iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 29/09/2026

Tried looking up a good .svg icon of a clam and they're all scallops with pearls. How do Rhode Islanders endure such indignity?

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 29/09/2026

OK, I've had absolutely BONKERS response to my MapTime RI event that I announced on TikTok. Want to learn how to use the free map making software QGIS? On October 15 we can learn together! It's free, donations go to the snack budget. www.eventbrite.com/e/map-time-r...

eventbrite.com

Map Time RI: QGIS night with Discipline Brewing

Tonight we're learning QGIS and making maps together on a single theme.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 27/09/2026

Clearly I need to start a paid service were I do research for people who have purchased houses and want.... god I don't even know what... a map that has their building footprint in it? It's a common enough issue and all I can do right now is direct people to the RI State Archive.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 27/09/2026

If AI was accurately marketed as a technical improvement in specific fields, it'd be heralded as an incredible advancement among specialists and largely ignored by the public. What a dream it could have been! AI should have had the same impact on the economy and culture as the Roomba.

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Reposted by The Map Center

Fast Company @fastcompany.com · 27/09/2026

The museum’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to information design includes works by a climatologist, The New York Times, and more. f-st.co/Z1iiWnI

f-st.co

MoMA explores the useful beauty of information design

The museum’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to the field includes works by a climatologist, The New York Times, and more.

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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This made my day. American tourist thought it was funny to come to Canada and provoke a fight. FAFO www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

independent.co.uk

CEO loses job over viral photo of family in ‘Lake America’ sweatshirts

President Donald Trump renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America in a controversial move last month

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Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Half of France's forest has no dominant species: 51% is mixed stands. Where one species does dominate, it's oak, on 19%, far ahead of beech, fir or pine. Data: IGN BD Forêt V2 #France #forest #trees #maps #dataviz

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 24/09/2026

Let me toast Ian's taste: The Map Thief is a true New England story about the world's most prolific map thief who finally got caught razorblading pages out of books at the Yale library. Fascinating bio of a criminal nerd. And the history of Iraq is gorgeous. Haven't read it, just love the pictures.

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Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You could find your way along the Nova Scotia coast blind, just by timing the blinks. Every lighthouse flashes on its own rhythm, a set interval and colour no neighbour repeats. Sambro Island off Halifax has burned since 1758, the oldest working lighthouse in North America. #lighthouse #NovaScotia

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 22/09/2026

Writing a job application and they want an example of a project I've done but I've been too busy building a small business and doing talks at institutes of higher education to have updated my GitHub account. Am I screwed?

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 22/09/2026

The only exception to my "NO S2:16 of WEST WING" sign is clips of the episode where Nick Offerman talks about a wolf named Pluie and a proposed wildlife right of way www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avo0...

youtube.com

The West Wing-Pluie

YouTube video by amiableamy24

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Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Hey folks, with everyone going back to school and a ton of new e-bikes going around, I wanted to re-share the Bike Streets app. It's a curated bike navigation app built around the network of streets that people actually ride on. It's free to use! Check it out and let me know what you think!

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 22/09/2026

You cannot convince me that right wing men watch women's sports or read books enough to authentically care about either.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 21/09/2026

Woonsocket teacher Tom Kerr-Vanderslice bought his students maps of Rhode Island from AMC and Benchmark and his students have been devouring them. Also note the map of Turtle Island and TWO globes. A+.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 21/09/2026

Last year I took both shots in the same arm so this year I'm doing Covid in my left arm, flu vaccine in the right. For symmetry and for science.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 20/09/2026

I regret to inform you that this AI plugin for QGIS is very, very good. terra-lab.ai/dashboard/ai... Will this make me faster? More efficient? Creative? Idk. But I believe that this can help me do things I can imagine. Fortunately I've spent time doing stuff manually so I can imagine a lot.

terra-lab.ai

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 19/09/2026

Swaddled in soft fleece, you too can be as handsome as an immense body of freshwater straddling two countries!

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bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

A similar map with 3D terrain features of Southern California. A great perspective on why there are so many fires in the LA area & why they are hard to fight (terrain, downslope Santa Ana winds). I’ve dropped H2O all over the area 🚁 including by Disney Land & next to the Mount Wilson Observatory.

A three dimensional map of the greater LA area with the Santa Monica Mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino mountains high elevations depicting three dimensions lallynand colored with light to dark browns
indicating the highest elevations.
Valleys green. Major population centers labeled.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 19/09/2026

I facilitated my "Map for a Cat" program yesterday for GIS pros at a Geospatial Professional Network conference and I was overexplaining how it may look like a childish activity but it has real applicability etc And the participants instantly saw the value of it and low key told me to shut up.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 18/09/2026

I'm at the Geospatial Professional Network conference at Bridgewater State Uni today. Just watched a student presentation about their AI app that read property deeds in MA. Their program read and mapped 15 million deeds and mapped where racial covenants excluded people of color. Fascinating work!

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 18/09/2026

I should not write emails when I'm hangry. That sales rep trying to sell me "correct" equal area maps both did and did not deserve that lengthy response.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 17/09/2026

Just had a helpful customer tell me that he's a millionaire and he wanted to offer me his business advice: Buy two properties that increase in value over decades during a period of rapid growth!

static.klipy.com

The Simpsons: Why Didn't I Think Of That?

ALT: The Simpsons: Why Didn't I Think Of That?

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 17/09/2026

Saw a note on IG about Heartleaf Books in Providence selling one of their co-op shares. They do about $200k a year in sales so each of their 1/4 shares is $50,000 buy in. This is a much more sustainable way to do a low-yield business.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 16/09/2026

I did a talk last night in Plymouth and met so many of the attendees when they came up to me and said they saw me on Chronicle Channel 5 or social media. After three years as the owner of the Map Center, I'm becoming a recognized brand that can pull crowds. Feels good.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 16/09/2026

Last year I paddled the Blackstone River with a GoPro so I could create Mapillary streetview imagery of the river for the Blackstone River Watershed Collaborative. I just found out today that a PhD student used my data for their project about longitudinal connectivity in aquatic ecosystems.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 15/09/2026

Going to the Plymouth Public Library in Massachusetts this evening to do a talk on Revolutionary War mapping in New England (a subject I have consistently tried to convince them I know very, very little about.) It will likely include the wildest digressions I have yet attempted.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 12/09/2026

Today's edition of Complaint or Humblebrag? I have too much cool shit. My customers always end up finding multiple things that they think are awesome so they bring a pile up to the counter that they winnow down in anguish. It means I am CONSTANTLY reshelving.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 12/09/2026

Have you ever looked really hard for something you haven't seen in a while and started to wonder if you actually threw it out a long time ago? and you're both a little disappointed and also a bit proud you actually threw something away?

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 11/09/2026

The Map Center has been around for 76 years. On October 1 I'll have been the owner for three whole years. Want to come hang out and celebrate with me? Thursday October 1, 7PM-9PM Hang out with some map nerds and see the place lit up after hours!

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Over on Mastodon (you can find me here: mapstodon.space/@pinakographos), someone was kind, and perhaps disturbed, enough to describe the Asymmetric Monstrosity as their favorite projection. You can freely download a copy here: somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/a...

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 11/09/2026

Obligatory 9/11 observation: I was in middle school in Central New York. Like a four hour drive from New York City. Nonetheless, our school had a bomb threat and we waited in the gym. There was a certain dissolution of geography. Being in the middle of nowhere no longer felt safe.

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Information is Beautiful @infobeautiful.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The digestive system as a tube map Original design by Jack Anderson www.radiologycafe.com/blog/digesti...

This infographic reimagines the human digestive system as a simplified subway map, using coloured lines to show how food and digestive secretions travel through the gastrointestinal tract. The red line traces the main path of food, beginning at the oesophagus, passing through the stomach, continuing into the duodenum and small intestine (represented here by the ileum), before reaching the caecum and then travelling through the colon to the sigmoid colon and rectum. Separate coloured branches represent organs that feed digestive juices into the system: the green line shows bile flowing from the liver via the gallbladder into the duodenum, while the yellow line shows digestive enzymes entering from the pancreas at the same location. The blue line outlines the large intestine (colon), which frames the small intestine before ending at the rectum. A short purple branch depicts the appendix extending from the caecum. By presenting the digestive tract as an interconnected transit network rather than an anatomical drawing, the graphic emphasizes the sequence of digestion and the convergence of food, bile and pancreatic enzymes in the duodenum while making the overall layout easier to understand.

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MapTiler @maptiler.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Building a great outdoor app starts with a map created specifically for the wild 🏔️ Find out what the most important features of a true outdoor base map are, together with SAC trail difficulty ratings, alpine shelters, or off-limit nature zones. Blog link in thread 👇

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 10/09/2026

Adam Greenman wins the primary for Pawtucket mayor! My guy!

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 09/09/2026

I voted in the RI primary this morning. A few uncontested races, sure, but there are also some great opportunities for incremental progress. I'm optimistic for some small wins today.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 08/09/2026

Did you know that I was a child model? I was the Empire Vision glasses kid, the Kinney Drug Store kid and I was in a Raymore and Flanagan Commercial where they taught me how to fall into a couch in slo-mo. I've lost a bit of the magic but check out these awesome new sweatshirts.

Andrew awkwardly wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with the name of the great lakes

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 08/09/2026

I went diving today and I found joy that has been largely absent for me in the past six months. Here's a gay flounder I found. If you want to go diving with me in RI let me know. I want to be underwater as much as I can before winter comes.

$A flounder with a rainbow refracted on its back$

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Reposted by The Map Center

Andy Woodruff @awoodruff.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

An official seal of approval for the @mapcenter.com kids’ section!

Photo of two children on the floor reading books in a shop filled with books and maps on the wall.

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Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Picture the scene. It's 1769. You're William Aberdeen and you're drawing a map of Sebay in Tankerness, #Orkney. It's going well but then you realise there are some blank bits so you decide to add some decoration. You think about what to draw for a moment. It's an obvious choice.

A section of an old hand drawn map of Sebay in Tankerness, Orkney

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 06/09/2026

Soon cartography is just going to become that one scene from Being John Malkovich. America America? America America!

static.klipy.com

Leespoons Malkovich

ALT: Leespoons Malkovich

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 06/09/2026

The rest of you should go about your day and not be distracted by this stupid and obvious agit-prop. But I'm a cartographer and I'm losing my goddamn mind.

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Any mapping is necessarily a kind of flattening, distortions happen, information lost. "Not even the most expansive mapping can convey everything" or, to quote Alfred Korzybski, "the map is not the territory"

excerpt from a page in Unflattening - upper part shows the globe encircled (like the Daily Planet) with the letters Circumnavigation. this casts a shadow on a flat map - the mercator project of the globe. Discussion of the distortions that happen when you go from 3 dimensions to two - information lost and connections severed. Below this is a similar arrangement, an icosahedron instead of a globe, and then a map made by unfolding that icosahedron. This is Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion map. It preserves area in ways the mercator could not, and it also shows connections where the mercator showed divisions. That said, it's not super clear for how you travel across the globe...

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 05/09/2026

I finally saw Top Gun: Maverick and I just want to reaffirm my love of airplane movies while acknowledging the genre is getting stale. Here are some free ideas for Hollywood to make more awesome airplane movies.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 04/09/2026

Goddamn it I have to make a video about the mercator projection don't I

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 04/09/2026

Yep, I'm a(n Upstate) New Yorker through and through.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 03/09/2026

Getting to meet Senator Whitehouse was a real treat today. My grandmother loved the guy and would have been tickled to see us hanging out. Maps depict the past but they also help us envision better futures.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien look at a map held by Andrew Middleton

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 02/09/2026

Just go for it, Google Maps. I fucking dare you.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 02/09/2026

I'm doing more commercial real estate shopping for a small/medium retail concept and HOLY SHIT Philadelphia is awesome looking. I'm counting on you to tell me this is an atrocious idea.

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