If an object does not exist on a map, does it exist at all? Do you? You can see it with your own two eyes, and yet it is exists outside your world. In the early days of mapping, when much of the world was unknown, such discoveries simply expanded the known universe. There was a world beyond maps. Bu
In an analysis of over 200 federal aircraft using the flight tracking website Flightradar24, Buzzfeed has put together a visual compendium of where and when government planes have been flying over US soil. The results, concentrated overwhelmingly over urban areas, spanned across flights from August
There’s a stillness to The Division’s plague-stricken version of New York. Rats populate the streets in greater numbers than do human beings, and a rustling newspaper is often the only visible object in motion beyond the player character and the omnipresent snowfall. The view outside of Madison Squa
With its 1989 setting and focus on exploring the wilderness of the American West, Firewatch recalls a time before cell phones and GPS were common tools among those looking for adventure. Before Siri, the best option most travelers had for finding out how to get somewhere was still the simple paper m
Few moments are more familiar in an old-school dungeon-crawler than the opening of a treasure chest, only to find a dungeon map. But if—for whatever whim of your fancy—you’ve been hoping instead for a subway map to unfold itself from those chests, you’re in luck: graphic designer Matthew Stevenson h
Mapkin is a free GPS app that gives you directions like a local, tailoring your route with hints and suggestions submitted by drivers who have driven it before. While on the road, drivers can record messages reporting obstacles or landmarks such as, “Take a left at the light onto Main Street, just p
“Japan just created a Google Street View for cats,” reports Vox’s Margarita Noriega, which sounds like a pretty good deal. A series of maps and visualizations created by Hiroshima prefecture’s tourism board, show a number of popular routes from the just-above-ground POV of a feline. As you stroll th
Your car is not supposed to go sideways. If it has, you’re in trouble. This is but one of the reasons the expression “going sideways” refers to a breakdown. But in the grand tradition of things being so wrong that they are right, there’s drifting. It’s a motorsport practice that embraces oversteer t
If you’re not busy snapping chest bones in Doom 4 once it’s out you can snap together your own maps and game modes. And let’s be clear: “snap” is apparently the keyword here. It alludes to the apparent accessibility of the game’s SnapMap feature. The boast from Doom 4‘s executive producer Marty Stra
Crowdsourced map studies are being used to locate earthquake victims in Nepal The crowds that tried to find MH370 are now trying to help with the earthquake in Nepal
If you’re like me, you’re someone who has a sneaking suspicion that Google will be our benevolent overlords by 2020. Google maps is tracking your every move. The company recently became armed with robots. And Google Street View has apparently figured out time travel technology (kind of). When Google
Writing in The Atlantic, author Christine Gross-Loh was unsettled by how quickly young boys turn to guns for free play: Then my firstborn went to a birthday party. In the goodie bags for these four-year-olds was a plastic toy gun. My son was utterly riveted. I tried to coax it away from him. “Bang b
If your childhood was like my childhood, every Bullet Bill and spinning cannon from Super Mario Bros. 3‘s airship boss levels have been permanently burned into your memory. But that was then, and this is now. Because screen resolution has improved so drastically since the days of RF switches and ra
The original prospectus for Disneyland has been revealed, and jolly gee is it great. Boing Boing has gotten ahold of the 6-page written document that explains Walt’s mission statement in detail. The booklet is full of strange factoids that will tickle the fancy of any Disney fan, like how the park i
We don’t always comment on marketing, but this occasion warrants a very special mention. In order to advertise for upcoming MMO The Elder Scrolls Online, publisher Bethesda and publishing giant Future US are planning a food truck tour of America. They’re stopping at all of the major gaming media eve
When I think of the future of maps, I think about my old road atlas, the large, accordion-folded sheet of paper of the Great State of Alabama, covered with county roads and highways and twisty rivulets and interstates like arteries, and how it has long been replaced by my G.P.S. But when Tom Harper,
