Interesting Snippets

Geographic information systems represent a jump from paper maps like the abacus to the computer. “I honestly think we’re seeing a more profound change, for map-making, than the switch from manuscript to print in the Renaissance,” University of London cartographic historian Jerry Brotton told the Sydney Morning Herald. “That was huge. But this is bigger.”

The maps we used to keep folded in our glove compartments were a collection of lines and shapes that we overlaid with human intelligence. Now, as we’ve seen, a map is a collection of lines and shapes with Nick Volmar’s (and hundreds of others’) intelligence encoded within.