July 26, 2013

Interesting maps

Two selections from radicalcartography (via Noah Illinsky on Twitter)

The Mercator projection (and other projections) with copies of the US superimposed for reference

wandering_merc

 

(the Mercator projection has the unique property, vital for pre-modern navigation, that compass bearings are straight lines.  It shouldn’t be used where this property isn’t needed).

 

And social survey data on how people greet friends in France

frenchkisses

 

(as the cartographer notes, the data come from a bogus poll and may be somewhat unreliable)

 

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »