Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
As the title says: 51 things you can’t see on Google Maps, via Bruce Schneier. No prizes for guessing that most of them are military installations or government-sponsored institutions.
In a decade’s time, will there be more things on this list, or less? Will the list vary according to which nation-state you make your search from? Will there be a ‘black’ maps service that unfuzzes the obscured areas, if you know how to find it (and if there isn’t already)?
The ICC’s Live Piracy Map does exactly what its name suggests – it collates reports of modern piracy (the ocean-going sort, not kids using peer-to-peer networks), and plots them out as a Google Maps layer:
What’s interesting to me (as someone who works in maritime history) is how some of the hotspots are comparatively new, but others are almost as old as ocean-going commerce itself – a reminder that geography remains unconquered by technological progress, at least as far as supply chains of physical goods are concerned. [story and screenshot via the indispensable BLDGBLOG]
It also suggests that Sven’s armed cruise ship story wasn’t quite as implausible as some seemed to feel…
Things are heating up in the Arctic Circle – and not just because of climate change. The prospect of as-yet untapped natural resources lurking at the crown of the globe may cause a resurgence in territorial disputes, as various nations attempt to stake their claims to jurisdiction over the area.
In an effort to inform policy-makers, researchers in the UK have used specialist geographical software to create a map that lays out the potentially disputable regions in detail. Whether the map becomes a focal point for reasoned discussion or a template for military operations rooms remains to be seen. [image courtesy Durham University via linked BBC article] [hat-tip to Darren@Orbit]
Another little gem spotted by the grinders: what would you get if you took the crime incident statistics for London and represented them as a 3D physical map?
Mount Fear is what you’d get. In the words of its creator, Abigail Reynolds:
The terrain of Mount Fear is generated by data sets relating to the frequency and position of urban crimes. Precise statistics are provided by the police. Each individual incident adds to the height of the model, forming a mountainous terrain … The imaginative fantasy space seemingly proposed by the sculpture is subverted by the hard facts and logic of the criteria that shape it.
While it makes for an intriguing art project, Mount Fear surely presages a short-range extrapolation of geolocative mash-ups.
In other words, being able to call up the data used for Mount Fear and overlay it on Google Maps running on your mobile device would make your next flat- or apartment-hunting experience that little bit more reassuring.
Or should that be less reassuring?
