Dayton Theatre Loves Texas

Of all the US state shapes, Texas probably shows up the most often as an icon of its state and its people. Texans love their state shape, and the rest of us find it easily recognizable and evocative of its people.

This holiday season, the Dayton theatre community is in love with Texas and Texans. Two plays running during the holiday season "celebrate" the Texan way. Christmas Belles is being offered at the Dayton Playhouse:



and Precious Heart (the holiday edition) is presented at the Dayton Theatre Guild:

Both cannot help but include the shape of Texas in their publicity and logo.

Happy Holidays, Y'all!

#705

Seattle real estate, 100 years on

From Thatsaabguy:

Facebook is a wonderful thing. This morning, while reading up on the happenings in the world, I was presented with a post to this blog. In it, the writer described being given a 1912 Baist Real Estate Atlas of Seattle (anyone know what Baist is, anyway??) He then spent considerable time scanning them into hi-res PDF files, so that we can all enjoy some 100-year-old mappy history.


The full blog can be found here, featuring a whole slew of old-timey pictures of the streets of Seattle, among other neat things. Enjoy!

What Time Is It In Antarctica?

This has been a week for Antarctic serendipity...

First, I have been listening to the BBC Radio 4 podcast of the In Our Time discussion of the history of Antarctica:

Antarctica was first named in the second century AD by the geographer Marinus of Tyre, who was one of many early geographers to speculate about the existence of a huge southern landmass to balance the known lands of northern Europe. But it wasn't until the nineteenth century that modern man laid eyes on the continent.

Coincidentally, Michael5000 revisted his Forgotten Land of the Republic of Northern Antarctica.

[Previously highlighted on Cartophilia, with map by yours truly.]

Then, frequent Cartophilia contributor Rudolf Graspointner posted this map on the Cartophilia Facebook page:



From the National Geographic Magazine blog:

Of the unusual phenomena that occur at the polar extremes of the Earth, time is a particularly peculiar one. Yes, the sky at the South Pole splits the year between whole days of light and dark. But how do humans who venture there—to a place where the world’s 24 time zones converge—and to the rest of Antarctica set their clocks?

Which of course begs the question... Which time zone does Santa Claus use at his North Pole Christmas town?

Sudoku US

I'm pretty much of a puzzle lightweight. I can rarely fight my way out of paper crossword puzzle, and I have never even attempted a Sudoku... However, that does not stop me from admiring this Sudoku map puzzle on the The Art of Puzzles blog:

[I]t is a great example of how a theme can be used in a puzzle to generate a piece of "art". As a geometric/jigsaw variant, the "3x3 boxes" are now different shapes except for Wyoming which was always pretty box-like. New York has a special Long Island cell that is separate from the rest of the state which explains its special shading - that and its my home state. The puzzle also uses letters instead of numbers, which might make it harder for some, but it is still fundamentally a sudoku puzzle.

To be quite frank, I have no idea HOW this is a puzzle... but it is true; each of the nine-square sections does resemble the shape of its state. If any of you know how to solve this, please feel free to describe it in the comments.

HT to Hunter

UPDATE: And Hunter to the rescue:

How to solve it: fill in each the grid with the letters AFKLNTVWY so that each of the nine letters appears exactly once in each row, each column, and each "state".

Let me know when you have it solved...

CTA Wallet

Never get lost on the Chicago "L" (or is it "El"?) when you carry your own Chicago Transit Authority wallet:



Made from 100% recycled PET plastic!

Via The Unlikely Moose

1000 Years Of Europe, 5 Minutes

From Thatsaabguy:

Holey moley. I just discovered the most astonishing video. It's on YouTube, and can be found here:



It comes from this fellow's account, which has some other interesting stuff in it (moreso if you understand Russian).

Very fascinating film!

#700

How To Offend The World In One Image

From Thatsaabguy:

This might come in handy for future travel planning...
(seriously, it's a joke, take it as such) :-)



Thanks to these guys!

Ground Zero in Your Back Yard

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in your city? With Google's Maps framework and a bit of Javascript, you can see the outcome. And it doesn't look good.



Adjust the weapon selector to see different results, from a suitcase bomb, to an asteroid strike.

HT to Thatsaabguy:

Post-Mid-Term-Election Footprint Map

Editorial cartoon comment on the 2010 mid-term elections by Steve Sack:



Via Slate

Anyone seen any other clever 2010 map related editorial cartoons?