(Part 2) Top products from r/MapPorn

Here you go: http://www.amazon.com/The-Island-Center-World-Manhattan/dp/1400078679

It's a fun read, although occasionally a bit too speculative.

Edit: Oh, and Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan is really speculative, but also brilliant and fantastic. One of my favorite books of all time.

The entire public isn't going to be educated. I don't know what makes you think that's happening now, but there are multitude examples of people falling through the cracks either way.

Environmental costs start working when there is a real threat. Is that too late? Maybe. But the public resistance to nuclear power is evidence that there's something to the science of potential environmental costs.

If you're legitimately interested in the topic, here's a good starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Economics-Introduction-Barry-Field/dp/007351148X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473177074&sr=1-1. We used it as a textbook in college, and it has its flaws, but it does a good job of summarizing the body of work thus far.

My very small company is sending an employee to training for a skill that was economically beneficial for the company to have in-house. This is not uncommon. I went to private school my entire life, so I don't see how that's an untenable situation anyway. Property taxes reflect the cost of education in any given area anyway, and that in turn is priced in to rent costs. A better educated person is more in demand in the workforce, and a lot of parents are willing and happy to pay for that.

The model works. Do people? That's the real question.

This is a great question. There are all sorts of extreme technical challenges associated with spelunking. In many ways, spelunking deep caves is much more difficult than high peak mountaineering.

For one, the amount of equipment needed far exceeds that of mountaineering. A deep expedition will use specialized camping gear, food, lights, SCUBA re-breathers, suspension gear and literally miles of rope.

The spelunkers must go slowly as mistakes/injuries put the everyone in the expedition in danger. Think about how difficult it would be to have to haul a non-ambulatory person out from the bottom of a cave.

It's dark and cold. Spelunkers do not use their lights unless absolutely necessary to save on power. This slows everything down.

It's also very wet. These caves are filled with flowing water howling winds. Spelunkers are constantly soaked. The nature of caves ensures that no permanent base camps can be set up. The water will destroy anything you leave down there, so every time they go in, they essentially must start all over.

And I haven't even touched on sumps yet. Caves are just basically massive water conduits. Every so often they form what they call sumps. They look like pools but really there are completely flooded sections of the cave, beneath the water's surface. That's why they need the re-breather equipment, because once you hit a sump, you have to swim through it. Navigating sumps is the most dangerous part of spelunking.

If you, or anyone else, truly are interested in this then I recommend checking out Blind Descent. It goes into great detail on just how truly difficult it is to explore these caves. It also details the rare breed of person that takes on the challenge of exploring the deep caves. One of the most fascinating books I have ever read.

There's a great book by Kansas author William Least Heat Moon called "River Horse" where he takes his boat Nikawa from the Atlantic Ocean at NYC to the Pacific at Portland Oregon via America's lakes and rivers. All told he has the boat on a trailer for something like 28 miles. They use a canoe and a jet boat at parts, but 90% of the journey is aboard Nikawa ('River Horse') through America's rivers. Great read. http://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606 Sorry for not formatting the link I'm late for my bus

There is ample evidence for numbers as high as, and even higher, than fifty million deaths as a result of European colonialism.

I won't get into arguments that see Nazi designs in Eastern Europe as a form of European colonialism/imperialism (but you can find some here, here, and here.)

It's been a while since I've read it, but Mike Davis makes a pretty compelling case for at least 30 million deaths as a result of the combination of el-nino famines and imposed capitalism in India and China in the late 19th century alone - Late Victorian Holocausts. It's a good read.

I can't speak for other professional historians, but I'm a historian modern Europe, and I didn't bat an eye at that number.

I highly encourage anyone who sees this to read "The Nine Nations of North America" by Joel Garreau. Its a bit dated now (35 years old), but its a fascinating look at the differences that have shaped our regional cultures.

A more modern take on this would be "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. I haven't actually read this one yet, but it seems to be the progression of the work that Garreau laid out.

For those interested in the subject, this book: The Big Roads is a great read

It's most likely a bubble based on income, rather than a bubble based on location.

You can get a brand new Android phone, with no contract, for as low as $50, while the cheapest new iPhones are approaching $1000.

These cheap Androids are not very fast (probably equivalent to an iPhone 5 or lower), and will take terrible quality photos, but they are still smart phones that can for the most part install the same apps as the $1000 devices.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck, like 80% of Americans, or can't afford a $400 surprise expense, like 44% of Americans, then it makes much more sense to have a slow cheap phone, than a fast expensive one.

I used to have this map on my bedroom wall when I was a kid, probably back in the late 70s but might've been the early 80s... The nostalgia is strong.

OP, where did you find the image? I'd like to get another print copy of this for my kids if I can.

e: Found the same map, in folding form, on Amazon. Not quite the same color palette, though it may be that OPs image is just time worn.

>This curry mix is inspired by a healthy home remedy that originated in Vermont, USA, featuring apples and honey

It's the name of a children's book that was popular for a while... I think the author had ties to the state (from there, went to school there, something like that)

Yup, I know South Carolina held out for a reallllly long time.

EDIT: Also, there's a book called The Big Roads which is a great look at building the system.

Dude, there are entire books on this subject

https://www.amazon.com/Destruction-Bison-Environmental-1750-1920-Environment/dp/0521003482/ref=nodl_

William Tecumseh Sherman has several quotes about encouraging the slaughter of buffalo that are extremely easy to look up.

Saying that Natives are responsable for the mass slaughter of bison is completely ludicrous.

I presented a book myself, but apparently that doesn't count?

>https://www.amazon.com/Destruction-Bison-Environmental-1750-1920-Environment/dp/0521003482/ref=nodl_

Are you kidding me? That's the book I sent and it doesn't say anything about that.

>William Tecumseh Sherman has several quotes about encouraging the slaughter of buffalo that are extremely easy to look up.

Again this man entered the scene when the hunting by European settlers was already quite underway.

>Saying that Natives are responsable for the mass slaughter of bison is completely ludicrous.

Not wholly, just in part, you know the meaning of nuance, right? The book you sent said the same, that the Natives implementation of horses and new guns allowed them to hunt more, partially supplementing the problem of overhunting.

This story was the inspiration for Eric Carle (who also wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar) to write the book [10 Little Rubber Ducks] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060740752/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i4). The book comes with a squeaker.

If you want to learn more about 1550's - 1700's Dutch Manhattan, this book is one of the most interesting books I have ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Island-Center-World-Manhattan/dp/1400078679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406703358&sr=8-1&keywords=island+at+the+center+of+the+world

Fatherland is also good.

Edit: And since this is /r/mapporn, here's a map from the book, and another fan made one.

>The pneumatic tube mail was a postal system operating in New York City from 1897 to 1953 using pneumatic tubes. Following the creation of the first pneumatic mail system in Philadelphia in 1893, New York City's system was begun, initially only between the old General Post Office on Park Row and the Produce Exchange on Bowling Green, a distance of 3,750 feet.
>Eventually the network stretched up both sides of Manhattan Island all the way to Manhattanvilleon the West side and "Triborough" in East Harlem, forming a loop running a few feet below street level. Travel time from the General Post Office to Harlem was 20 minutes. A crosstown line connected the two parallel lines between the new General Post office on the West Side and Grand Central Terminal on the east, and took four minutes for mail to traverse. Utilizing the Brooklyn Bridge a spur line also ran from Church Street in lower Manhattan to the general post office in Brooklyn (now Cadman Plaza) taking four minutes. Operators of the system were referred to as "Rocketeers". Wikipedia

More reading on the Network

From The Works: Anotamy of a City by Kate Ascher

The Balkans: A Short History by Mark Mazower is a good start.

Someone gave me an interesting book that documents a guy attempting to boat across the US in a small cabin cruiser. He was able to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific on rivers, canals, etc with only a brief portage across the Rocky Mountains (And maybe some portages around dams IIRC). https://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606

That's not true. Rural Bohemia was more advanced than rural France in the beginning of the 20th century. Read it in this book, I'll just suppose they got their sources straight.

You can purchase it as well

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0007485905/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Vermont Curry?

Japan, you are truly bizarre.

Maybe, but it's not only outsiders who say these things. I've read a number of books written by Scotch-Irish authors from Appalachia said the same thing. This was one of them, written by Jim Webb, the former Senator who ran against Hillary last year. https://www.amazon.com/Born-Fighting-Scots-Irish-Shaped-America/dp/0767916891

'Do penguins have knees' is the name of a book

Can confirm

Lots of people who live in northern Greece today are descended from Slavic-speakers who lived in the same place in the 1800s. Also, many Slavic-speakers were forced out in the early 1900s (or left of their own free will in many cases).

Also, many villages in Macedonia were ethnically "converted" to Greek, Bulgarian, or Serb identities during the Balkan Wars of the 1910s. This meant that the incoming militia would round up the local population and force them to write little oaths that said that they were henceforth Greeks (or whathaveyou). Source: Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History.

If you want to learn more about the establishment of Greek national identity and the mixing of "Greeks" "Turks" and "Slavs" in Macedonia, I recommend this book.

You're right that many Greeks have nothing to do with Slavs (and especially not today where both Slav and Greek nationalisms have pulled them further apart) but in the 1800s the lines were far more blurred.

>the conquistador and the padres saw this region[American Southwest] whole, without imaginary line between creating divisions between the state state of Sonora and the state of Arizona. The desert was the same, the cactuses were the same. And the descendants of the conquistadors are still here. Hispanics in New Mexico still refer to themselves as Spanish, rather than Mexican-Americans, partially out of snobbery, but also out of a sense of historical accuracy. in Santa Fe, because of intermarriage, the lineage is throughly European. Mexican Americans, by contrast, claim a far more indigenous North American ancestry.

Page 216 The Nine Nations of North America

I was just going back through looking again, Are these the same books, just different editions or what? If you look at the kindle one, and hit paperback, the description is different and it's a different amount of pages (320 vs 304), different cover art, different price, etc. Here are the two paperbacks, you've obviously already seen the kindle one (the kindle one does match the one you linked, but the paperback linked from the kindle site is the one that looks different)

one you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Descent-Quest-Discover-Deepest/dp/0812979494/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395655122&sr=8-2&keywords=Blind+Descent

one linked from kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Descent-Quest-Discover-Deepest/dp/1849018561/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395705552&sr=1-1

I'm probably thinking about it too much, I just think the difference is strange.

If you want a depressing read. I just finished reading Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder covers all this in facinating detail and you realise that the Holocaust was just one part of a 12+ year devastation of the region by the soviets and the germans

There are very few examples for countries that managed to build a well working state from nothing within a very short period of time. Most of the nations that are wealthy and not corrupt today went through a development that took them decades, or even centuries: The UK, France, Benelux, German states and Scandinavians all started developing public education and efficient administration in the late 18th or early 19th century, which is one of the reasons they all pretty much exploded in strength during the 19th century, while Italy, Spain, Easter Europe and Turkey stagnated and stayed as corrupt as they've always been. Japan is a rare exception, they joined the club in the late 19th century and went from irrelevant to first rate power in just 30 years, as is Austria, which was the only part of the Austro-Hungarian empire that did fairly well after its demise.

It's not a coincidence that Germany, Austria and Japan fared so well after the second world war. They lost everything of material value, but they didn't lose the people that are most valuable to a modern nation: Diligent officials, teachers, professors and industrialists.

Meanwhile Italy was - and is - still corrupt and unstable as always. The destruction the war brought with it did not help them become something better, on the contrary: one of the major benefactors of the downfall of the fascist regime was organized crime.

If you're interested in reading about what helped the nations that are well of today become that way, and why nations that were historically poor have such a hard time achieving the same, I highly recommend the book "why nations fail"

Edit: I found the original article that this map comes from, and it explains everything I was trying to say below much better than I ever could. It's well worth a read!

> But the closer to the equator you get, the more religious people are and that consequently probably affects politics.

What? My 'oversimplification' meter just broke. The Puritans and their like in New England were far more religious than the wild Scots-Irish and English aristocracy in the South. That situation has kinda reversed in modern times, but what in the heck does that have to do with the equator?? (Edit: I retract this statement. I accused u/3ii3 of oversimplifying and then I oversimplified in the next sentence. Doh. See u/Ruire's far more informed view on the matter below.) You can't really divide America (or the world) into cultural regions based on temperature.

I think you are correct that geography has a greater influence on modern American regionalism than do the British roots of Americans. I mean, how many Americans can actually name a specific region in Britain that they can trace their ancestry back to? However, it's not entirely accurate to say that 'most Americans are of German descent.' British-Americans still represent the largest group of white Americans, they've just been here so long that they no longer identify as British. From Wikipedia:

> In the 2000 census, self-identified German Americans made up 17.1% of the U.S. population, followed by Irish Americans at 12%, as reported in the 2000 U.S. Census. This makes German and Irish the largest and second-largest self-reported ancestry groups in the United States. Both groups had high rates of immigration to the U.S. beginning in the mid-19th century, triggered by the Great Famine in Ireland and the failed 1848 Revolution in Germany. However, English-Americans and British-Americans are still considered the largest ethnic group due to a serious under count following the 2000 census whereby many English and British Americans self-identified under the new category entry 'American' considering themselves 'indigenous' because their families had resided in the US for so long or, if of mixed European ancestry, identified with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.

Going back to the relevance of British roots in early America, I'm currently reading Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by Jim Webb, and it's really fascinating how a lot of animosity toward the English carried over to America when the Scots-Irish were banished to the mountains and to poverty by the English planter aristocracy. He makes a really fascinating-to-think-about point that the American Revolution and Civil War were kind of an echo of the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, with wild, Celtic mountain-men going to war against a more settled Anglo-Saxon civilization trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the global order.

So next time you see a Southerner (who is likely of Scots-Irish descent) waving a rebel flag (which is not coincidentally based on the Scottish St. Andrew's Cross flag) and cursing damn Yankees (of English and continental European descent), even though they are probably not aware of it, they are resurrecting old animosities that date back to the medieval British Isles.