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Shoals

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

Democratizing data science where it counts

Posted on July 14, 2020

We at Faraday are data science experts. We have a collective century of experience in the mystical arts of data whispering; we’ve transformed oceans of rows and columns, built and discarded thousands of databases, and molded far-seeing algorithms in a dozen programming languages. [Read More]
Family artifacts

A story about a bottle and a war, with subtext about the magic of corroborating accounts.

Posted on March 9, 2020

My grandmother died last Spring. We mourn of course, but she lived to 100, saw and did amazing things, and the family has more a sense of respectful awe than anything else. In any case this is actually about a bottle of her perfume that came to me recently. [Read More]
How I use Twitter in 2019

Posted on November 11, 2019

I’ve been on a long ride with this microblogging-whatever-the-hell-it-is platform, and I’ve noticed a few patterns in my usage evolving over the years. So here, at the end of the decade, is: [Read More]
A full-throated defense of using Zipcodes for spatial analysis

Psych. It's actually a meek defense.

Posted on August 28, 2019

We, the data-folk of Faraday, agree wholeheartedly with our colleagues at Carto on this sensitive issue: In the USA, ZIP codes(™) are the worst-case scenario base unit for measuring geospatial relationships. Because: [Read More]
Following a phone case

A good old-fashioned ridealong through the global supply chain.

Posted on November 19, 2018

The order is placed [Read More]
All the Takes You’re About to See on the NYC-Snapchat Map Vandalism

That’s right folks, it happened - an OpenStreetMap vandal made it to prime time

Posted on August 30, 2018

That’s right folks, it happened - an OpenStreetMap vandal made it to prime time: [Read More]
A true map

The quest for the base unit of Democracy

Posted on July 28, 2018

Many an earnest cartographer/journalist/opinion-holder is currently debating — with varying degrees of condescension — the utility of the @nytimes’ latest map piece: [Read More]
New Belgium, 1650

When historical maps read like alternate histories

Posted on July 10, 2018

I found an old map of my corner of the world, in Dutch. Made by Nicolaes Visscher I in 1650, this version is held by the Library of Congress. [Read More]