Lives of Native Americans

In An Overview of Native American Maps, there are a lot of maps showing the lives of Native Americans. Since Native Americans generally led a primitive lifestyle, the maps they created are basically for finding food, water and reminding indigenous people from the dangers such as wild animals. One thing that interests me the most is how they could manage to create maps with simple materials such as animal skin yet they can be preserved for a long period of time. For instance, in the Lone Dog's Winter Count, we can see that the making of maps is actually very delicate and the symbols were drawn in a detailed way (Warhus, 1997).   As for another reading Maps of the Age of European Exploration, albeit the maps are more sophisticated and drawn in greater detail, the maps tend to be misleading and this makes me wonder the uses of fake maps in ancient contexts. It is believed that some of them may be used for deceiving enemies during wartime.

Using Maps to Quest

I grew up playing video games and I never realized how important maps were until I didn't have one. I recall playing World of Warcraft in high school where there were areas on the map where monsters were that could kill you easily (if you were a low level) and there were areas on the map where you needed to go for quests. Thankfully, on WoW the maps were detailed and would show you where you would need to go for each quest. However, it was important that you knew which route or pathway to take because you might walk through a dangerous area and die. I didn't appreciate maps until I played Assasin's Creed 3. Although I beat the game in a few days, it wasn't until I was about 90% completed with the story line that I understood how to parry attacks and most importantly use my map. Because I was unaware how to open my map, I wasted a lot of my time running / horseback riding around trying to find the main road or a means of quickly transporting from one place to another. Although I've always enjoyed playing Assasin's Creed, however, playing that campaign with no map and therefore no knowledge of location of what town I was in made the game extremely frustrating and I was happy that I finished it so I didn't have to play it for a longer period of time.

Map in Mr.Robot

Over the long weekend, I decided to finally catch up on the show Mr.Robot after seeing it win multiple awards at the golden globes. I noticed, in one of the later episodes, a giant room sized, three dimensional map of New York City. Viewed from above on a balcony of sorts, this massive representation of NYC is an impressive model showing the scope and scale of this massive, man made concrete jungle, skyscrapers jutting up from the ground. This birds eye view really slows you to appreciate one of the nation's most iconic cities like an infamous New York pigeon would, and one can only try and appreciate the dedication and craftsmanship that went into constructing the city, as well as its miniature. 

Taipei 101

Just this last summer, I was in Taipei - my hometown. I had been to Taipei 101, the world's tallest building from 2004 to 2009, but have not ever been at the very top. I had been in Taipei city many different times before, but have not ever seen Taipei from a different perspective - as lots of buildings are very tall, it's hard to see the landscape from alternating angles. After I took the world's fastest elevator to the top, I looked at Taipei from a truly magnificent angle - a 360 degree bird's eye view. I could see how the infrastructure of Taipei really worked, which I had previously not been aware of. Much respect for civil engineers.

Sky Diving

At the start of fall quarter, I was given the opportunity to go skydiving through a club at school. I was completely terrified, but ultimately decided to go for it. After a few hours of waiting for our turn, we got strapped up and loaded into the plane. While we were gaining elevation, the ground below us turned into a huge chart of grass grids. It was so weird having a birds eye view and then a God's eye view of Davis, for I never realized how uniform our land has been partitioned into. From that height, I got to experience the "sublime" scenery of California. It was a great experience!

Bird's Eye View

About a year ago, I was in Colorado Springs, CO at the Air Force Academy. After seeing the academy from the normal cadet perspective, a group a friends and I hiked the mountain right behind the academy grounds. Seeing the layout of the campus from a bird's eye view totally changed the way I looked at the Academy and how it was structured. From that day on I had a different perspective of the entire place just from changing the location of my viewpoint.. Pretty cool.

Red Tails

This past weekend I watched the movie Red Tails. The film takes place during World War ll, 13 black cadets became part of an experimental program that trains them to become fighter pilots. While watching the film I noticed how the pilots flew over enemy territory looking down in a birds eye view. The study of maps and regions was needed when attacking German territory. The fighter pilots got a birds eye view of grids surrounding the area.

Bike Lanes

When biking in the big city it's good to know what streets have access to bike lanes and which don't. So that you can get the fastest route possible to your destination with legal means that is. Knowing where you're biking to is also important without getting lost in a huge city, directions are essential to the everyday life of the human society. Especially if there is new construction being added onto your route and might be interrupted by a detour. It's useful to know your way around the city on your bicycle.

The Culture and Emotion Within Sublime Landscapes

I find it very interesting that the definition of sublime is very connected to culture and historical aspects. My culture would most likely consider a coastal piece of landscape art as sublime. This is a big reason why I very much enjoy viewing and feel a very emotional connection to coastal scenes which display beaches, oceans, and things of that nature. It is also interesting and ironic to note how a sublime image is almost ruined because of the images popularity. However, the emotional aspect of sublime landscapes makes them extremely enjoyable and important.      

Tron - The Grid

Recently I was watching the movie Tron Legacy. In the movie the separate world that they entered was called The Grid. It was described as a digital frontier and how it was mapped out of circuits like freeways, like many of our cities today. They are built like a grid to make it easier to navigate. In this movie it shows the grid as a futuristic and technological system. Which can relate to The United States in the 1700's and 1800's because a grid like system was seen to take away from the natural land.

Driving in Tahoe

This past weekend me and some friends went to South Lake Tahoe and we had to guide our way back home through the cold, snowy, treacherous weather. In order to determine the way to go home we inputed the directions into our maps, but the connection was poor and we ended up having to switch directions midway through the trip due to bad road conditions. Because of this we were forced to analyze the map to determine the proper route to go home--we were studying the differences in terrain and how the mountains were distributed in the map in order to find our way home quickly and safely.  The topography of the map was a vital part of how we got home because it provided us with a prediction of what to expect with the roads. On the other hand, the representation of the map itself proved to be important, but it was difficult to navigate how effective the routes were going to be because weather was not taken into account with the maps that were provided on our phones.

Blog Post 1: Architectural City-Scape Paintings

I took an Art History class once and had to study many different paintings.  Many of the paintings were architectural scenes of buildings, roadways, and bridges, in other words “city-scapes.”  By our previous lectures on the definition of landscapes and maps, landscapes seem to be more nature oriented and of wide-open spaces.  Urban city areas such as in architectural oriented paintings may or may not have such wide open spaces or a “nature” setting.   They are not maps in my mind as they are not focused with providing a viewer with scientific or other logical information, but are focused on simply appealing to the viewer in the same way as a landscape.  Does this mean that these sort of architectural style paintings are to be classified as landscapes or something else?  I believe that they should be classified as landscapes, even though they have a much greater human presence than what one would associate with a stereotypical landscape painting.

Lost in Beauty

As I looked out the window in the top floor of Hickey gymnasium, I was able to see a beautiful landscape of the tennis courts, bus stops, and parts of campus. It made me think of the bird's eye view concept that we discussed in class as well. Also, I remember getting lost on campus the first week of school and wishing I had a map. I had a profile view of the campus, but that view was of no use at the time!

Flying in a airplane

I was flying in an airplane with my fellow teammates and I wanted to peek out the window to see the landscape beneath the plane, but there was one problem I was on the end of the row. So I had to politely ask my teammate to wake up from his nap so he could open the window for me. When I looked out the window I was amazed at the wonderful landscape of the mountains and rivers, but I realized that I was looking at the wonderful scenery from a bird's eye view, which lead me to writing this blog post. 

Video Game Maps

Outside of google maps, I’ve realized I mostly only use maps when playing video games. From designing a town to discovering hidden items, I use maps for entertainment purposes just as much as I use them for navigational purposes. Most maps in the video game world are from a bird’s eye view, so that the player can understand the lay of the land and connect different places together. While they’re necessary to navigation within the game, maps in games give players a more immersive experience, by helping players project themselves into these worlds and helping them navigate through the landscape. Although the original purpose of maps may not have been to entertain, today they act as an essential guide in this ever expanding new form of media. 

Apartment Hunting

It's that time of year to start exploring my options of where I potentially want to live next year. Me and the other females I plan on living with have done our research, looking up apartments in desired locations with the appropriate number of rooms. Today we went around to the various locations we had picked out. To find our way from one apartment to the next we continually had to type in the apartment names and addresses into our phones. After doing this each time, Google Maps provided us with a planimetric view. This view allowed us to easily read the map easily and identify cross streets. At one of the apartments we asked if we could look inside one that we were interested in. Although we could not, we were told that if we went online we could do an online tour which allows the public to have a profile view of the apartment. This is a convenient feature that many apartments have because it gives people the opportunity to view the apartment in a similar manner as if they were actually in the apartment, from the ground and approaching by foot.

Modern Cartography

When I was sitting in lecture this past week, I found myself wondering if cartography was a profession that was still practiced. As far as I could tell, most of the world has already been mapped and the age of explorers, like Lewis and Clark, has long been over. So, I decided to go home and discover for myself what the field of modern cartography looks like. In an American Association for the Advancement of Science article, "The New Cartographers," author Emily Underwood states that while paper maps are not really used anymore, it doesn't mean that there is no longer any demand for mapping technology. Instead of fazing out of fashion with the advent of smartphones and personal computers, maps have become digitized and interactive. Though their format has changed, modern maps (like Google maps or navigation apps on smartphones) still focus on the transmission of visual information, like their historical predecessors.

Blog Post #1: Zillow

As I am interested in the real estate market, I frequently use the website Zillow to research new houses that are for sale. During this past weekend, I was looking through the website and realized that Zillow uses the different perspectives discussed in class to accurately provide views of pieces of property. The website primarily uses the Planimetric view, but also allows users to look at a house with a Bird’s Eye view and a Profile view.  All of these views are very important to Zillow, because they allow a person to see the many different perspectives of a home. This allows potential buyers to make informed decisions regarding whether or not they want to purchase a piece of property. 

Blog Post #1: Weather Maps

Over the weekend I was watching KCRA 3 news channel to see what the upcoming weather was going to be like. While I was watching the weather segment, a planimetric view, or God’s eye view, of Sacramento and its surrounding cities appeared. This perspective allows people to not only see the weather in their immediate town, but to also see the weather in nearby towns. This can be useful if people are planning on traveling, so they know what weather to expect. If the map was shown from a different perspective, viewers would not be able to see all of the surrounding cities. In this case, perspective plays a huge role in helping the map effectively show the weather.

The Revenant

   Over the weekend I watched the movie The Revenant in theaters. Without disclosing any major plot points or spoilers, the film followed the journey of the main character, Glass, played my Leonardo diCaprio, as he braved through rough yet beautiful terrain. Through the film's breathtaking cinematography, I noticed amazing shots of mountainous landscape which led me to recall discussions of different point of views of landscapes. Through arial shots I recalled bird's eye views at an angle as well as God's eye view. Throughout the film in general I was amazed on how Glass was able to navigate through such harsh conditions without a map and just by his navigating skills. I wondered how his journey may have been different if he had a map, and I thought about the importance of maps in general and that I should take the opportunity in class to learn as much as I can about maps.

Unbroken

This past weekend I watched the movie Unbroken. Part of the movie was focused on World War II and Louis Zamperini’s role in fighting in the war. His position was on a fighter plane, which flew over the vast Japanese landscape. From his plane, Louis was able to see a Birdseye view of the ocean and Japanese countryside. Louis had to bomb many regions throughout Japan, and must of studied maps to determine what regions he was targeting. Overall, the movie showed images of farmer’s grids, rivers, and the destroyed towns; ultimately giving the viewer a perspective on what Japan looked like during the times of WW2.

Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions

One of the topics from lecture that I don't fully understand is the unsettled issue of seeing versus knowing. When Professor Kaplan said "I see lectern, I touch lecture, lectern works for me!" I honestly don't understand what is no settled about that. Recently, I've seen a few things that have assisted my understanding. The best example is an optical illusion as shown below.



To me it looks like the top square is dark gray and the bottom square is light gray. In the moment I see this image I mistakenly think I "know" this is true. However, when I put my finger between my eye and the image such that I block the section were the square come together the illusion is dispelled and I see that both blocks are the same color. I see how in this case and other optical illusions the issue between what we see and what we know can be unsettled but these still seem like isolated cases. I cannot yet reconcile that the issue is never settled.

James Makel

Maps and Star Wars ;)

After being in this class for a few lectures I have actually realized that maps do have a significant importance to our history. Today maps are not seen as valuable or important because it takes us 30 seconds to open google maps on our smart phones. Even though maps are not as important as in the movies, for example the hidden map to the location of Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens, (don't worry I didn't reveal any spoilers), they do help us find something important that we may be searching for.

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