Maptime

Time for making maps!

Our mission is to open the doors of cartographic possibility to anyone interested by creating a time and space for collaborative learning, exploration, and map creation using mapping tools and technologies.

Just Back! + Glossary fill-in time

"Glossary fill-in"

Tonight was the first night at Maptime after a 2-week break, following some Burning Man adventures (which involved no mapmaking, unless you count marking friends’ camps on a pre-made maps). We planned for it to be a chill one, which it delightfully was. Five new visitors showed up, and we all worked on Github entering new words and definitions for the ABCs of Cartography project. We also learned some fun new facts, including but not limited to:

  • There are all kinds of chemicals that are named for places:
    • http://chemistry.about.com/od/periodictableelements/f/bltoponyms.htm
    • Polonium! From Poland! Who knew?
  • There is a whole community of people who go and visit integer confluences, a.k.a. places where both the Lat and Long of a place are integers:
    • http://confluence.org/
  • Last but not least, the term wayfinding was coined by an urban planner and theorist named Kevin Lynch in 1960:

Next week!

  • OSM 101! More cartographic term defining!
  • IMPORTANT! We’re moving to Wednesdays! …so that we can all go to more Geo meetups and any of the other things happening on Thursdays.

Want to help us define cartographic terms? Fill some out on Github, and don’t forget to save your work!