Map of the Week - Challenging Counties

One of the perks of membership in the Extra Miler Club ("the shortest distance between two points is no fun") is that they send you maps. These people are obsessed with counties and visiting as many as possible, if not all of them (in the USA). Scott Zillmer, an EMC member made this map of "Challenging Counties" - counties that are difficult to reach.



There are two categories. Most challenging counties are in black while local challenges are in gray. The challenge factor considers accessibilty and connectivity. Island and peninsula counties have connectivity challenges while accessibility is a problem for counties with few or difficult roads. Distance is varies by your locality so it was not included as a factor.
I will be travelling later today and will eventually be heading for one of the gray ones that I still don't have. Hopefully I'll make it safely to Dushore, PA. Wish me luck!

Chart of the Week-Mind the Gap!

Hans Rosling is a professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. He creates animated charts in an attempt to counter myths about the "developing world." Very basic shapes and colors make the patterns clear. Here is an example of his work, a chart showing child mortality vs. income for the countries of the world. The dots are sized by population and colored by region. Note the compass rose too.


However it gets more interesting to see these charts in action as they appear in his gapminder web site - the name inspired by London's Underground. While the chart above shows much of Asia and Africa lagging behind, the animations show the "developing world" catching up and improving at a quicker rate than much of the West did. Here is are some frames of a 200 year time sequence showing life expectancy vs. income. Click the frames to get the web page. You can also choose countries to highlight and hover over a point to get the country name.









If you have time and a decent internet connection, watch this video. He is entertaining and it may change the way you look at the world.

Today's Weather Forecast-Sunny in the Deserts, Rainy in the Rainforests

I was looking something up on CNN when I came across these weather maps. What's remarkable (or not) is how well they seem to conform to the climate zone patterns of the world. I poorly stitched together the southern hemisphere continents minus Australia (too hard to deal with the scale difference there). I had to rotate Asia for projection issues. Anyway here's a comparison.


CNN's weather forecast for the southern hemisphere.

World Precipitation from Encarta.

Brave Shoe World

This map was posted on the Strangemaps blog last month and I couldn't resist stealing it.
Created by Jordanian political cartoonist Emad Hajjaj, it shows countries and continents as shoes, often in cliched regional styles. Western boots for the USA and Mexico, a pair of mukluks for Canada (with Alaska as a cowboy boot toe), furry boots for Russia and a vaguely Indian looking boot. South America and Africa (except Madagascar) only get one boot per continent with South America being represented as a soccer shoe - cause you know, they're soccer crazy!
There are lots of clever things with the shapes. The soccer shoe really is shaped like South America, Baja California is a high heel, the islands of northern Canada together form a boot and if you look carefully the Caspian Sea is shaped like a boot while the Black Sea is a shoe. And of course Italy is shaped like a boot.
If there's any political meaning behind this it's lost on me. Interestingly his own country is not represented. I could speculate on deeper meanings but I'd rather just appreciate the map.

Bicycle Month Update

I tried the Bixi in Montreal! For a summary of my brief experience see the comment on my Bike Fest post.

Japan's Google Earth Problem

Here's a story I missed while dedicating an entire month to bicycling:
The Japanese government and some equal rights groups are upset with Google for placing links to these gorgeous 18th and 19th Century woodblock maps of Tokyo (Edo) in Google Earth.*




Why? Because they show the locations of Buraku villages. The Burakumin are a minority group who were “outcasts” under old Japanese caste system, dating from the early feudal shogun era. This system identified the Burakumin as “untouchable” due to their employment in death related or "impure" professions such as gravediggers, undertakers, executioners and leather workers. They lived in secluded hamlets or ghettos.
These prejudices survive and some fear that this information will promote discrimination in previously forgotten Buraku areas. Google has responded by having references to Buraku villages removed, however they may be reinstated as "historical documents."
For an excellent summary see this entry from the Geographicus Antique Map Blog.


*Google Earth has a feature where you can link to maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection. The Japanese maps are from a collaboration between Rumsey and the East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Montreal Bike Fest

Bike month concludes with the Montreal Bike Fest, a week long celebration and North America's largest bicycling event. The festival involves several rides, a week of commuting activities, and related events. I have been to the festival several times and plan to be there again this year.

This Saturday things kick off with the Metropolitan Challenge, a 75-150 kilometer ride through the nearby countryside. I did the 100K ride a few years ago and it was lots of fun and not as difficult as it sounds. The following weekend has a Friday night ride and another one Sunday afternoon. These rides involve closing the roads to motor vehicles allowing cyclists to take over the streets. The Friday night ride (Tour la Nuit) draws approximately 12,000 enthusiastic riders, many in costume and with creative bike light displays. The Sunday ride (Tour de l'Ile) gets at least 30,000 and has had up to 45,000 riders. The 52K course (below) covers much of the city and is a great way to see neighborhoods you may not otherwise get to.

The route changes every year. This year they head west. There's usually crowds of enthusiastic spectators urging you on and in past years they have had a house decorating contest for residents along the route. 52K may sound long but my wife who's not a cycling nutcase like I am has done it several times and I bet you can too!

While in town I hope to get a chance to explore the Bixi. Montreal's new bike sharing program. Modeled after the Paris Velib system, it should look familiar to frequent readers of these pages. Here is a part of the Bixi system.


I hope I've inspired you to come up to Montreal or to at least dig your bicycle out of storage. Have a great end to your bike month!