Lab1: Maps

Posted by Raj Rao on his blog site, Aggregated Intelligence, this map depicts the popularity of various social networking sites in the world. This map, although not particularly depicting any geographical or spatial features such as distance, terrain size, or temperature, it shows the prominent popular networking sites used. It is interesting to see which countries like to use which type of social networking site. It is also particularly interesting to see the prominence of Facebook across the US. Also, the difference between North and South Korea is interesting, as South Korea prominently uses Cyworld due to its high industrialized state while there seems to be no social media utilized by the residents in North Korea. It is also interesting to see Japan having an unidentified color within the legend despite it being a highly digitized and industrialized country; this might be due to not one particular social networking site being prominent but a more blended and disperse use of different sites. This map also shows a trend that more industrialized countries tend to show more use of identified social networking sites.
Source of map: http://blog.aggregatedintelligence.com/2008/02/interesting-maps-world-map-of-social.html


Posted on the blog entitled Self Interest and Sympathy, this map depicts the map of world happiness on a continuum scale. This world map once again does not show any interest in particular distances between countries or other spatial features, but shows the degree of happiness within each country. It is interesting to see that the most "happy" countries are located in generally more highly industrialized countries, such as the United States and Australia. It is also interesting because it questions how one defines the word "happiness"; Is happiness defined in terms of wealth since there seems to be more happy residents living within industrialized countries? Are there culture differences that affect the level of happiness within a particular country? This map goes beyond simply the geographical features that one generally assumes when thinking of maps, providing deeper thought and analysis into the way one views maps.
Source of map: http://selfinterestandsympathy.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/two-interesting-maps/


A map of the San Francisco Oil Spill back in November of 2007, this map clearly shows some geographical features that most people are used to. For example, the direction is clearly presented with large red arrows depicting which way the oil spill spread and the approximate distance of the spill. Posted by Ingrid Taylor, large landmarks are also pointed out such as interstate freeways such as the 101, 80, and the 280 freeways to help the reader mentally locate the area more specifically. In addition, the map uses large landmarks such as beaches and parks to also help the viewer more clearly analyze this map. I found this map interesting because it shows a clear representation of how and where the oil spill went; knowing the approximate distance and space of the oil spill can help the world when attempting to clean up the spill and know just how fast the oil spill is spreading in comparison to the rate of cleaning it up. There are also greater implications that this map provides in terms of how the oil spill is affecting the particular wildlife in certain regions of the oceans.
Source of map: http://sanfrancisco.about.com/od/sanfranciscomaps/ig/San-Francisco-Icon-Maps/sanfranciscooilspillmap.htm