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The Map Center
@mapcenter.com

This is also true of cartography in my experience. Presenting someone with the familiar is good for reaffirming your priors but for true lovers of maps, they're not just information but the pleasure of surprise, realization, connection and discovery. There's not much to discover in the familiar.

Bugs 🔜 MC Atlanta@bugsmaytrix.bsky.social

maybe i'm old fashion but the coolest thing about video games is being taken to new worlds that i hadn't thought up and experiencing something exciting that the artists behind the game want to show me

The Map Center
@mapcenter.com

A hot buzzword in GIS right now is "Digital Twin" which is a nearly complete copy of reality in a computer model. These look awesome and can be genuinely useful. But I already live in reality! Show me something different! Show me a slice of your reality that makes me question mine.

The Map Center
@mapcenter.com

All maps are wrong. This is not a bug, it is a feature. That's the whole point. We already have an entire planet waiting for you outside. A map is useful because it condenses, slices and reveals something that we can't get from a person's vantage point. A map is useful because of its abstraction.

4 reposts40 likes

Oggie
@oggie.bsky.social

God yes. The Mercator projection, as rightly attacked as it is, is inaccurate. But it's also -accurate- because it's explicitly designed to be used for coast mappings. That mattered more than precision! That's literally teaching history!

The Map Center
@mapcenter.com

Mercator maps don't belong in elementary schools AND I hate to hear folks ragging on it for being "inaccurate." Hey, that inaccurate map was a revolution and it took a lot of work, ok? Put some respect on Mercator's name!

Oggie
@oggie.bsky.social

Right. It's a bad map for 'learning what the world looks like now' ( in basically every sense). But as a window to a specific viewpoint in the past? Amazing! And it had tons of influence. ( I still think someone in particular is using that mental model for Iran, which looks tiny on it!)

Mike McGrew
@zavcurrent.bsky.social

Here is a map that gives you everything: every GIS layer is turned out. It also, paradoxically, tells you nothing. Mapping is in many ways like storytelling or video games: so much of the effort isn't in building information, it's in stripping away the excess info so your meaning becomes clear.

The Map Center
@mapcenter.com

So if your map is a perfect facsimile of reality, I want you to tell me what the use case is. Who is this for? What problem does it solve? Why do I need it when I can just go outside and touch grass for myself?