<story><title>A new kind of map: it’s about time</title><url>https://blog.mapbox.com/a-new-kind-of-map-its-about-time-7bd9f7916f7f</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chippy</author><text>As a geographer I cringed. The article was written in a way that made it sound a bit more important than it actually is, and I think that quote was one of it. A designer finding geography and cartography for the first time. It IS good stuff though. Maybe the writing is stylised and maybe not as humble as usual techy writing?&lt;p&gt;People do think about space and the environment in spatial terms and also in time. This article is basically replaying the same failure that Google is showing - that maps only have an economic value. &amp;quot;Pizza in San Francisco&amp;quot; has been a meme in geospatial hacker land for over a decade and this is another incarnation of it. People think about space in non economic terms more than in terms of how to sell stuff via advertisements. We think about safety, attractiveness, how accessible it is, whats the parking like, who we are with, where next we are going to, what is the ambiance like, how will it be when we try to get home, crime levels, any nearby arts and events on, is the football on at the stadium, is it a weekday or a weeknight, is it near a university, is it during term time, what kind of people are nearby, are the streets well lit, how noisy are the streets. etc. etc.&lt;p&gt;Now - this doesn&amp;#x27;t discount the work. I think that a 2D map - the paper analogy onto digital form also isn&amp;#x27;t good, so any research and attempt to think about what&amp;#x27;s good and working is worth looking at. Care should be taken when giving psychological or psychogeographical points to such different designs.</text></item><item><author>nerdponx</author><text>&lt;i&gt;By removing literal geography, we now have a map that more closely reflects the way we think about our environment: a cluster of restaurants “five minutes that way” versus “ten minutes the other.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speak for yourself! I feel way more confident getting around when I know the actual geography.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bllguo</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see the article arguing that all maps should be replaced with this visualization. It&amp;#x27;s a much better map for certain tasks. Of course you lose information by throwing out geography.</text></comment>
<story><title>A new kind of map: it’s about time</title><url>https://blog.mapbox.com/a-new-kind-of-map-its-about-time-7bd9f7916f7f</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chippy</author><text>As a geographer I cringed. The article was written in a way that made it sound a bit more important than it actually is, and I think that quote was one of it. A designer finding geography and cartography for the first time. It IS good stuff though. Maybe the writing is stylised and maybe not as humble as usual techy writing?&lt;p&gt;People do think about space and the environment in spatial terms and also in time. This article is basically replaying the same failure that Google is showing - that maps only have an economic value. &amp;quot;Pizza in San Francisco&amp;quot; has been a meme in geospatial hacker land for over a decade and this is another incarnation of it. People think about space in non economic terms more than in terms of how to sell stuff via advertisements. We think about safety, attractiveness, how accessible it is, whats the parking like, who we are with, where next we are going to, what is the ambiance like, how will it be when we try to get home, crime levels, any nearby arts and events on, is the football on at the stadium, is it a weekday or a weeknight, is it near a university, is it during term time, what kind of people are nearby, are the streets well lit, how noisy are the streets. etc. etc.&lt;p&gt;Now - this doesn&amp;#x27;t discount the work. I think that a 2D map - the paper analogy onto digital form also isn&amp;#x27;t good, so any research and attempt to think about what&amp;#x27;s good and working is worth looking at. Care should be taken when giving psychological or psychogeographical points to such different designs.</text></item><item><author>nerdponx</author><text>&lt;i&gt;By removing literal geography, we now have a map that more closely reflects the way we think about our environment: a cluster of restaurants “five minutes that way” versus “ten minutes the other.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speak for yourself! I feel way more confident getting around when I know the actual geography.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Boothroid</author><text>I agree. I&amp;#x27;m becoming slightly irritated by blog posts that claim something as new that appears to be either nil improvement or minor increment from what has gone before. This isn&amp;#x27;t the first or the second time I&amp;#x27;ve seen it from MapBox, and I&amp;#x27;m now sceptical of what they seem to claiming as real breakthroughs. There are thousands of researchers involved in geo worldwide - every time I dip into a journal I am humbled by the progress that is being made and the depth of the research that is being performed. Are we really to believe that MapBox are finding things that the global research community have missed? I suspect HN is a ready audience as most users do not have a formal education in geo.</text></comment>