Most of us know, intellectually, that standard Mercator projection maps grossly distort the relative sizes of countries. In particular, the world maps we most often use exaggerate the size of first world, northern-hemisphere countries like Canada, the USA, and the nations of Europe, while under-representing the size of third-world countries clustered around the equator. But do we grasp this distortion in any visceral sense? Quite the contrary: Each time we look at a distorting world map, we are subliminally reinforced in the prejudice that we're big, and they're small. GUI-designer Kai Krause strikes a blow against what he calls immappancy with this...

14 October, 2010

The deniers have some explaining to do: The Weather Underground reports that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Climatic Data Center rates last month as the warmest June since record keeping began in 1880, while  NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies calls it the third warmest (behind June 1998 and June 2009). Both NOAA and NASA rated the year-to-date period, January - June, as the warmest such period on record. Moneyquote: A withering heat wave of unprecedented intensity brought the hottest temperatures in recorded history to six nations in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, in June 2010....

18 July, 2010