The map below is readily available on the web but I have removed the title/source to protect the identity of the poor graphics person that made it. Or maybe it was a cartographer or a GIS professional on a REALLY off day. Regardless it doesn't matter what the numbers mean, this map is an embarrassment. Putting aside the observations that Alaska's panhandle has been chopped and that DC is a weird/too large shape kind of in the wrong place, this map has one very small but kind of glaring error. I'll give you a minute to look now and see if you can spot it.
Any luck? I'll spare you further scrutiny, the state of Delaware is missing. It's just completely gone despite the fact that it's number value is listed. I just don't understand how these things pass inspection and make it on the web for the world to see! It's simple geography! I'm sure there's a reason why it got dropped like a query gone wrong or something. And honestly it's not like I haven't made simple mistakes in my work from time to time, but it's important to have a review process for just this reason. The phrase "good enough for government work" just doesn't apply here.
I'm finally starting to feel like I'm overcoming the cold. I still sound sick but I feel a good bit better. Let's hope this trend continues so long as I don't do anything stupid like spend hours out in the cold for a soccer match like I did this past weekend. And speaking of soccer, Saturday is going to be a fun morning. Jake has adopted Manchester City as his EPL team and they are tearing things up of late. They play at 10:00am on Saturday followed by Liverpool's match at 12:30. Lots of quality time at the pub is ahead of us me-thinks.
2 comments:
The real problems are that like most US maps, the rest of the world is missing - cartographic arrogance. And land should never ever be blue.
While I agree that land should never be blue, in the case of what I am (loosely) calling a statistical map as opposed to a political or topographic one it isn't such a bad thing to eliminate extraneous outside information. This map is focusing on a specific statistic of American states, no need to distract the eye with boundaries of surrounding countries. (And this isn't just an American arrogance thing, I would say this for any statistical map of a specific area.) If you were using a mono- or bi- chromatic color scheme to depict say tax rates by county in a specific state any additional color added by showing surrounding state boundaries would just be a distraction from the actual data.
Post a Comment