Piracy is robbery with violence, often segueing into murder, rape and kidnapping. It is one of the most frightening crimes in the world. Using the same term to describe a twelve-year-old swapping music with friends, even thousands of songs, is evidence of a loss of perspective so astounding that it invites and deserves the derision it receives.
(via merlin)
Back in the day, Star Wars toys were life itself. You remember: you didn’t have the complete collection, of course, but you would get together with all the other kids on the block, and between you, you could put together epic battles and scenes. The one kid had the little vehicles, and nearly all of the figures. The other kid had the Rebel Snowpeeder, which was really cool because of the light-up guns, but his house smelled funny. The really lucky kid who had an AT-AT and the Death Star playset. Somebody else had Echo Base.*
But I felt luckiest of all: I had the Millennium Falcon.
I started another blog. Whee!
The map of Myrr. Blood and Silk will focus on the Eastern kingdom and merchant capital of Ilossa.
Beautiful!
(via fuckyeahcartography)
“Complaining about dead trees when you see paper is like complaining about dead cotton plants when you pull on your socks.”
Erm. So. Actually, cotton is usually picked without destroying the actual plant, which is a perennial, particularly in developing countries where your socks most likely originated. Whereas, trees are necessarily killed and pulped to produce paper. Therefore, the analogy is completely inappropriate.
These things are always hard:
It’s even harder when they all happen in the same situation.
I’m talking about the move of John Gruber’s “The Talk Show” from 5by5 to Mule Radio. This has made a lot of people sad, including John’s former co-host, Dan Benjamin, and many, many listeners.
If you don’t already know what I’m talking about, you probably don’t care, but you can Google for all the speculation on the motivations and the meaning behind the move, which I won’t go into here. I’ll just say a few plain things.
I was planning on picking up one of the Daring Fireball t-shirts on offer this week. No longer.
Dan has provided those of us who care with some closure, with all the class and respect one could ask (and exactly what one would expect of Dan): http://5by5.tv/specials/6
Will I continue to read Daring Fireball? Probably. It is the best writing on Apple there is. But “The Talk Show” is over.
Being a pirate is all fun and games,
Till somebody loses an eye;
It stings like the blazes, it makes you pull faces,
You can’t let your mates see you cry.
A dashing black patch will cover the hatch,
And make sure that the socket stays dry;
Being a pirate is all fun and games,
Till somebody loses an eye.Chorus: But it’s all part of being a pirate
(A PIRATE! A PIRATE)
You can’t be a pirate
(A PIRATE! A PIRATE!)
With all of your parts;
It’s all part of being a pirate
(A PIRATE! A PIRATE)
You can’t be a pirate
(A PIRATE! A PIRATE!)
With all of your parts.
MACROSS
(Source: freeistheworst, via space-arcade)
This is a fascinating map. I’m embarrassed to admit it took me a few minutes to work out just where everything was. The coordinate system does not match the one we use today, though it is somewhat related. This map was made far before the advent of the accurate measurement of longitude, and it shows. I love that it depicts bits of the New World, but I am not clear on if the map itself was made in 1380, more than a hundred years before Columbus’s voyages, or if it was made later to describe voyages made in that time.
Either way, a wonderful specimen.
(Source: live-the-big-adventure, via fuckyeahcartography)
What is the point of this??? Why would someone go out of their way to make something like this? What can you possibly get out of this that you can’t do in a chart or normal map?
Why are you all so complicated?
Oh my goodness. When you are talking about large numbers (like whole country populations), the figures are too abstract to intuitively compare. With a cartogram, the brain can use its considerable visual processing power to almost effortlessly compare spatial areas. That’s one benefit.
The other benefit of a cartogram such as this is that we are so familiar with what a traditional map of the world should look like, it renders an immediately apparent contrast. Take Russia, or Canada, countries we innately know have terrific land masses. Their cartogram representation puts their populations in stark contrast to that. What conclusions might you draw from the apparent size of Japan here? Or the size of Mexico as compared to the United States?
A cartogram absolutely gives you intuitive information that you don’t get from a “normal” map.
(via fuckyeahcartography)
