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World (and Space)

Seasons

What could be more Geographical than seasons? Interesting looking book on how Japanese live and celebrate seasonal change by tuning into their environments.

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/11/how-embracing-72-japanese-micro-seasons-could-change-your-garden-and-your-life

Solar Storms

Well the world just had a great light show and also dodged a solar bullet. Just be glad it wasn’t a Carrington event.

Aurora from Tacoma. Tim McGrath

NASA footage of the last solar storms: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0hy6pmj/spectacular-nasa-footage-of-solar-activity-behind-the-aurora
Carrington Event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

An ESRI Tour of the Star Wars Galaxy

A nice story map of Star Wars: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/764c2e27e95541a880acbbac242a6c8b?adusf=twitter&aduc=esritraining&adut=0d54e71a-a72d-40b6-b054-c3e2afb6e807

History Hits

I subscribe to History Hits. Nice little history channel. Here’s a recent episode on maps with a good discussion of Idrisi’s Book of Roger and Ptolemy’s maps.

Episode: https://access.historyhit.com/videos/maps-our-place-in-the-world
Idrisi - Book of Roger. Where south is at the top and maps are centered on Mecca. It’s a fusion of Greek, Roman, and Islamic mapping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rogeriana
Ptolemy brought math to mapping. First use of latitude and longitude. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy%27s_world_map

The Grab

Coming June 14 by the director who brought you Black Fish (also a really excellent documentary).

“The Grab,” described as a global thriller, follows journalists from The Center for Investigative Reporting as they try to uncover the money and influence being used by countries, corporations and members of the uber elite to control the planet’s most vital resources. The film takes you “around the globe from Arizona to Zambia, to reveal one of the world’s biggest and least known threats,” per the official logline.

The Grab, from Variety: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/the-grab-trailer-participant-1235995336/

Geography of Abortion and Womens Healthcare

Geographic consequences of State abortion bans. This is a tragedy for women in the affected States.

Geographic misalignment of abortion training for physicians: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/09/1250057657/medical-residents-starting-avoid-states-abortion-bans
Driving away others as well: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/07/abortion-bans-drive-away-up-to-half-of-young-talent-new-cnbc/generation-lab-youth-survey-finds.html

MapMen

MapMen is an amusing and informative Youtube channel. In this epsiode they explain the 1500 Internet Top Level Domain’s (TLD’s).

Mapping Internet Country Codes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4hxKkqR4E
Check out the Tokelau TLD .tk
They have a funny map of how American’s see the world.

American Map of the World.

GeoPolitics

Chip Wars

The Geopolitics of silicon. The book “Chip War” is a super interesting read about the history and state of our current transformational period of technology. There’s no question that this period is as as impactful as the Industrial Revolution on humans and there are corresponding geographic and geopolitical impacts. This a great book (though the audible narrator is very dry). Great context for understanding the geopolitics behind Biden’s CHIPS Act.

Recommended book: Chip War - The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Chip-War/Chris-Miller/9781982172008
CHIPS Act: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/
TSMC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC
Intel: (Bloomberg paywall) https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-intel-comeback-chipmaking/
ASML - The Dutch rule! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
Sony semiconductors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony#Imaging_&_sensing_solutions
Semiconductor fabriacation plant locations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Ian Urbina, Outlaw Ocean PBS Interview

Ian Urbina is an interesting character and investigative journalist. This is a good PBS interview with him and his expose on worldwide fish market, forced labor from Chinese fishing and fish processing.