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Though I was not a fan of Moe, Larry, Shemp and Curly my young uncles were and I was subjected to many episodes of The Three Stooges television show when I was a kid. I never saw Malice in the Palace but the map is interesting.
Malice in the Palace(1949) is set in a fictionalised, funnified Middle East, where Moe, Shemp and Larry run the Cafe Casbah Bah. Two of their customers, Gin-A Rummy and Hassan ben Sober, are plotting to steal a giant diamond from the tomb of Rootentooten. However, when they discover the diamond is already in the possession of the Emir of Schmow, they start yammering and are kicked out of the Cafe. The Stooges then decide to retrieve the diamond themselves, using a map left behind by the unsuccessful plotters.
The map, shown briefly in the film, is of a continentful of countries with strange names and odd shapes, clearly designed to look and sound ‘foreign’. What does this ‘Map of Starvania’, designed merely for the purpose of unsophisticated comedy, unconsciously reveal of mid-20th-century America’s attitudes towards the exotic, the un-American?
You’ve heard of war bunkers and subways and fallout shelters, but this list of hidden places has more than I ever knew about, like how Seattle created an underground level in one fell swoop.
The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 put an end to the first Seattle, with civic leaders making two important decisions. The first was a building ordinance specifying that all new constructions must be of brick or masonry. The second was to elevate the new city above the tideflats, effectively turning the second story of buildings into the new ground floor. Shop-keeps quickly rebuilt, and sidewalks and streets were planted one story higher than before, creating underground passageways lined with the original storefronts.
There are 15 other places and stories as well at Nile Guide. Link -via Holy Kaw!
(Image source: Sights in Seattle)
I love a good geography quiz! The United States has 23 states that border the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. In this quiz from mental_floss, you are challenged to name all 23 in three minutes. I did it with a half-minute to spare! And I would have done it faster if I could type as well as I read a mental map. Link
This is the third Beer Geography quiz from Mental_floss (see the earlier quizzes here and here). Do you know where your favorite (and not-so-favorite) beers are brewed? I, no beer expert, was lucky to score as high as 44%. You can beat that! Link
If history had swung in a slightly different direction, we may have spent fourth grade memorizing the capitals of Sylvania, Deseret, Texlahoma, and Forgottonia. I would be living in Transylvania!
American pioneer Daniel Boone also had a thing for the “sylvania” suffix. If he’d had his way, Kentucky would have been called Transylvania and we’d be placing bets on horses at the Transylvania Derby. Boone hoped to call the colony’s capital Boonesborough, but much to the explorer’s chagrin, North Carolina and Virginia voted against Transylvania’s existence.
Read about more of these “lost states” at NPR. Link -via Metafilter
Mental_floss has posted plenty of quizzes about US geography, but Canadians will have an edge in today’s Lunchtime Quiz. How well do you know Canadian geography? I scored 70%, not bad for someone who has never been to Canada. Link
The US has its share of strange town names. If you’ve made a few road trips, you’ve no doubt encountered some of them. Test your knowledge of these strangely-named cities in this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss. I scored 67%. Note: be sure to read the questions carefully! Link
On January 27, 1888, a group of 165 prominent men in Washington, DC incorporated a club called the National Geographic Society.
Its first president, lawyer Gardiner Green Hubbard, was the father-in-law and early financier of inventor Alexander Graham Bell, another founding member. Hubbard was also the first president of the Bell Telephone company, known today as AT&T.
The society’s publication, National Geographic magazine, began printing just 10 months after that founding meeting. It was initially a drab-looking scholarly journal sent to 165 charter members. Now its hallmark photography and more mainstream writing reach the hands of more than 40 million people per month.
Wired takes a look at the history of the Society and how it grew from its humble beginnings into a multi-faceted organization that includes the magazine and its various spinoffs, a TV channel, research grants, educational programs, and a vast website. Link
(image credit: Steve McCurry/National Geographic)
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When you’re trying to figure out where to build your next ski resort, you don’t have to use guesswork to pick the ideal spot — there’s an app for that.
Geographers at the University of Delaware have developed a geographical information system (GIS) that can identify the location that would best suit your winter sport needs, whether you want a small, exclusive resort or a large, mass market venue.
Professors Jordan Silberman and Peter Rees have taken into account humidity levels most likely to produce snow, as well as road accessibility, slope geometry (to avoid avalanches), threats to wildlife, likely erosion from tree felling, and the availability of electricity to run the lifts.
“This lets us rank the locations for skiing, snowboarding, ice-climbing and snowmobiling,” says Silberman.
So before you break ground for that chalet, consult this GIS-based model. It beats a Magic 8-Ball.
Links: io9, New Scientist, Applied Geography; image via Freaking News
Infographics are not new, they are just easier to make and pass around on the internet. BibliOdyssey has a collection of posters, pages, and pamphlets from the Victorian era that make information into an art form. Pictured is the Tableau De L’Histoire Universelle (History of the Universe Chart).
This is a fold-out print depicting all of human history from the time of creation (4693 BC = Adam & Eve; the great flood = 3300 BC) up to the date of publication (1858 by Eug. Pick, Paris). Vignettes of historically significant people, places and buildings etc are arranged along the borders.
The designer has employed something of a metaphorical display choice: civilisations are presented as a series of rivers — the widths likely imply the comparative population level of each group versus the world’s population — which ‘flow’ down through history.
See also graphics on geography, biology, astronomy, and more. The pictures are all linked to larger Flickr versions. Link
James Hayes-Bohanan, Ph.D. is a professor of geography AND a scholar with the Vanderbilt University Institute for Coffee Studies. His website Geography of Coffee is full of information about coffee around the world, including the places coffee is produced, shipped, and sold. You’ll also find out about fair trade and the politics of the coffee business. Of course, there are also coffee reviews and instructions for making the perfect cup. Link -via the Presurfer
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