Thoughts filed in: Mapping
Highway border crossings between Chile and Argentina
I've spent a fair bit of time, on several occasions, travelling in South America, including in Chile and Argentina. I've crossed the land border between these two countries several times, in several different places. It's an extremely long border, measuring 5,308km in total.
Recently, I was looking for a list of all the official crossings between the two countries. Finding such a list, in clear and authoritative form, proved more difficult than I expected. Hence, one thing led to another; and before I knew it, I'd embarked upon a serious research mission to develop such a list myself. So, here it is — a list of all highway border crossings between Chile and Argentina, that are open to the general public.
Boycott GPS
In the developed world, with its developed mapping providers and its developed satellite coverage, GPS is becoming ever more popular amongst automobile drivers. This is happening to the extent that I often wonder if the whole world is now running on autopilot. "In two hundred metres, take the second exit at the roundabout, then take the third left." Call me a luddite and a dinosaur if you must, all ye GPS faithful… but I refuse to use a GPS. I really can't stand the things. They're annoying to listen to. I can usually find a route just fine without them. And using them makes you navigationally illiterate. Join me in boycotting GPS!
Non-Shelbyville Sydney map
A work colleague of mine recently made a colourful remark to someone. "You live in [boring outer suburb]?", she gasped. "That's so Shelbyville!" Interesting term, "Shelbyville". Otherwise known as "the 'burbs", or "not where the hip-hop folks live". Got me thinking. Where in Sydney is a trendy place for young 20-somethings to live, and where is Shelbyville?
I've lived in Sydney all my life. I've almost always lived quite squarely in Shelbyville myself. However, since the age of 18, I've gotten to know most of the popular nightlife haunts pretty well. And since entering the world of student share-houses, I've also become pretty familiar with the city's accommodation hotspots. So, having this background, and being a fan of online mapping funkiness, I decided to sit down and make a map of the trendiest spots in Sydney to live and play.
Map of non-Shelbyville Sydney
Haiti coverage in OpenStreetMap vs Google Maps
I was recently reading about how OpenStreetMap has been helping the Haiti relief effort, in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti's capital back in January. Being one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, Haiti's map coverage is very poor. However, a group of volunteers have radically changed that, and this has directly helped the aid effort on the ground in Haiti.
To see just how effective this volunteer mapping effort has been, I decided to do a quick visual comparison experiment. As of today, here's what downtown Port-au-Prince looks like in Google Maps:
Port-au-Prince in Google Maps
And here it is in OpenStreetMap:
Port-au-Prince in OpenStreetMap
Per the laws of kashrut, the Jewish religion prohibits the consumption of meat from many animals and birds. Islam's laws of halal enact very similar prohibitions.
Australia and New Zealand are two countries located very far from the Middle East, the home of Judaism and Islam. Their native wildlife is completely different to that found anywhere else in the world. Of course, since European settlement began, they've been thoroughly introduced to the fauna of the wider world. Indeed, these two countries are today famous for being home to some of the world's largest sheep and cattle populations.
However, let's put aside the present-day situation for now, and take ourselves back in time a thousand or so years. Artificial transcontinental animal transportation has not yet begun. The world's animals still live in the regions that G-d ordained for them to live in. G-d has peppered almost every corner of the globe with at least some variety of kosher birds and mammals. Every major world region, bar one.
My fellow Aussies and Kiwis, I'm afraid the verdict is clear: we are living in the Land that G-d forgot.