Via Fast Company comes a link to some infographics over at New Scientist including a map which shows the interconnectedness of the modern world in terms of proximity to urban centers and availability of transportation networks (the actual NS article, which appeared in April ‘09, is only available online to magazine subscribers, but you can read a brief summary here)
The picture above is a closeup from their global map and shows what is the remotest place on Earth: Central Tibet. The lack of populated areas or even roads in this region means that if you’re stuck there it’s a three-week walk to the nearest ANYTHING.
According to the Fast Company post (they obviously paid to read the actual article), less than 10% of the Earth’s surface is more than 48 hours’ travel from an urban center (defined as a city with a population of 500,000 or more). Even 80% of the depths of the Amazon rainforest are within two days of a city due to river transportation AND the increasing encroachment of development into the rainforest itself.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT.
Since you cannot click a [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and [...]
Thanks to Shelley for alerting me that last night’s edition of the local TV newsmagzine “Chronicle” featured Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, whom I blogged about recently in conjunction with the various atheist billboard campaigns around the country. I was busy helping Charlotte do her homework, so I didn’t watch the show, but WCVB’s [...]
