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.
Via becca.explains.the.occupation on Instagram, here's a map of Palestinian villages before the Nakba, created by Zochrot.org (available in English, Hebrew, and Arabic)
You can click on the markers and read the history of each village.
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.
"Evergreen State College to explore Israel divestment after deal with students"
"Protesters at The Evergreen State College in #Olympia agreed to remove their week-old encampment Tuesday night after striking a deal with administrators that includes the school publicly calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and exploring divestment from companies that profit from 'the occupation of Palestinian territories.'"
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!
@alan 👍
Sometimes the city’s descriptions can be rosier than reality which has led to awards orgs & electeds having misperceptions of critical gaps — resulting in lowered sense of urgency for their actions. (So I’ve learned to get clarity on language)😊
I dug into my archives and found this map I made of 2016 election results aggregated by the (then) new Whatcom County council districts introduced in 2017. Gives a rough sense of the political alignment in our small county here in the northwest corner of Washington State.
I need to update this map with new data from all the elections since 2016, obviously, but it's a hassle to work with the precinct level results. Soon.
"Here’s a Clever Way to Uncover America’s Voting Deserts:
Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places poorly served by polling stations."
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)
@ahimsa_pdx@alan having two weeks to fill out a ballot, with my laptop at the ready to research the options, is amazing. Then, I head over to the dropbox down the street and my vote is counted within a few days. It's perfect.
@xangregg@kristinHenry yes, great maps! I remember seeing those over on The Other Site. That scatterplot in the triangle legend is really a nice addition too.
(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)
@woody open list is pretty good too. But for me STV is still best because it doesn't even require parties to exist. You can still get PR that matches the electorate's perspectives, factions, vibes, etc, which might might be cross-cutting across parties in other cases.
The downside to STV that open list doesn't have is that there's a practical limit on the size of districts and number of candidates before the ranked ballot gets too complicated.
Big news: Maine joins the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact! The inter-state agreement now includes states with 209 electoral votes, and will come into effect when enough states join that include 270 votes. Making progress!
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!
@alan I wrote and just submitted an approximately 1,700-word assessment of the Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan Preliminary Alternatives, specifically on Bellingham and Whatcom County impacts.
@alan Lolz. ... Beyond the medicore top speeds others have been stressing, for Bellingham and Whatcom County, I worry that a lack of rail corridor improvements in British Columbia will continue to hamper the reliability of southbound trains south of the U.S.-Canada border, despite the increased number of roundtrips and limited track improvements at Custer, Ferndale, South Bellingham and the BNSF Delta Yard in Everett. ...