iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 48m

Sounds like it's time to add another sign to the front of the store.

Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 1h

I hang out sometimes on Reddit's r/maps and r/cartography forums. And while it's *mostly* people showing off their work, a high percentage of the posts there are "is this map worth anything?"

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 23h

What an excellent visualization tool. I would have loved to have had this available when I used to teach cartography. hypertidy.github.io/playproj/

Screenshot from the linked online site. Shows a wireflame globe and wireframe map. Lines connect the globe to the map, showing the projection.

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Matt Keeter @mattkeeter.com · 15/10/2026

someone needs to turn the "places adjacent" infobox on Wikipedia into a really bad text adventure game YOU ARE IN MARTIN'S LOCATION > LOOK THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE HERE (ACCORDING TO THE 2020 CENSUS). TO THE EAST IS A GRAVEL PATH LEADING TO BEAN'S PURCHASE. > NORTH YOU WALK NORTH. YOU ARE NOW IN GORHAM

Screenshot of Wikipedia showing a "Places adjacent to Martin's Location, New Hampshire" infobox. There are locations in all four directions, e.g. Gorham to the North and North-West, and Bean's Purchase to the east and south-east.

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Atlas of Design @nacis-atlas.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

See you at #nacis2026 next week in Milwaukee! All volumes of the Atlas of Design are in stock and we will have samples at the conference. Submissions for Volume 8 will open very soon!

The index page of the Atlas of Design, Volume 7, with samples of all the maps published within

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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Still trying to understand how Napster got shut down, but Anthropic is going public and still hasn’t paid us authors yet after stealing our work.

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NACIS @nacis.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

#nacis2026 is next week! Use our conference prep checklist to make sure you're ready for an exciting few days in Milwaukee ☑️

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I remind myself from time to time that I am fortunate to make maps for a living. Opportunities are few, and while it's not like I did *nothing* to get here, I surely benefitted from some opportunities falling my way vs. other deserving folks out there.

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The Map Room @maproomblog.com · 12/10/2026

Thanks to submissions from Lloyd S., my list of brick-and-mortar map stores has been updated. www.maproomblog.com/map-stores/ What else should be on the list? (N.B., this is a list of physical stores, not online retailers. Antique map dealers also don’t qualify: they’re a different creature.)

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Tom MacWright @macwright.com · 04/10/2026

hire erica, one of the smartest people in the biz.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Fun news: next year, my health insurance is rising by $130/month to a total of $730/month. So maybe it's a good time to plug the fact that I have a Patreon: www.patreon.com/pinakographos And that I sell mappy prints: somethingaboutmaps.com/Storefront

patreon.com

Daniel P. Huffman — creating stuff cartographers may find useful or interesting

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

And now, 100+ hours later, this is finally done. The client has given me permission to share this in a video (or more than one) breaking this map down layer-by-layer, so stay tuned! Not sure when that'll be. Meanwhile, off to bike to the UPS store so I can look at a print! #maps #sciart #alaska

A large map of Alaska, with many many details. Mostly too small to read anything.

Map detail showing shaded relief, land cover, settlements, water features, roads, etc around the Alaska Panhandle and parts of British Columbia.

Just the labels and point symbols on the map, of which there are something like 1500 or more.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

(Forgive the fact that my camera isn't great and the lighting isn't, either)

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The print is just a bit fuzzy because it’s on uncoated stock. I probably should have paid for the photo paper upgrade. But it should suffice for showing off later this month at the @nacis.bsky.social map gallery.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Point Pelee Peninsula. I have mapped the Great Lakes many times, and it stands out as a jagged triangle. Then in 2017 I was flying to Montréal, and I saw it from the air, and was just overwhelmed with emotion at seeing the lakes spread out before me, almost maplike, but not quite.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I will be briefly touching on something like this during my @nacis-atlas.bsky.social talk soon. I tried to make a thing, and then it went off the rails and I made a totally different thing that I didn't anticipate making. That's what AI-generated made-to-order stuff threatens to take away.

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

This is also true of cartography in my experience. Presenting someone with the familiar is good for reaffirming your priors but for true lovers of maps, they're not just information but the pleasure of surprise, realization, connection and discovery. There's not much to discover in the familiar.

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Vanessa KW (she/they) 📍 DC @run-for-funner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Hmm caught up on the #365DaysofMaps drama I occasionally heard about and didn’t understand … Now I do. And I AM late, but I am an AI chatting person I guess (on LinkedIn lol) that is loudly talking about AI + Map Production + Best Practices + Ethics, and I care about our community, so 🤣

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

New on the blog: Asymmetric Monstrosity, Home Edition. It only just now occurred to me to share an SVG of this projection, for those who might want to play around with it but don't want to use GIS. somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2026/10/08/a...

somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com

Asymmetric Monstrosity: Home Edition

Last year, I created a new map projection, the Asymmetric Monstrosity, designed to make somewhat of an artistic and educational statement about projections in general. I also made a physical world …

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The AGC, for which she and her team wrote software, was an amazing machine. This deep dive is well worth watching: youtu.be/xx7Lfh5SKUQ?...

youtu.be

34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk

YouTube video by media.ccc.de

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NACIS @nacis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Be sure to bring extra maps to #nacis2026 for the sixth annual free Map Swap! 🔃 The swap will be during the Friday afternoon break. You do not need to bring maps to participate. #cartography #maps #nacis #community

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Thanks to a tip from @molly-ohalloran.bsky.social, I just switched my Adobe subscription from Creative Cloud Pro to Creative Cloud Standard, which saves me $15/month. Same apps, just fewer AI generation credits, which I don't use anyway.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I can't speak to the cultural cause, but as someone born and raised there, this doesn't surprise me. I didn't really golf much, but I was given my first set of clubs at about age 12.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

When I taught cartographic labeling, a lot of it was about the technicalities of good typography, but there was always a segment dedicated to thinking about *which* labels you choose to use.

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The Map Center @mapcenter.com · 07/10/2026

Why thank you for pointing out that I sell maps of the United States made by the Soviet Union! They're still illegal in Russia but in the US we have a more liberal "Finders Keepers" policy. We're so used to being the ones who make the maps, so how does it feel to be the one being mapped?

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Just ask how many older Americans get an uncomfortable vibe seeing a topo map of the US in Russian. Same geography, just different labels. Names have always mattered, and there's a reason these things sell.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

If it becomes trivial to create a clone, they'll circulate underground at least, like pirated software.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In a recent video, @kurzgesagt.org made a great analogy about genAI. It is like a virus: something that is not alive, but, due to evolutionary pressure (i.e., training), has been fine-tuned to act in very complex ways that feel intelligent.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I must admit, I didn't see this coming. Maybe Adobe will stop constantly reminding me to use AI tools now, as they suddenly find themselves leading an anti-AI crusade.

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NACIS @nacis.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

📆 #nacis2026 DEI Speaker Series: Identity and Community Resilience 📆 Add to your Sched 👉️ buff.ly/QdIqL25

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NACIS @nacis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Planning to join us in Milwaukee for #nacis2026? Register today to save! 🐤 Rates increase on Thursday, October 8. Register here 🎫 buff.ly/kDOnQ6B

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I do this sometimes on complex projects just to make sure I haven't messed anything up between drafts. It's easy enough to accidentally turn a layer off, or nudge something unintentionally. Looking at this helps me confirm that the only changes are the ones I wanted.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Traces of edits. Two drafts of the same map, overlaid using the "Difference" blend mode in Photoshop.

An image of some map labels. The background is black, and the labels are mostly purple (but with many color variations within). Old and new labels look the same, as this blend mode causes changed pixels to show up, with unchanged pixels staying black.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Indeed. I'm unfortunately used to flying blind. I've made hundreds of maps for print, but I've seen proofs only a few times. Most of the time I just have to design robustly and hope it works out. Occasionally someone at the press will ask for adjustments based on their experience with the equipment.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ok. On the same page now (alas, context is hard on the internet). This client is printing things out on their office large-format printer. I wish I could see the result to potentially tweak it, but more likely I'll only be able to get a copy if I run one off myself at the nearby UPS store.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

RGB is wider, but converting CMYK to RGB (& back for printing) can lead to problems. For example, a 100K label might end up as a rich black. If you've carefully built your colors in CMYK, you want them to come out on the page in just those exact ink ratios, & going to RGB and back might change them.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

They do (though fancier ones can do CcMmYKkk or CMYGOK), but a lot of consumer-grade printing ends up involving a conversion to RGB (among the graphics software, the OS, the print driver, etc). At least in my recollection.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Likewise my early tests of shaded relief in Blender. I had the idea of how to do it, and my settings happened to make it so that the first result was good enough to continue. I've now used Blender enough to know that my first test could easily have looked terrible & made me think it unfeasible.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Many ideas are subject to chance. I made this vector glow in minutes, guessing at the line widths and opacities. This evening I tried for an hour to tweak it, and nothing looked good. If I hadn't stumbled upon good parameters right away, I might have just thought, "I guess this doesn't work."

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Separations. (When finished, this map will be printed on an office plotter, so it'll probably just get converted to RGB, but I've kept everything in CMYK anyway because that's just how I think).

The cyan plate of a large detailed map of Alaska.

The magenta plate of a large detailed map of Alaska.

The yellow plate of a large detailed map of Alaska.

The black plate of a large detailed map of Alaska.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Understood. Thanks for the info, and I'll keep an eye out for forthcoming details!

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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:

Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads:

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

And by this I mean: My existing opinions caused me to believe something that was untrue. Always good to have a reminder of the dangers of that sort of thing.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I must admit that I took it at face value, which speaks to how I perceive that whole industry.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

May I ask what form Mapbox's sponsorship takes?

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Not sure why it took me so many years to start doing this.

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Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I've often been dissatisfied with the unevenness of outer glows in Illustrator. So I've *finally* begun making vector glows, and so far that's been far better. Photoshop has 2 glow types: "precise" & "softer," and this is basically me simulating the former, as Illustrator only does softer glows.

A portion of a monochrome map. Some labels are in white with a dark outer glow. Parts of the glow are darker than others and it is uneven.

A portion of a monochrome map. Some labels are in white with a dark outer glow. The glow is very even around each character.

A detail of two labels for Japan. One has an even, vector glow around it, the other has an uneven raster glow.

Screenshot of Photoshop showing two labels. One with a "precise" glow and one with a "softer" glow.

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