Twelve Black Code Monkeys

A few days ago, I posted a list of states in textual form that I’d lived in, visited, etc., which was generated from a script I found. As I wrote, I have long wanted to keep a kind of visual record of where I’ve been. I love maps, and so I always had the thought of creating one that was color-coded based on where I’ve been – at least in the U.S. to start. I finally created such a map which you see below. It is at least a start. I figure this is something that I can work on building up, but it is at least the beginnings of something that represent my travels here. It’s color-coded based on three main divisions – where I’ve visited, where I’ve lived, and where I’ve driven through or had a layover in.

To describe the division a little better, I would say that “lived in” is if you stayed there for more than a couple of months. For example, many people go to camp for a couple months when they are young, but I don’t count this as “living” in a place, rather you are just “staying” there for a while. I know, it’s not the best choice of words, but I suppose that will be in the next draft. “Visited,” I think, requires an intentional visit to a place. I’m not sure whether sleeping there is necessary but I think in all my “visited” states, I’ve slept over. Anytime you were simply in an airport in a state as part of a layover, or if you had to drive through a state in order to get to your destination (even if you got off the road and had a bite to eat or visited some place of interest), these would count as the third category.

One thing I’m a bit unclear about is my stay in California. I was apparently very young – probably about 1 – so of course don’t remember it at all. Does this still count? Or is it yet another category?

Also notice that I am colorcoding with a neutral green – too many damn red and blue state maps have gone and ruined those colors for maps! You start thinking that the color-coding has something to do with politics, which in this case it doesn’t!

This is a static map which I edited in Photoshop. Other than doing this yourself, there’s another tool out there, but it only delineates whether you’ve been to a state or not. You can’t really customize it. And the map it produces in not all that great in quality. I’m still looking for something similar that is dynamic and lets you create graphical representations of this sort but haven’t found anything yet. I think it could be programmed in Flash, but not knowing Flash very well, I would have to spend large amounts of time learning Flash and playing with it, something I don’t have time to do at the moment. Perhaps a Flash wizard out there could punch something out in a couple of hours?

Since I’ve been on a GPS kick lately, I thought I’d post about this new product from TomTom, makers of the TomTom Go (an car GPS unit) and GPS software for PalmOS and PocketPC devices (I reviewed the PalmOS version here). I’ve never ridden a motorcycle and so can’t imagine taking my eyes and attention off the road at all, let alone my hands off the handle bars! And then you have the whole issue of whether a motorcycle GPS is kind of an oxymoron. The people I know who ride motorcycles seem to do so as an adventurous weekend activity, letting the wind take them where it will. How does knowing exactly where you are and where you’re going fit in? But, as I said, I’m no aficionado, so maybe this would be very useful to riders everywhere. It’s waterproofed, has an anti-glare screen (one of the issues that the TomTom Go has is glare), and it can communicate with Bluetooth headsets so that you can hear the voice prompts that tell you where to turn. It will be available this summer.

Via Gadgetry Blog