Lab 3

View Road Trip to the World's Largest Observatory Complex in a larger map

This map shows my road trip to the world's largest observatory complex at the top of Mountain Mauna Kea in Big Island, Hawaii this summer. Big Island is an intriguing place for its diverse geological landscape and ecosystem. On the map, you can see I labeled three areas as "Human being's world", "Devil's World" and "Pure world" not just for fun but there is also meaning in terms of the ecosystem, the natural environment and culture behind these labels. Like in the Human being's world, the environment there is quite suitable for living. Lots of different kinds of green plants grow along the shoreline and the climate there is hospitable. Many farmers also grow plants and graze livestock. Transportation service is well developed in that area. However, when driving into the red area, you can find the landscape is suddenly changed. Bushes and shrubs grow on this area with misty weather. Animals are rarely found. The landscape at the top of the mountain made me think I was not really on Earth but on Mars since when I looked around there were only soil hills. However, every thing seemed so clean, like the sky and the land and it was quite quiet at the summit maybe because of the low concentration of air that cannot convey sound completely in amplitude. Also, we cannot stay at the top for too long because the lack of oxygen made us feel headache. The road to the summit is unpaved so only a 4-wheeled vehicle is allowed to go on to the top. The car was shaking all the time on the road and I had to stay alert to prevent my car from going off the track. It is great to train your driving skill and it is actually fun.

Like the map I created, neogeography is a great tool for people to create individualized and creative maps. It can also provide useful information to introduce other people to a new place based on the experience and comments written by those neogeography users. Sometimes users' individualized information is more interesting to read than a normal tour guide or a map and people tend to believe in other people's real experience rather than in ads or some guide books. Also, when people discover some new changes or emergencies in some places, they can share them online through neogeography in a timely manner. In sum, neogeography is a powerful tool that relies on public knowledge.

However, it does have certain flaws in terms of accuracy and privacy. Take the information on my map for example. Some people might feel the middle area is really not that "devil" during a sunny day visit. Since every one can get access to neogeography, whose information is reliable? Through users' casual drawing on their maps, we also cannot determine if those locations we want to go are really at the places indicated by neogeography users. Information such as routes and locations is not supposed to be more accurate than the information provided by a normal map. Privacy is also another issue. You certainly do not want any stalker to follow you after you share a map about your everyday life to the public. A regulation or a rule should be established to avoid those flaws and improve the quality of neogeography.

Lab 2

1. Beverly Hills Quadrangle

2. Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood

3. 1966

4. North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27) and North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83)

5. 1:24000

6. a) 1200m; b) 1.894miles; c) 2.64 inches; d) 12.5 cm

7. 20 feet

8. a) 34°4'  28.56'', -118°26'  21.12'';  34.0746°, -118.4392°
    b) 34°0'  27.36'', -118°29'  59.28'';  34.0076°,-118.4998°
    c) 34°7'  12.36'', -118°24'  37.08'';  34.1201°,-118.4103°

9. a) 560 feet = 170.69 meters
    b) 140 feet =  42.67 meters
    c)  700 feet = 213.36 meters

10. Zone 11

11.  3763000m.N.  362000m.E.

12.  1000,000m^2

13.

14. 14 degrees east.

15. South.

16.

Lab 1

Map One

I find this 17th century map on the webpage: http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/News/BOOKS-%26-MANUSCRIPTS/2011-News-Archive/Beautiful-17th-century-map-shows-collectors-the-way-forward-next-week/5866.page. When I saw this map, I was immediately attracted by its beauty and delicacy of craftsmanship. This map is a double-hemispherical world map, dating to 1670. We can find images of the seasons, the zodiac and the elements, all combined within four vignettes at the corners. All major continents except for Antarctica are shown on the map. One of the remarkable things is that California is presented as an island beside North America. A part of Australia is shown on the map and New Zealand is indicated by a stroke of the coastline. Japan is there with an exaggerated Hokkaido on the map. Although there are certain flaws in the map compared with modern maps of the world, given that there was certain limitation of technology in the late 17th century, this map is surprisingly accurate. It is really interesting to find how smart ancient people are through their masterpieces.

Map Two

I find the map of world night lights on the webpage:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Night_Lights_Map.jpg.  This map is taken from a satellite and it shows how lights are distributed at night around the world. We can see from the picture that parts of the world like the US, Europe and East Asia, the light intensity is much stronger than the rest of the world. Some people indicate that there is a proportional relationship between light intensity and economic activities as those areas with greater light intensity are more economically developed than other places with less light intensity. It is very interesting to know that we can use such a simple map to measure economic activities.

Map 3

This is the map of soccer clubs which are attending the 2012-2013 UEFA Champions League. The link of the map is here: http://billsportsmaps.com/?category_name=uefa-champions-league. This map shows what the 32 teams are and where they are located. Clubs with larger logos on the map are more likely to get this year's champion based on people's prediction in general.  We can see that two countries have the largest number of representative teams and the countries are England and Spain. It indicates that these two countries' national leagues are pretty competitive and their soccer culture is prevailing. In fact, their national soccer teams are also very strong in the world. Spain just got the Euro Cup this year. Countries, such as Germany and Portugal, which have three representatives, also have strong national soccer teams. One thing remarkable is that clubs from East Europe are much fewer than those from West Europe, indicating the difference between the strength of soccer clubs in the two regions. It is really interesting to see the map could have so many implications on the soccer culture in Europe.