Free Cartography - are you serious?

DVDMaps will be two years old very soon, and I have devised a competition to mark the day. Fabulous prizes! Free Cartography! Onerous T@C's!
To be in in with a chance of winning, you need to like my DVDMaps Facebook group, or follow this Blog or follow @DVDMaps on Twitter.
Competition details will be announced on 31st September.
So what are you waiting for?

Money well spent

I have just splashed some cash and bought the Times Concise Atlas to use as a reference. I contributed to this some years ago, but I expect very little of my work remains. Probably just as well! 

But what a wonderful product. I can guarantee this will never be further than an arm's length away.

It has already been used to check the location of an obscure National Park in Argentina.

Money well spent. Maybe one day I'll get a new Times Comprehensive. But until then...

Welcome South Sudan

Revolutions, Civil Wars, Internecine fighting, Coups and the Arab Spring.

It's all pretty messy out there, and I can't help but feel it always will be. As a Cartographer I sometimes suggest that these are welcome developments, generating work to revise all of our maps. But it's a double-edged sword, as the cost to human life is often so high.

Add to that the potential for conflict caused by Global Warming, and you start to wonder what the future may hold.

So in these uncertain times lets wish the world's newest country - South Sudan - a stable and fruitful future.

Here's a new World Map for all you lazy Cartographers out there.

Eccentric Maps

Sometimes you come across maps in the most unexpected places. So let's start with a centrepiece of the Portland Rose festival, which closes tomorrow, 19 June 2011. Within the Pioneer Courthouse Square is a map of the world, set out in flowers. Each country of the world is represented using a particular flower. For instance, purple flowers for the United States of America, red for Mexico, and green for Japan. Very nice - so far. But what's this!

Japan is represented in green, bamboo-like plants. But to the south Taiwan has the same green plants. And to the North of Japan Sakhalin Island is green too. I expect the Russian and Chinese delegates to the Portland Rose Festival may have some reservations about the display. The flowers were corrected after a while, but apparently Sinai still belongs to Jordan. 

This started me thinking - someone should consider a thesis investigating why horticulturalists have a world view stuck in 1945. Thanks to Sarah Morrigan for the details.

Then I spotted an Estate Agents' car in Woodstock the other day. I always ensure that I have a map in the car before I go on a journey. But here is a better idea - have a map ON the car! Now if I forget my map, I'm always covered. The new Mini was completely covered with local maps, from the Ordnance Survey as far as I could tell. Despite inspecting the car from bumper to bumper, I failed to spot a copyright note.

And one more. Not so unexpected, this one. As a freebie to a local music festival I produce the site map for the programme. I was pleased to see it blown up to a 2 meter high poster at the site today, and I think it works quite well. Not entirely happy with it - I may need to refine it for Riverside 2012. 

I entered the site today and happened across an acquaintance of mine - a speculative property developer (you can choose your family...)

He was lost, and asked me where the bar was. On reflection, many hours later, I suspect he was teasing me. Or maybe I overestimate his intelligence...

Giro d'Italia

I'm following the Giro d'Italia, but not with any great enthusiasm. It's a Grand Tour that a British rider has never won. That is not so unusual, as we've never won any Grand Tour. But The Giro has been won by Italians 66 times. I put this down to Italians feeling comfortable wearing a Pink Jersey (Maglia Rosa), whereas this colour does not sit comfortably on one of our own. I may be wrong.

Mum has been incensed this year at the course chosen by 'the men in blazers'. 

"They've never ridden a bike" she exclaimed to me. But the Giro tends to do this more than Le Tour, sending the riders up ridiculous inclines, often on gravel tracks to a mountain peak. It's a cruel race.

But I was concerned when on Sunday the Giro decided to enter Sicily. Mark Cavendish Tweeted:
"En route to Sicily. Ah, the nostalgia of boarding a ferry to a place full of gangsters. Reminds me of my teenage years going to Liverpool."

 The route took the riders up Mt. Etna. Once from the North and once from the South. Odd really, as the volcano had erupted only 4 days previously. The men in blazers did not see this as a problem. Race Director Angelo Zomegnan admitted that there may be some rocks on the road and a layer of ash, but was hopeful that his teams could clear the road come Sunday. "We are 'tranquil'," he added. 

Hang on - rocks on the road and a layer of ash - what is this, Giro Extreme Challenge?

So just to recap here. It is considered dangerous for a Jet Engine to fly through an ash cloud, but it's OK for a racing cyclist. Bizarre.

Thankfully the stage passed without incident. Except that the inner sanctum of the Pro Cycling teams' luxurious coaches is rarely breached. It is impossible for a film crew, a journalist or a fan to be allowed onto the bus. So how 247 Africans were intercepted when the Team Coaches left Messina remains a mystery. You have to hand it to them.

Thankfully every team and rider is issued with a Route Map of the race, so they can study the route. I'd love to get that job, making those maps. I really must pursue that avenue.

Monday should have been a rest day. But that was not always the plan. The men in blazers deemed that a stage in Africa would be a good idea. And why not? The Giro started in Greece in 1996, and will start in Denmark in 2012. So why not take the Giro to Africa? It's not a long way, and given the colonial ties between Italy and North Africa it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

The stage identified was Misratah to Tripoli. Perfect distance at 215km (135miles) and good transport links with regular ferries and good air links. As Paris-Nice is known as 'The Race to the Sun', this historic stage was to have been 'The Race to muˈʕamːaru lqaðˈðaːfiː'. Catchy, eh?

But the routes for these Grand Tours are planned a year in advance, so who was to know how things would turn out? I don't have the original route map for this stage, but it looks pretty much like this at the moment. Such a shame. Maybe next year.

So Monday became a rest day after all. On Tuesday the men in blazers had a day off, sending the peloton north after an air transfer. The route zapped up the coast, the steepest incline being a speed bump. Cav went apoplectic on Twitter

"Look! Look! Oh! Oh! Oh! Look! Look! A sprint! A real sprint! For sprinters!"

And he duly won the stage, but not without controversy. Adversaries accused him of taking a tow from cars up Mt. Etna on Sunday. Ashen faced, Cav denied any wrong doing.

I never expected Cav to win the Green Jersey on the Giro. Because that's the Mountains Jersey - Maglia Verde. The Points Jersey is the Rosso Passione. Confusing isn't it.

Pancake flat again tomorrow, and then I expect the sprinters will call it a day before the weekend. 

And who can blame them. There's the Grossglockner on Friday, then the big one.

To quote The Daily Peloton
"Stage 14 is the kind of stage of which cycling fans the world over dream about.. Today is why grand tours are the most exciting spectacles the sport offers. The sort of day when history is made, legends are written and heroes made. And it's a Saturday which means the entire cycling world will be glued to their TVs or hunched over their PCs, if they are not on the slopes of Monte Zoncolon itself. The stage starts in Austria, in Lienz, before crossing back into Italy for four classified climbs en route to the Monster itself...
…after the Crostis comes the climb that strikes fear into the peloton, the brutal Monte Zoncolon. The climb is 10 km and includes a 5 km stretch that averages a leg killing 15% and has stretches that max at 22%. It is going to be horrible for the riders, but glorious for everyone else".

Gruesome. Mother will be cursing the men in blazers, but glued to Eurosport all day. Such is sport.

Website update

Home page

Finally my long overdue website update is now live. Many thanks to all those who have helped - Keith, Liezel, Greg, David and Aaron.

And I'm pretty happy with it. Tried and tested with various browsers and systems. Only IE6 messes it up, but I can live with that. If things don't work for you, do a refresh and check your browser preferences.

I'm especially proud of the work/gallery page. Considering I was cast into the dangerous waters of freelancing only 18 months ago, I don't think that's not a bad portfolio.

Onwards and upwards!

Minimum Requirements

My First Lieutenant in CT recently brought this site to my attention, thinking it may be of interest. Indeed it is interesting, and I should maybe blog about it. But then just a few lines in I came across the fatal words - 'PC only'. And now I don't want to know.

So rather than blog about for all what I know may well be a ground breaking application, I'll do something else.

I was recently given a Sony EReader. I thought I may be able to use that - to read books and stuff. 'PC only'. I lost interest. It's a bit like not wanting to join a club which would have you as a member. If companies put out these sort of products then they are not talking to me.

As a Mac user I find this frustrating from time to time. I see it as being lazy and sloppy. Yes, I know - it's all about economics and your user base, but I still find it surprising how so many major initiatives and producers can be so short-sighted.

My allegiance to the Mac goes back 20 years now. I trained using traditional manual techniques, and almost missed the boat when it came to switching to digital. I had a lucky break, and despite my fear and ignorance of computers Malcolm Swanston took a chance on me as a freelancer and trained me up to make maps using Illustrator 3 and Freehand 3. Good times. Swanston Publishing did a lot of work for the 'Times Atlas of World History' at that time, and were instrumental in implementing new DTP technology into Cartography. We made some super Historical Atlases there, and my love for Macs was founded.

By this time, despite Apple's troubles, I was a Mac evangelist.

But Swanston Publishing folded, and I soon found myself in a much tougher commercial world. Where using PC's was a requirement. I stumbled around a couple of projects using Maplex and MapInfo, but was never comfortable in that environment. GIS just isn't my bag. Now I'm on my own, and content with that.

So I still use my Mac every day for work. My background and strengths are in graphics and publishing, and that is where my MacPro excels. That a Mac is female there is no doubt. A PC is male, and anything else is Gay/Bi/Trans.

Thinking of my domestic machines, my Performa was a kindly auntie. My Bondi Blue iMac was a mischievous niece. My eMac is a good sister. My G4 is a watchful Grandmother. And my G5 - it's like the daughter I never had.

It's not that I bow down to the altar that is Apple. I have no IPhone. I have no IPad. My IPod is a £30 shuffle. But I adore my Mac. She never fails me.

So that's where I am.

I don't need to know about your C:Drive
I don't need to know about your .exe files
I don't need to know about your right click
I don't need to know about your Norton, McAfee, or how many spams and viruses infect you
And most of all, I don't need or wan't to know about 'PC Only'

Rant over - my girl needs attention