Shoals

An occasional blog about mapping, history, art, and technology

Atlas Miscellaneous - March 2026

Unknown unknowns

Posted on March 1, 2026

There is a lot that I’m able to learn from my desk in a now-frosty corner of Northern New England, and that remoteness is part of my delight in scanning the world like this. But sometimes I stumble on locations and features that don’t tie easily to ground-level history, news,... [Read More]
Atlas Miscellaneous - February 2026

Posted on February 1, 2026

Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo [Read More]
Old Beginnings

Seasonal traversals

Posted on December 31, 2025

Portsmouth, UK [Read More]
Atlas Miscellaneous - December 2025

What has been lost and gained

Posted on November 30, 2025

At work, I’m in the middle of the largest update of imagery I’ve ever supervised. Ten million square kilometers of new satellite views, covering most of the world’s most densely-populated areas and a whole bunch of other locations chosen ad-hoc for various reasons. The last update of this scale was... [Read More]
Atlas Miscellaneous - November 2025

Additional discussion of baseball is pure coincidence

Posted on November 1, 2025

Aru Co, China [Read More]
Minstrel echoes

I haven't been able to get the song out of my head for months.

Posted on October 27, 2025

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is currently dominating the talk of the critics. It’s an obvious Best Picture nominee for the Oscars, it’s a lock, don’t give out the award at all unless it goes to OBAA, etc, etc - It’s a good movie; I saw it on... [Read More]
Atlas Miscellaneous - October 2025

Cultural exports, petroleum imports, and shellfish reports

Posted on October 1, 2025

Hoofddorp, Netherlands [Read More]
Atlas Miscellaneous - September 2025

Decay and rehabilitation

Posted on September 1, 2025

Warsaw, Poland [Read More]