[lesmore49]

I'm fascinated by history and to no surprise, also fascinated by maps of the world, which in many ways can clarify why history happened, what history happened and to a certain extent can help predict what history may happen.

As one historian has said, maps are the visual embodiment of political, social and cultural change....and I would add.... in the history of humankind.

I have a number of historical atlases. Some of my favourites include Simon Foxell's Mapping England, which looks at maps and England the earliest completed...between, it is believed 1025 to 1050 AD to today, and of course between those time periods.

Another favourite is the Atlas of World History, edited by Patrick O'Brien . This book traces 12,000 years of world history to the present day.... through many maps.. It covers countries and areas...in terms of what existed in the past, change through history and events, to current status and movements of people from one area to another. Change will always be an integral part of humanity,

It is interesting to me, to find the reasons behind the changes in maps, provincial and state borders within one country, international borders, the how, the why and the political back stories that effected change and final agreement as to who got what, in terms of politics.

In the past century, between WW1 and just after WW2, empires dissolved, countries changed their names, borders moved and then moved again all in the space of a lifetime. One European man who had been born around 1900, said that by the mid 1950's, that he had lived in four countries in his life, and in that 50+ years, had never left his city of birth.

How that could be was due to wars, followed by treaties which changed borders and these same treaties recognized that different groups within areas needed to be responded to, and did so by considering the self determination needs, expressed by groups within territories. Other factors too, of course.

Anyways, I've rattled on far too long and all I really wanted to say, is that I like looking a maps through history.

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Last edited by lesmore49; 08-13-2020 at 06:47 PM.

[PDL]

I got introduced to making maps while I was in College and being the guy who held the stadia rod while we mapped a Archaeological site in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. I watched the grad students plot the points on graph paper and draw contour lines based on the measurements taken earlier in the day. Standard procedure for creating contour maps for sites.

When in graduate school I wrote a program (converted actually) that used a weighted moving average to create contour maps. (For a graduate level Geography course I talked my way into.) The original program was written in FORTRAN IV and I converted it to TRS-80 "Advanced BASIC". I borrowed a transit and stadia rod from the Anthropology Lab at KU and we plotted a spillway on a dam South of Lawrence KS. I entered the data into my TRS-80 (Model I with expansion dock and a 5 1/4" floppy drive). It took 11 hours to produce the map and I monitored the program by turning on a AM radio next to a TRS-80 - I could hear the loops as it churned through the data. A few years later I rewrote the program in Turbo Pascal on my TI-Pro PC, it ran in 30 seconds and produced the same data matrix. I fed the data into Excel a few years after that and I was able to create 3-D maps using the graphing functions.

This was back in the days when PC's were not all that common. I was the only graduate student in the Anthropology dept. that had my own computer - the department had just purchased a Zenith PC running CP/M. I suggested that within a short time, computers would be common in the field and things like creating your own maps, using databases, word processors etc. would be common place. One of the professors, and a few of my fellow grad students, got really bent out of shape with that idea. The most common comeback was "How are you going to keep the dust out of the floppy drive?".

Ah - the days before USB sticks and sealed laptops. I have a book on maps and history, good read and relevant to today's world and data visualization.

[Arjay Bee]

Back on topic, (using GPS) i heard an annoying usage on a television advertisement just now:

"Us kiwis know good value.... " I heard that in NZ, but that is no excuse for improper English.

[lesmore49]

Having worked in civil engineering once upon a time, I developed a liking to the drawings. Many were created with an artistic flourish by the draftsman. The old linen drawings each showing a section of land, and whatever features existed on it. North arrows, scale bars, even the lettering was always a reflection of the person who created it.

One thing I could never get my head around though, was why the developers created such long, narrow parcels. I know that geographic features, and locations of existing roads and structures may dictate where property lines go, but sheesh! Some of those are so narrow it would take two, three or more to make a decent plot of land. Who wants to squeeze onto a narrow strip, and know the intimate details of the folks three doors down?

I love old maps and plans too. They're often works of art.

The long narrow parcels are not that narrow. Most, running down toward the river are 674-709 links wide. So, 135m to 142m wide (467 feet). Having lots in that shape meant that each property owner had a 40 acre lot (16 hectares) which was considered a large enough farmlet to be relatively self-sufficient. And, each property had road access / frontage so that they could build their house near the road (which was the done thing in Victorian times) and each property had easy access to the river for stock water.

The Lot that our property derived from is Lot 49, listed as owned by "R Kebblewhite" which is spelt wrong, it was Richard Kibblewhite.

Long, narrow strips of land, particularly farm land was common in New France, the French colony that eventually became known as Quebec Province in Canada. It was known as the Seigneurial system.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=...HGddp9mzAe4Zdq

[35mmfilmfan]

Back on topic, (using GPS) i heard an annoying usage on a television advertisement just now:

"Us kiwis know good value.... " I heard that in NZ, but that is no excuse for improper English.

If you are expecting good English from advertisers, please do not hold your breath !!

There is also the apparent interchangeability of expect, except and accept, often on sites where one might hope for better understanding of the meanings of words. I have also seen 'auntagonize' instead of 'antagonize' (presumably derived from the Agony Aunt columns which preceded Google and such like providers of somewhat suspect advice) - and that's another one, advice as opposed to advise. Advice is a noun, advise is a verb. Maybe 'Newspeak' was not such a bad idea, although I feel it is double-plus ungood.

[SpecialK]

If you are expecting good English from advertisers, please do not hold your breath !!

"Three times less."

The Mathematical Phrase That Melts My Brain - Scientific American Blog Network

Good luck...

[bxf]

Advice is a noun, advice is a verb

Yup, it's all clear now.

[timb64]

I always find the question “Would you care for a tea or coffee?” from a flight attendant, a strange one.
Yes,I’d like a hot beverage,
but why have I got to look after it?

[photoptimist]

"Three times less."

The Mathematical Phrase That Melts My Brain - Scientific American Blog Network

Good luck...

This is why math is the most important "foreign language" anyone can learn.

Most spoken/written languages are terribly imprecise with ambiguous definitions and parsing rules.

This is also why software has so many bugs. The customer or manager says something like make it "Three times less" and so the coder writes "Y = X- 3*X" rather than "Y = X/3". Kaboom!

[Serkevan]

This is why math is the most important "foreign language" anyone can learn.

Most spoken/written languages are terribly imprecise with ambiguous definitions and parsing rules.

This is also why software has so many bugs. The customer or manager says something like make it "Three times less" and so the coder writes "Y = X- 3*X" rather than "Y = X/3". Kaboom!

That's because coders have with customers the same issue computers have with users: they always do what they are told to, which is almost always not what the user/customer wants them to do

That said, one of the examples in the article is flat-out wrong: "Youtube runs five times slower on Chrome than on Firefox" is perfectly correct. If there's a load time in Firefox, the load time is five times longer in Chrome. Arguing about that particular one is drowning in one's own pedantry.

[35mmfilmfan]

Yup, it's all clear now.

Please accept my most humble and grateful thanks for bringing that to my attention. I have corrected the original correction, introduced by 'Autocorrupt'.

To err is human - etc !