Rorschmap

29 July 2011

rorschmap is pretty awesome:

Rorschmap is cartographic navel-gazing, a reframing of the map. It will not help you find anything. We are bored with your squares and your margins. We want new shapes and new dimensions, the unicode snowmen of visual representation. †‡†, as the man said.

The word “kaleidoscope” is derived from the Ancient Greek καλ(ός) (beauty, beautiful), είδο(ς) (form, shape) and -σκόπιο (tool for examination)—hence “observer of beautiful forms”. It was invented by Sir David Brewster in 1815-17. Brewster was also active in the development of the lighthouse; both things were byproducts of his researches into optics. The light, refracted, serves both beauty and safety, both aesthetics and cartography.

Read more on booktwo.org.

It's fun to put your home address in, look at landmarks, and get lost in the data. I highly recommend checking it out.