Tag Archives: cspan

Waldseemuller Map: The Mona Lisa of the Cartography Nerds

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First, a side note: With the title, I don’t mean to be poking fun at the scholars that dedicate their life to the study of maps, but I love how clearly obsessed they are with the subject to the point where basic grooming and social skills take a distant second place in the priority list. In all honesty, I deeply respect people that are that passionate about any subject.

Alright, onward to the Waldseemuller map:

The U.S. Library of Congress bought the only surviving copy (of originally 1,000 copies) for $10,000,000 in 2001.

This map is a window into how the world was seen by the Europeans of 500 years ago. It’s thought to be the first time that America was put on a map as not being just the east coast of Asia or India. This is such a brilliant discovery if you put yourself in a mindset where everyone around you believes that what was discovered by Columbus and Vespucci was India or Asia. To understand from their accounts that this was a different continent all together is a brilliant discovery that defines the Age of Exploration.

In some ways, in the 21st century we face the same degree of uncertainty about space as people of the 15th and 16th century did about geography. Are there inhabitable planets out there? Is there life out there? Is there intelligent life?

By the way, there’s a nice program on a book about this map from C-SPAN. Check it out: The Fourth Part of the World.

Also, for the especially curious, here’s a 100 mb version of the map where you can study the tiniest details. For the record, saving the map in Ubuntu Linux and opening it in the default image viewer crashed my computer.

The History and Future of C-SPAN

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Some people are addicted to heroin. Some are addicted to pornography.  Some are alcoholics. Of all the vices one might have, I consider mine to be of the more socially acceptable variety. I am addicted to C-SPAN, NPR, and any other sources of balanced debate and information on current events, history, non-fiction literature, philosophy, science, etc.

Behind every addiction is a tragic flaw. Mine is a kind of manic curiosity about the way the world works. So in that sense, C-SPAN is one of my drug dealers.

The reason I write about it now is that Brian Lamb (founder of C-SPAN) is stepping down from his post as CEO of CSPAN. So why not take this chance to celebrate one of my favorite organizations…

What I like most about CSPAN is the non-political programs such as Book TV. It provides interviews with or presentations by authors of complex and fascinating non-fiction books. The more political programs such as Washington Journal are also interesting. They have a variety of experts (actual ones, not simply pundits) on to discuss the major events of the day. It’s really one of the best methods to get informed in a balanced way about the major happenings of the day.

What I don’t like about the Washington Journal is that they take callers and purposefully are very loose about screening those calls. They don’t just take callers with calm intelligent questions, but they also take the calls that are neither intelligent, well-informed, calm, or even have a question. Even more, some of these people has trouble stringing together words and sentences that make any sense. Some others simply read out talking points they undoubtedly picked up from an ultra-partisan website or radio show. When I listen to Washington Journal, I like to skip over these calls and just listen to the answers, allowing my blood to remain room temperature for the most part.

PS: The tone and style of this blog post reflects not so much my outlook on a life of learning, but the fact that I’ve had several cups of coffee back to back, and believe that this gives me the power to be clever. Denial is a wonderful thing.

Dysfunctional Government is Honest Government

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boehner-and-obama-dysfunctional-governmentI was listening to CSPAN which luckily does not feel the need to “entertain” and thus provides some of the most objective coverage of how the sausage is made in our government.

Two guests were on, discussing tax reform. One was from a “conservative think tank” and the other from a “progressive organization”. They were making their points clearly and intelligently but going right down the line in terms of the standard boilerplate fiscal arguments associated with their respective party.

It struck me at some point that competition of ideas is exceptionally important to the checks and balances of our government. Moreover, the quality, logic, and reasonableness of the ideas is not what’s important. The most important part is that there is a significant group of people who genuinely stand (almost dogmatically) behind that idea.

In defending and idea, this group of people will search out every little problem about the opposition, and thus keep the opposition as honest as possible.

Sure, creationism might seem like an absurd infringement on the very foundation of science, but in the long-run it will keep evolutionary research honest by limiting the scope of their claims, and sharpening their arguments. That’s an extreme example. Most example are more subtle, like the moral and economic arguments over tax policy.