The Right and Geography

 In this month someone on the right has:

•  mistaken the country of Georgia for the state of Georgia (tweeting that Georgia only had 3 million people so the number of votes reported for the state showed fraud
• mistaken the state of Washington and the city of Washington, DC (similar tweet to the first)
• mistaken Minnesota ("MN") for Michigan ("MI") as part of a lawsuit submission.
• at Fox, labeled Michigan's Upper Peninsula as Canada.

One might conclude there's a lack of education in geography and/or that speed makes for sloppy work. 

Coffee Drinkers Are Concentrated, Gun Dealers Are Not

That's the lesson I took away from this Flowing Data post 
mapping Starbucks and other common chains against gun dealers.  The key is the comparison is based on circles with a 10-mile radius. If the circle has more Starbucks stores than gun dealers, it's one color, otherwise another.  

How the English Were Fooled by Geography

In the Age of Exploration sailors could establish their latitude (ie. how much north or south of the equator they were).  So English sailors knew the latitude of London was 51 degrees north.  Naturally when they first visited what they'd call New England, they figured that since the latitude was 41 degrees, or about 700 miles south of London, the weather should be warmer.  But Bartholomew Gosnold writes his father:

it is the latitude of 41 degrees, and one third part; which albeit it be so much to the southward, yet it is more cold than those parts of Europe, which are situated under the same parallel: but one thing is worth the noting, that notwithstanding the place is not so much subject to cold as England is, yet did we find the spring to be later there, than it is with us here, by almost a month: this whether it happened accidentally this last spring to be so, or whether it be so of course, I am not very certain; the latter seems most likely, whereof also there may be given some sufficient reason, which now I omit; as for the acorns we saw gathered on heaps, they were of the last year, but doubtless their summer continues longer than ours.

 Of course he was wrong--the New England summer is shorter and hotter.  Because the Gulf Stream had not yet been discovered as a thing affecting climate, Gosnold was fooled by geography and logic: similar latitudes should have similar climates.  According to my logic, this ignorance probably meant colonizing expeditions were less well prepared than they would have been if climate had been understood.

Reston From Nothing to Something

This post uses the example of Reston to show how USGeological Survey (home office in Reston) updates its maps, including the process of officially naming geographic features.

What We Don't Know About the Globe

Joel Achenbach explains the vanishing island in the Pacific, and throws in the fact the Navy still has seven ships exploring the oceans, simply because we don't know where all the islands and sea mounts are.

Elixir

Just finishing up on Elixir, A History of Water and Mankind, by Brian Kagan.  It's quite interesting, filled with facts.  See the Amazon reviews; it's getting about 4.5 stars.  What was most striking to me was the extent and sophistication of early efforts to control water, in many areas of the world long before I would have thought.  For example, the tunnels in ancient Crete and the qanats in the Middle East (Google wants to give you "Qantas" results when you search for "qanats").

It's also striking how often humans were succeeding in living in very marginal environments for many years, but then their efforts were overturned by a sharp change in the climate.