News You Can Bruise for 2006 February 6

Permalink [Comments] (4) Mon Feb 06 2006 18:30 Cool Charts:

Sumana's got this big wall chart of human civilization ("Hammond Ultimate Civilization Chart") which we hung up in the living room and it's pretty nice but it's got a couple big problems. One is a big blob of something I don't know what it is or want to touch stuck to it. The other problem is that even though the copyright date is 1989, it was obviously made in the 1970s:

According to the chart, civilization stopped in the 1970s. Which it did, but it started back up again a bit later, and I'd like a chart that reflects that. Also, it's got some fossils of errors that died out in the 1970s. One of the first items of civilization is "Negroes move into Africa from Asia". Uh, no. It also looks like the 1970s, and in general I try to banish the 1970s from my house.

So I'm wondering what kind of cool wall charts you people know of. I've found various sites for updated charts, but I don't know which one's better, or what else is out there. Basically I want something for people to stare at if they're visiting us and they become incredibly bored, because sometimes that happens to me at other peoples' houses and things to stare at are much appreciated. The other main thing I want to get is the National Geographic map of the universe.

Comments:

Posted by riana at Mon Feb 06 2006 19:53

I would suggest just going through old National Geographics for sale at a used book store or wherever and seeing if any of them still have the pull-outs inside. I decorated my dorm one year with National Geographic pull-outs, including a neat-looking 19th-century style map of the Civil War theater, a chart of human languages (and how darn few there are left), and a map from a high school history textbook.

There's the Citizen's Guide to the Airwaves' wireless spectrum chart, and Seth's got that map of the world showing DVD encoding regions. And The Mother Tongues of Computer Languages, which may not be for sale.

I bet you could find those old Magic Eye posters for cheap. Something to stare at, quite.

Posted by Frances at Mon Feb 06 2006 21:30

National Geographic sent us a map of the world the other day. On the back there is a really need satellite picture of Earth. or maybe it's space shuttle, I don't know. Do you want it?

Posted by Adam P. at Tue Feb 07 2006 12:00

Not so sure about that historychart.com thing. In one of the rollovers it refers to Stonehenge as "Stonehedge."

Posted by Sumana at Tue Feb 07 2006 14:16

STONEHEDGE = Spinal Tap's Druids routine + Monty Python Quest for the Holy Grail's shrubbery routine.

Leave a comment