@alan@subdued.social avatar

alan

@alan@subdued.social

Admin of subdued.social in #BellinghamWA. Lead Cartographer at https://vis.social/@stamen. Social media for https://social.ridetrans.it/@CascadiaRail. 15 minutes of fame: https://subdued.social/@pop_vs_soda

Was https://subdued.social/@mappingmashups on Twitter.
#cartography, #dataviz, #urbanism, #RankedChoiceVoting, #ElectoralReform, #ProportionalRepresentation, #HighSpeedRail, #OpenStreetMap, #TheExpanse

Don't want local content? Just mute the #BellinghamWA hashtag.

pronoun.is/he

Older posts: https://mastodon.social/@mappingmashups

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

alan, to maps
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I'm greatly enjoying the latest version of the Old Maps Online website. It has a very smooth time scrubber where you can see political borders change through time, and then browse georeferenced historical maps from map libraries like the David Rumsey collection.

https://www.oldmapsonline.org/

And just the interactive map without the historical scans is available at TimeMap.org

h/t @friedrich

#OldMapsOnline #DavidRumsey #TimeMap #maps #cartography #history

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

That feeling when you spend a bunch of time tracking down people's Mastodon handles so you can properly credit them with something awesome... and find that their Mastodon accounts have been dead for a year and they're active daily over on bluesky.

๐Ÿ˜ฅ

alan, to cycling
@alan@subdued.social avatar

This is a big deal for bikes in Bellingham! We have a new protected bike lane on Holly Street, the most important thoroughfare through downtown, and previously a big gap in our cycling network. Very excited to use this new route!

https://mstdn.social/@mgrass/112372352727627934

alan, (edited ) to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I hadn't visited @OpenInfraMap in a while: it's a pretty impressive custom rendering of power and telecommunication infrastructure in OpenStreetMap.

If you need something new to map in OpenStreetMap, looks like lots of neighborhoods still need to have their power poles mapped! ๐Ÿ˜ณ

https://openinframap.org

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

"Hereโ€™s a Clever Way to Uncover Americaโ€™s Voting Deserts:
Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places poorly served by polling stations."

https://www.wired.com/story/voting-deserts-maths-topology/

Sure, this is clever. But you know what's even more clever? Eliminating polling places entirely and switching to 100% vote-by-mail like in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and Hawaii.

(With some in-person polling places as needed for accessibilty reasons)

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

"Learn about the worldโ€™s smallest park on the worldโ€™s smallest website"

https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2024/04/learn-about-the-worlds-smallest-park-on-the-worlds-smallest-website.html

Hey @morganm how do you think this website will fare on your speedloading tests? :)

http://millends.com/

alan, (edited ) to maps
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I was interviewed in @WillametteWeek about the @pop_vs_soda map I made a million years ago: https://www.wweek.com/drink/2024/04/18/do-you-say-pop-or-soda/

I guess it's about time to create a Mastodon account for that project...

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I have to say this is my new number one favorite explainer video about Proportional Representation and Single Transferable Voting:

https://www.vox.com/videos/24091275/why-us-elections-only-give-you-two-choices

(my previous go-to video was by the inimitable CGP Grey, and it's still great if you want more details about the mechanics of STV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI)

alan, to washington
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Hey people in Washington State, have you written to WSDOT to ask them to revise their Amtrak Cascades long term plans to include faster travel times? Comments close on April 18, so please write now!

https://secure.everyaction.com/HVT8mYmSxkyyMnV37gAQbQ2

#AmtrakCascades #WSDOT #Washington #WashingtonState #Cascadia #Amtrak #CascadiaRail #PNW

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I was aware of the Long Now Foundation's cute stylistic thing of adding a leading zero when they write the year (like this year is "02024") but I didn't realize they also had a cute name for it:

"Y10K Compliance"

https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/

alan, to maps
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Cool map showing the date of the most recent total eclipse for every point in Indiana. Made by the Holcomb Observatory & Planetarium at Butler University.

Great concept, and I'm wondering if anyone has seen a similar map for a larger area, ideally an interactive map for the entire world where you can see the year of the last eclipse wherever you are. The data is available, so surely someone has made such a map?

alan, to Astro
@alan@subdued.social avatar

A reminder that there is no inherent reason that the apparent size of the moon happens to be the same as the sun creating perfectly aligned solar eclipses (except when it isn't, in the case of annular eclipses).

But how much of a coincidence is it? According to some random person's calculations on Quora:

"Given all the assumptions made let us say the probability of earth having a moon that would cause a total eclipse is between 1% and 4%."

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/548841/how-big-a-coincidence-is-the-sun-and-moon-having-almost-equal-apparent-sizes/806645

#astrodon #eclipse #moon

alan, to AirBNB
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Ooh, here's a much better version of that Airbnb eclipse map that's been going around, by Alex Fitzpatrick and Erin Davis at Axios:

https://www.axios.com/2024/04/05/airbnb-bookings-eclipse-april-8-map

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Saw this going around on Tiktok: some interesting maps of baby name similarity between US states over time:

More maps and animations in the published research paper from the University of Rome: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1507143112

Via this tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cirruslyyesterday/video/7350814314753821983

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

"California Shows the U.S. Is Too Polarized for Top-Two Primaries"

https://www.governing.com/politics/california-shows-the-u-s-is-too-polarized-for-top-two-primaries

Frustrating article that makes good points about the flaws in the nonpartisan top-two primary system, but doesn't mention reforms that would fix it. In passing it says "Alaska has its own variation" of a non-partisan primary, but that variation () fixes all the problems listed in this article!

@FrancisWilkinson please take a look at Alaska's system more closely next time!

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Yesterday the Fair Representation Act was re-introduced in Congress! This reform will stop gerrymandering and make the House of Representatives more competitive and more responsive to voters.

Learn more from here: https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/fair-representation-act/

And contact your representatives and ask them to support the !

https://p2a.co/ZraNU5n

alan, to maine
@alan@subdued.social avatar

"Maine votes to join multi-state agreement to elect the president by popular vote"

It's not passed into law yet, but seems likely at this point.

This map shows a credible path to achieving 270 votes before the 2028 election. If you're in one of the blue states on this map, please write to your state legislators and governor!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/13/2228016/-Maine-votes-to-join-multi-state-agreement-to-elect-the-president-by-popular-vote

alan, to Seattle
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Alaska Airlines adds third daily flight between Bellingham and Seattle:

7 p.m. departure adds option for Seattle connections

https://www.cascadiadaily.com/2024/mar/13/alaska-airlines-adds-third-daily-flight-between-bellingham-and-seattle/

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

First presidential primary election results for have dropped. Here in "uncommitted" is getting 9.62% percent of the Democratic vote, and "write-in" is at 1.58%. Only King County has a slightly higher proportion of "uncommitted" with 10.15%. Expect those percentages to get higher over the next few days at the later ballots get counted. The statewide vote for "uncommitted" is at 7.53% right now. https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/20240312/president-democratic-party_bycounty.html

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

I wrote a blog post looking back at ten years of working at @stamen:

https://stamen.com/year-ten-at-stamen/

alan, to movies
@alan@subdued.social avatar

"What is ranked choice voting and how does it work at the Oscars?"

https://apnews.com/live/2024-Oscars-updates-winners#0000018e-263a-d7d8-a7ee-bebe8b890000

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

, (where I live) is studying whether our cities have enough room in their Urban Growth Areas to accommodate future population growth, and my eyes are glazing over trying to read this document called "Whatcom County Land Capacity Analysis For Permanent Housing and Employment Needs"...

https://66a2f909-8feb-4909-aed7-264978eeceae.usrfiles.com/ugd/66a2f9_c882c722cfed43e3918413bd71fefe68.pdf

Instead my mind keeps wandering back to this map I made comparing the city of (population 90k) with (population 400k) which have the same land area:

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

An important article from an old friend of mine from grad school.

"To Fight Antisemitism, We Need to Accurately Identify It. Too Often, Weโ€™re Failing." by Molly Kraft.

https://www.thegrindmag.ca/to-fight-antisemitism-need-to-accurately-identify-it-were-failing/

Anti-semitism is real, and it is growing. But criticism of the state of Israel is not inherently antisemitic no matter how many times supporters of Israel try to claim it is.

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

The Biden administration is planning to veto another Security Council resolution for an immediate ceasefire tomorrow morning. Please contact the White House, and you could also write directly to the US ambassador to the UN. Ask them to vote for the resolution or resign in protest if they won't go against Biden's wishes. Ultimately being against a ceasefire means supporting further war crimes; that's more than enough reason to vote yes against Biden's orders, or resign.

https://usun.usmission.gov/mission/contact-us

alan, to random
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Via Mona Chalabi, a comparison of population density of bombed cities: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3iR068O5I0/

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