Maps tend to have a good rap. They’re (generally) thoughtful, insightful, and darn it, people like them! There are those, though, who have taken a wrong turn some how. Maybe the data was having a bad day. Maybe it was a slow day for intellectual news and so someone said, “Why not? What could it hurt?” Others, well, I’m just not quite sure what people were thinking. Maybe the whole idea was a dare. The difference between this post and my earlier bad map post is that the maps in this post were made on purpose.
Well, after scouring the web a bit, buzzfeed.com was kind enough to put together a list of 38 maps it thought we needed (but I think some are debatable). My favorite is #2 shown below from ircimg.net and shows what the world would look like if land and water were reversed.
Then there are others that I’m thinking, “so this was a problem that just HAD to be mapped, huh?”, like #30 from esvamosachorrear.com shown below. *Note: the link on buzzfeed.com to the original version apparently doesn’t show the map anymore, but the text on the website still mentions it, so I’ve linked the map back to buzzfeed.
Then, have you ever gotten a dollar bill that stamped with www.wheresgeorge.com on it? Well if you’ve ever gotten the need to know where exactly your dollar has ever “checked in”, their map can either show you your dollar bill and where it’s been or you can checkout their real time map to see where everyone else is currently “checking in” their dollar.
So for those that are still reading this and wondering what the moral of this blog is, I’ll tell you: Please map responsibly. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!