Also, Carefully Refold That Map

Here's some sobering advice about the dangers of relying on smartphone maps out in the desert, where it really matters what road you take.

The short version is, just don't rely on online maps if there's any chance that taking the wrong road could leave you stranded in the wilderness to die of heat stroke, dehydration, or being eaten by bears.

Shockingly, mapping software is not always totally accurate, and in the wrong situation, that can be a very bad thing. As the article points out, once you get far enough away from civilization, you can't even call up your phone maps to try to work out a better option, because you'll lose your cell signal! Thanks for steering me towards my doom and then abandoning me, phone.

I haven't actually been in the wilderness in years, and have no plans to go until I'm fleeing our killer robot overlords, but this is a good reminder that when I go, I need to make sure to take a printed map.

Speaking of killer robots, xkcd's "what if?" feature argues that robots are a long way from being able to produce an apocalypse. A telling quote:

What people don't appreciate, when they picture Terminator-style automatons striding triumphantly across a mountain of human skulls, is how hard it is to keep your footing on something as unstable as a mountain of human skulls.

So that's good...I guess...although there goes my excuse for looking askance at programmable microwave ovens. I just don't trust those things.

Hang Your Head in Shame!

This is pretty awesome: a colorful chart of The United States of Shame on Pleated Jeans.

It's a nice map of the U.S. showing something in which each state ranks worst. For example, my current state of residence, Massachusetts, is reported to have the "worst drivers."

Explanatory notes give the basis for each shameful fact. In the case of Massachusetts, it's "based on highest rate of auto accidents."

Yeah, well, maybe we just have really bad roads, did you think about that?

Other states in which I have spent considerable amounts of my life include Montana (worst in rates of drunk driving), and New Mexico (cited for being "anti-social," which according to the notes reflects a low ranking in "social heath policies," rather than general unfriendliness).

Anyway, you should check it out and see what your state has to be ashamed of.

I salute Why Evolution is True for pointing this out with the gloriously fitting headline "You suck."

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Riding the Salmonella Wave

And other waves of disease, of course!

I've seen HealthMap before, but was reminded anew of its coolness by Learn to Live. It's a nifty site compiling reported incidences of various and sundry ailments around the world and locating them with a little ballon on a map. 

I had to try it on salmonella, and saw a dramatic visual representation of the rash of cases in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean recently. 

It's quite a cool site: you can zoom to specific countries or regions, see the information in several languages, read the news stories on which the little location balloons are based, and select any or all of a variety of sources for the news. 

For keeping up on what's new in illness, it's a good find. Sadly, it does not appear to have an RSS feed, but I suppose it updates so often that would just be terrifying, and one could probably build a feed for a specific location and/or disease if desired.