ancient world.  I do not drink but it is an interesting article none the less! 

The Flaws of Using Social Media to Map the Geography of [Insert Topic]

Z Geography has a great post about the positives and critical flaws of using social media to map things like happiness, much like the Vermont Complex Systems Center did for the Geography of Happiness According to 10 Million Twitter Tweets.

Most of the flaws, but not all, are tied to using a bot scripted language to determine if a tweet is a happy or sad tweet.  While this sounds simple enough how would something like "I love you to death" score?  It is a very happy tweet but death is usually scored as a negative.  Meanwhile how does a bot deal with sarcasim?  "I just had the best xp of my life, in traffic for two hours", is a strong negative emotion but would probably count as positive.  Plus things like weather can impact what a person tweets but hardly impacts a persons over all happiness level.

Right away Z points out that too many people are taking this simple GIS project and claiming it is finished geography.  GIS is a great tool, it is not a finished product though.  Geography, and common sense with some critical thinking, is needed to properly analyze GIS output.

Earth Snapshot: Daily Views of the Planet

The European remote sensing public-private partnership company Chelys runs the website Earth Snapshot.  On the surface the website is a "pretty satellite photo of the day" blog.  However, like all of geography, examination and study opens up the whole wide world.  Take for example the photo of a Libyan dust storm crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Greece.

Image from Earth Snapshot

First off this image shows how close Greece and Libya are physically.  My mental map had Greece further to the east.  Secondly, Greece and Libya have been in separate cultural realms, civilizations apart, ever since the Islamic conquest in AD 647, if not earlier with the Vandal conquests in the 400s.  Libya, Greece, Roman Italy, and the Holy Land were part of one Mediterranean Realm but no longer.  However, while Greece and Libya may be civilizations apart.  However, al Bayda, Libya to Gytheio, Greece is only 280 miles (450 kilometers).  My mental map has been altered with cause-effect and environmental relationship links newly established.  How I love geography.

A Very Promising Blog: Z Geography

A friend who I greatly respect in the discipline has started blogging.  The blog, Z Geography, is designed to elevate the discipline from the doldrums which it is currently stuck in.  Anyone who wants to advance geography should seriously pay attention.

I am so excited with his blog that I am republishing two key points from the post to get readers excited.  By all means follow this blog.

 Geography in the United States is dead. And geographers killed it. Obviously, I’m generalizing and being (only somewhat) sensationalist, partially because I’m terrible at introductions and partially because I need to entertain myself. But the crux of the idea is that the discipline of Geography in the U.S. has withered and its practitioners seem to not have noticed and, even worse, if they have they don’t seem to care. Which is a shame, I love Geography, not (just) because it gave me a job, a career, and an awesome perspective, but because my life is Geography. And here’s evidence of geography’s lack of influence – I didn’t realize it was something beyond memorization until university. This is a problem...

  This is why Z-Geography exists: to elevate and popularize the discipline. Its about getting you, the reader, to think about things geographically – as you go along you will eventually realize: Geography is everything.

     In closing I offer this definition of the discipline: Geography is the study of an area with particular emphasis on its people, its landscape, and the myriad ways in which several areas and their phenomena are related.

BIG Map Blog

There is something fun and fascinating about looking at full sized maps, especially older ones.  BIG Map Blog allows both tastes to be satisfied with a random assortment of neat maps.  I am enjoying the Comparative View Of The Heights of Mountains map from 1816.  Maps can be downloaded on the computer and there is even an option to buy prints.

Live Blogging Climbing Mount Everest

George Mallory died in his effort to become the first man to climb Mount Everest.  In an interview before his effort, Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb the mountain.  His reply was "Because it is there."  With that saying Mallory summed up many geographers and explorers desire to learn about the world, especially its extremes.

Now it is possible to learn about the experiences of going through an expedition to the Earth's limits through a National Geographic blog.  National Geographic Field Test Everest is a live blog documenting the life and struggles of trying to climb Mt. Everest.  The blog is full of medical issues, sights, and adaptions needed to conquer in order to reach the top.

After reading this blog I think I will stick with my all time high of 7,300 feet (2,225 meters).

Types of Maps Blogs

The Sami people of Europe have over three hundred words for snow (Eskimos in fact have a regular sized vocabulary for the word despite the urban legend).  The reason for this large lexicon is that the Sami operate and experience snow so much that they need a large word bank to describe the exact definition of what they operate in.  Cartographers and geographers likewise use maps for so many things that we need so many definitions for particular maps.

In what may be either a class project or the weirdest case of semi-plagiarism in the blogosphere there are several new blogs which give examples and definitions of various types of maps.  Map Catalog, Matt Mudano's Map Blog, The World of Maps, and Maps Galore all have fifty some examples of various types of maps.  Planimetric, Cadastral, Choropleth, Dot Distribution, and more shown and described.  The definitions are short but it does a good job making the map type easily understood.

If you need to know what a certain map type is then the above blogs are a descent place to start.

Virtual Geography Convention 2012: Performing Place: Geo-Social Networking and Digital Performances of Personal Geography

An additional post!

Long time reader and good friend Dr. Andrew Shears of University of Wisconsin–Fox Valley has post his AAG 2012 presentation online.  The talk is entitled Performing Place: Geo-Social Networking and Digital Performances of Personal Geography.  In the talk he discusses on geography and spatialness has integrated itself into social networking sites.

Also, be sure to check out the rest of Dr. Shears site for interesting geography notes and opinions.

Best Selling Cars in 160 Countries and Territories

Sometimes random browsing of the internet can discover the neatest things.  Case in point: the well written and researched Best Selling Cars blog which documents the best selling cars in 160 countries and territories.

Some countries pages are fairly mundane.  The best selling vehicle in the United States is the Ford F-Series while the Ford F-Series and Dodge RAM share the monarchy in Canada.  However, some other countries' pages are windows into the bizzaro world:

• The Land Cruiser is the best selling car in Somalia.  I guess the vehicle is great for driving off road and for being an excellent war wagon. 
• North Korea makes their own van known as the Pyeonghwa Samchunri.
• And Cubans buy Chinese cars, basically the only car they can afford now that Cubans can buy cars.

Meanwhile other countries make geographic sense and are predictable.  SUVs are big in the cheap oil, money rich Arabian Peninsula petroleum states, Europe loves German cars, and the Hilux leads in a plurality of countries.

New Blog: Spatial Law and Policy

Spatial Law and Policy is a blog dedicated to providing news links and analysis concerning the wide open frontier of legal matters and geospatial technology such as GPS geotracking, social networks that monitor the locations of your usage, businesses interested in your pattern of life data from smartphones, and of course government.  While not geography in and of itself, the grey world of geospatial technology law will impact the geography tools most businesses, governments, and people use everyday.

New Blog: Exciting Cartography

Reader Michael G has started a new blog called Exciting Cartography.  The blog only has a few posts but so far I can tell its subject matter will focus on interesting maps, the stories behind said interesting maps, and other cartographic matters.  I wish Michael the best of luck and look forward to seeing some new beautiful maps described on his blog!

Cartografia i Mon: Pretty Maps in Catalan

Foreign language blogs are tricky.  Not everyone, in fact only a minority, can enjoy the analysis of what the blog has to offer.  However, there are some blogs out there like La Cartoteca and the now sadly no longer updated ¡Mapas, mapas! which have such good images and maps that I will still recommend to people who cannot read the language.  Now the Catalan-language (the language of eastern Spain) Cartografia i Mon or "Mapping the World" joins the list.

The blog is written by Geographic Travels reader Jordi Francesch.  While the posts are in Catalan (which is sadly unreadable as my Romance Language abilities are pretty much limited to Castilian aka Spanish) the maps are in high quality and come in a multitude of languages including Spanish, English, and others.  Plus they are very pretty to look at.  Much of the cartography speaks for itself.  Check out this blog today and enjoy!

Warping History: A Blog on the Math in Cartography

Warping History: Analytical Methods in Historical Cartography is a blog which is for those who want to know the hardcore mathematics involved in modelling and fieldwork in the field of cartography.  There are both theoretical and applied posts.  One of my favorite posts is Fourier Finds Caesar: A Study in the Physical Evidence of Roman Agrarian Law and Land Usage Using Periodic Functions.  But beware, these posts are so deep in the math that it is easily capable of overwhelming one's mind.

City Photo Blogs

When one thinks of blogs dedicated to exotic (to the reader's point of view) cities one probably thinks of the famous buildings, monuments, and views.  However, every city is a living city where the great touristy spots coincide with the residential neighborhoods, normal restaurants, and road construction found everywhere else.  To see pictures of the normal "real" city gives one a greater insight into the metropolis.  A pothole-filled road may be the result of  city politics over budgets, a restaurant's new menu may reflect changes in seasons and fishing patterns, and construction may represent new investment.

It is with that thought in mind that I recommend these blogs for the images and commentary.  No one post is a groundbreaking view into the blog's city but the blog as a whole is a window into the city's soul.

Below are a list of some of the most recently updated city photo blogs I have been following.  The Daily Photo Map displays updated city photo blogs.  If you want to make a recommendation on a live, not defunct city photo blog feel free to comment!

Americas

Buenos Aires Daily

San Francisco Bay Daily Photo

One a Day - Mostly Seattle

Pasadena Daily Photo

Australasia
Sydney Daily Photo
Wellington Daily Photo

East Asia
Shoot Tokyo

Europe
Avignon in Photos
Moscow Daily Photo
Roma Everyday (Rome)
Visually Norway

Middle East & North Africa

Cairo/Giza Daily Photo

Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo (Done by a long time Geographic Travels reader)

Places: An Online Journal of Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism

I am a fan of Newgeography, the economical geography online magazine.  It combines a good presentation with hard hitting, interesting, relevant articles on geography.  Sadly it seemed Newgeography was a rare gem out there.

I thought Newgeography was the only online geography magazine of its kind until I was contacted by the staff of Places.  Places is the online continuation of the published academic journal Places which was in print until 2009.  The journal sees itself as a "journal of contemporary architecture, landscape and urbanism, with particular emphasis on the public realm as physical place and social ideal."  This definition fits it well into the field of geography in the tradition of people like Peirce Lewis.

Many of the articles have a sort of National Geographic-quality to them as photos weave themselves well in a symbiotic relationship with the essays.  In between my adventures in rural Afghanistan I have read Ecologies of Gold: The Past and Future Mining Landscapes of Johannesburg, Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space, and Writing on the Wall.

I really like the open-source access Places gives to the average reader (unlike some published geography journals which have high subscription/article fees and are unreadable expect for those already well literate in academicese).

United States of (Google) Autocomplete

Very Small Array has created a map of Google autocomplete searches for each state.  For example: typing in "South Dakota" will have Google recommend "South Dakota State University."

Click to enlarge.

Sports and universities dominate the Google autocomplete search landscape.   Twelve states have universities as the first result and fourteen are sports related (counting Nevada).  It is clear that gridiron football truly is America's modern-day pastime.  Even the media-dominating New York Yankees baseball team lose out to the New York Times newspaper.

Interestingly the states of Washington and Montana are losers.  "Washington Post," a national newspaper published in the city of Washington in the District of Columbia is the first recommended search result.  "Montana Fisburne," a pornographic "actress" is the top recommended result for the state of Montana.  Of the losers, I rather be Washington. (Hat tip: Torgo Jr.)

Geo Blog: EarthCurrent

Currently Catholicgauze is being racked by a wide range of vaccines which prevent me from putting the final touches to a long worked on post.  However, I have continued to search out the geography blogosphere.  Reader The Lazy Geographer has been blogging like mad over at EarthCurrent since September.  The blog revolves around revolves around current geography news and geographic analysis of events around the world.

So while I am finishing up blog posts for this geography blog be sure to check out EarthCurrent and other "Catholicgauze Reads" on the sidebar.

Geo Blog: The Basement Geographer

I recently discovered another established, well written geography blog:  The Basement Geographer.  The blog is written by the geographer "kuschk" who has done a good job so far of publishing two large article every week since mid-2010.  Two articles I really like are the map-making related Cartographic Copyright Traps and Vatican City and the Holy City: Not the Same.

Geography Blog Updates

There are exciting changes going on in the geography blogosphere, including this geography blog!  The About Me section has been updated though it is not complete.  I also have acquired additional addresses for the blog.  Now www.geographyblog.net and www.geographyblog.info now redirect to here!  The .com for "geographyblog"; however, goes to a spam site.

Elsewhere in the geography blogosphere several sites have been on fire as of late with high quality posts.

• Geocurrents has been offering high-quality posts on Spain and other regions of the world.  Posts come in series so be sure to check out the archives.
• World Geography Blog has also been offering high quality posts covering a wide diversity of topics.
• Newgeography has been covering the geopolitics and economics of Australia (among other topics but their Australian posts are fascinating) better than any newspaper or blog out there.
• "Geography Department" Twitter's feed has proven itself to be the best one stop source of academic geography jobs, geography papers, and academic geography news out there.

As always this blog is heavily influenced by readers.  Comments, e-mails, questions, and open forum discussion is always encouraged!