Apelles

 Can you name an artist with no surviving paintings but who was, himself, painted by multiple masters? Apelles of Kos. 

Wendell Berry

“And so I go into the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place. I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces. I feel my life take its place among the lives — the trees, the annual plants, the animals and birds, the living of all these and the dead — that go and have gone to make the life of the earth.”

Wiki - Steamboats

The power of steam energy brought with it risks. So the steamboats that transformed industrial-age travel, were also inherently dangerous. The tragic stories of the Sultana (1,164), the Henry Clay (50-80) and the General Slocum (1,021 lost) each capture different dimensions of their times. The Henry Clay took Andrew Jackson Downing from us. The General Slocum tragedy is mentioned in both James Joyce's Ulysses and a recent Dean Koontz novel. At least eight different cities have erected monuments to the Sultana.

Wiki - Endorheic lakes and basins

Endorheic lakes and basins retain water and allow no outflow, just evaporation. If the water sneaks out underground, it is probably cryptorheic like Devil's Lake, Wisconsin.  

Municipal Asphalt Plant

The often overlooked municipal architecture of the Manhattan Municipal Asphalt Plant. Robert Moses lampooned it as the "Cathedral of Asphalt" but now it is a recreation complex.

Wiki - Gen Z Protests

The first of Gen Z was born in 1997. And now they have a proper Wikipedia entry for Gen Z protests. Could it really include a 2010 protest?

 

Wiki - Cast-iron architecture

Cast-iron skillets are all the rage, but cast-iron architecture? Don't put either one in the dishwasher.

Wiki - GDAL

An essential building block in GIS work today is the open source Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). But, it is worth noting, that most of us don't realize that we are using it within the many other geospatial apps in our daily life and worklife. As the entry explains, it is embedded in the software that the GIS word relies on, including QGIS, R, ArcGIS, ERDAS, ENVI, MapServer and GRASS. 

Wiki - Amiable Child Memorial

New York City has so many hidden features. Consider the Amiable Child Memorial that is dedicated to a bot that fell off a high bluff on the Hudson River in 1797. Not only is he remembered with a memorial, but also with a street named after him. Wikipedia tells the story. 

This is a full article for what could otherwise be a long-forgotten incident. How many of these are there in NYC? 

Wiki - Disruptive innovation

When a new idea or product displaces an entire previous category, we might call that a Disruptive Innovation. Some of these disruptions change entire markets. Think of how the smartphone has not only replaced the Palm Pilot and the landline, but maybe also the movie theater. 

This is a rich and lengthy entry. I am especially appreciative of the section in which the editors have created an extensive table of examples and categories of disruptive innovations. The Examples are robust and fascinating - each with its own Wikipedia entry. The "See Also" list at the end is remarkable. Many of these topics have direct applications to the ongoing innovation and diffusion of GIS. The often misused Killer Apps, Hype Cycles, and the nearly forgotten Blue Ocean Strategy.

 

Wiki - Akegera National Park

The wild dogs are gone. But the lengthy entry demonstrates the many personalities of Akegera National Park that remain. Quite a place.

Wiki - Door to Hell (aka, Darvaza gas crater)

The Door to Hell has become a tourist attraction despite the difficulties in travelling there and the dangers involved.

Wiki - Liquid Rainbow

A stream in Colombia is so colorful that it is known as the Liquid Rainbow or the River of Five Colors. Plus, it runs very clear despite the colors.  The Caño Cristales runs through the Serranía de la Macarena in Meta.

Wiki - Manchineel

The world's most dangerous tree is the Manchineel. That gives it quite a reputation. The Wikipedia entry has an Historical Accounts and In Popular Culture section.

Wiki - Oology

The study of bird's eggs is called Oology. The article describes the underground activities of egging, and mentions Colin Watson who was arrested and convicted repeatedly until he died falling from a tree while egging. It also mentions the secret society of eggers, the Jourdain Society, which was raided by the police. 

 

Wiki - Khone Phapheng Falls

The widest waterfall in the world (nearly 7 miles wide). Also, home to the largest freshwater fish in the world. 

 

Wiki - Taï National Park

 

Taï National Park in the Ivory Coast. The fauna list is extensive, with three different types of pangolin. Still, the threatened species are amazing: "Five mammal species of the Taï National Park are on the Red List of Threatened Species: pygmy hippopotamus, olive colobus monkeys, leopards, chimpanzees, and Jentink's duiker."

Wiki - Living root bridge

Trees are amazing. Making a bridge out tree parts doesn't sound exceptional until you see this version where the tree parts are still alive: Living Root Bridge. One of the examples is the Rangthylliang 1 root bridge which is over 50 meters long. The See Also list includes the equally interesting Baubotanik and Fab Tree Hab. 

Wiki - Buridan's ass

The 14th century philosopher, Jean Buridan, grappled with free will and indecision. Later philosophers satirized his approach with Buridan's ass but it also is used as an understandable illustration of the concept. Its broader application can be seen in places like this piece, "US Climate Policy Caught Between Two Worlds — Are We Smarter Than Buridan’s Ass?"

Wiki - Animal Trial

 The wikipedia about animals that stand trial is quite substantial.

Wiki - Frank Hayes

 Steeplechase jockey Frank Hayes won a race at Belmont posthumously. 

Wiki - Fogo (Island), Cape Verde

Cape Verde recently got some attention. One small piece of that small country is Fogo, the volcanic island. We have learned to look closer at little places, right? 

Wiki - Fogo Island, Newfoundland

For such a small and difficult to reach island, Fogo Island has a pretty lengthy entry. You may have seen it on the 1606 Bertius map of Newfoundland or on Season 2 of Severence. The histories include Marconi and the Treaty of Utrecht. 

Wiki - Samuel Seymour

According to Wikipedia, Samuel Seymour held a couple of interesting distinctions:

1) the last person to report having witnessed the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865

2) the oldest person to appear on television (at the time of his appearance), 

Wiki - Ice block expedition of 1959

That time that an insulation company drove a block of ice from Norway to the Equator. In Africa they met with Albert Schweitzer. Sometimes a publicity stunt is more than just that.

Wiki - Cloaca

 Cloaca.

Wiki - Morgan Munitions Depot explosion

Harrowing story of a munitions plant explosion in Sayreville in 1918. In the 1990s, some shells were found near an elementary school and the resulting search found another 5,000 unexploded shells. more than 100 years later, the local high school is still called...the Bombers.

Ancient Aquiry

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the ancient city of Aquiry was very big. A new paper in Nature says that LiDAR has helped them identify 20,000 earthworks in the city. Seems like a lot.

Wiki - Steller's Sea Eagle

The Steller's Sea Eagle is a fascinating large bird. So large it can be a threat to bald eagles.

Rutgers' Irises

Great to see Danielle Lohrman (RULA '27) so involved with this special partnership at Rutgers Gardens:

Historic Iris Partnership Blooms at Rutgers Gardens

Wiki - Western Brook Pond

Western Brook Pond, inside Gros Morne National Park, is a freshwater fjord. The fishing isn't great because the lake is ultraoligotrphic; the water is so clean that it doesn't foster life. And that is despite the prominent contributions of Pissing Mare Falls. It had a 30m tsunami in the early 20th century.

Wiki - Well to Hell

 An urban legend about a very very deep well.

Wiki - Landlocked countries

Wikipedia has a lengthy entry on landlocked countries. It includes basic "records" like largest (Kazakhstan) and most populous (Ethiopia). Less basic, like the fact that Kyrgyzstan is the farthest landlocked country from any ocean. And a little odd was a list of countries that are landlocked by exactly two other countries.

But the truly unexpected section was about "double-landlocked" countries, which are countries surrounded by landlocked countries. In all the world, there are only two of these exist: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.

Wiki - Immortal jellyfish

When immortal jellyfish get older they just get younger again. 

August quote

I should post this every year...

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

-Willa Cather (from The Professor's House, 1925) 

Wiki - Binondo

Binondo - I had not heard of the "oldest Chinatown in the world" but here it is. Founded in 1594. By the Spaniards, in the Philippines.

August with Wikipedia

 As I travel down rabbit holes and (re) discover curiosities and interesting tidbits, I sometimes end up with some bookmarks for Wikipedia that might be interesting to others. In August, I will post a link to a curious Wikipedia entry each day. Some are more about the content, while others are more about the entry itself. Either way, I encourage a quick click on the link before you decide which it is.

Wikipedia's entry on Wikipedia is a good place to start. Or, you can skip directly to the Wikipedia Controversies page.

Hexmap

The political news site Downballot has developed a hexagon-based cartogram for reporting congressional district data. Since we talk about approaches like this in our GIS classes, it is interesting to see one in such a prominent use.

Mapless fair housing in Oregon

Oregon tried to solve its fair housing problems without maps, and that is a problem: "In 2019 and 2023, Oregon passed two laws requiring city housing plans to affirmatively further fair housing. But rather than using maps to inform policy, many Oregon cities are refraining from mapping to avoid confronting patterns of segregated housing."

NJ Green Acres

 New Jersey has released the list of recommended Green Acres projects (PDF).

Cottonwood Fire in Utah

NASA has released a before/after image of the fires in Utah, with a slider bar map window. Vexcel has close-up images of the damage.

As an aside, Government Technology reports that Western US firefighting has an additional problem with the loss of many dispatcher in recent years.

Who will speak for the trees?

In 1971, Dr. Seuss published the Lorax in which the titular character tries to fight off developers by speaking out on behalf of the trees that they are cutting down in the name of progress. Famously he says, "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."

In that same year, the US Supreme Court spoke out on who could speak for the trees. In that case, Disney fought the Sierra Club for the right to build a ski resort in Mineral King Valley, CA. The court decided that the Sierra Club had no legal standing to speak on behalf of the trees. But Oyez reports on a very interesting dissenting decision, 

"Justice William O. Douglas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the standing doctrine should allow environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club to sue on behalf of inanimate objects such as land. There is precedent for inanimate objects to have legal personality for the purpose of lawsuits, and “[t]hose who have that intimate relation with the inanimate object about to be injured, polluted, or otherwise despoiled are its legitimate spokesmen.”"

Despite that dissent, the US moved away from rights for those trees.

Other parts of the world have other views on the matter. More recently, the National Assembly in France has passed a declaration on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Trees. Despite the name, it may effectively be more about stewardship than legal rights, but it certainly raises a serious question about these important organisms' roles in the ecological balance of the planet and the right ways to promote those relationships. Are these efforts more political/legal or symbolic? 

Inspired by the ideas of the Universal Declaration, a town in Quebec has embraced the rights of their trees. The NY Times reports on Terrasse-Vaudreuil and its newly found recognition of its trees:

"Adopting the resolution was not merely symbolic, Mr. Bourdeau said in an interview. In Terrasse-Vaudreuil, practically, the resolution requires the town to prioritize canopy protection across all municipal planning. The next step is to review existing regulations and strengthen tree protections, the mayor said, followed by plans to plant and distribute trees to schools, businesses and residents in an ongoing effort to protect and diversify what has now been deemed a collective asset." 

I appreciate that instead of treating it like a small one-off story, they provide a context that shows this is emblematic of a much larger perspective that hasn't quite found the right vehicle. 

personal news

Excited to announce I am embarking on a new phase of my service at Rutgers as I have transitioned to chairing the Department of Landscape Architecture. I am humbled to follow in some auspicious footsteps and honored to be granted this opportunity to serve the school, my colleagues, our students, alumni, and communities. 

David Robinson

The retirement of David Robinson is a huge loss for Rutgers and NJ, but I am happy for him nonetheless. 

New Climate site

Much of the data and information from Climate.gov has now migrated to Climate.us including the resilience toolkit and the maps.

This week, the map of interest might be the map hottest days in history. Note: New Brunswick hit 105.1 in 2010.

Levels of agency

From a discussion of the different levels of agency at Swiss Miss:

“There are two kinds of people after dinner:

Those who ask, “Can I help?”

And those who are already doing the dishes.

One sounds helpful.

One is.

This plays out on every team every day. Don’t wait for permission. Do the dishes”

Urban patterns

Architect Abhinav Bhardwaj has posted some great images on Instagram that illustrate the differences between coarse and fine urban development patterns. While I might quibble with the accuracy of the labels (American vs. European), I think the illustrations are certainly useful in distinguishing between different eras and approaches.

Interestingly, the Streetlife Design Competition has been posted with opportunities that include students and young professionals. 

GPN MAC in AC

The GPN Mid-Atlantic Conference will be in Atlantic City in October 2026 - registration is open. GPN, the Geospatial Professional Network, is the former URISA and the Mid-Atlantic Conference is a popular chance to find out what is happening in our region.

A highly ranked program

Rutgers is a Top 20 landscape architecture program. While it isn't a surprise, it is nice to see that College Factual agrees, as they list RULA as #16. It also says that the MLA program is Top 10 in the country. 

While their methods are not clear, it is easy to understand that the Rutgers Landscape Architecture program is exceptional, as it tackles big problems and produces innovative work and methods. At the undergraduate level, the LA program is intertwined with an Environmental Planning degree. Students in the BSLA and MLA programs are also integrated with the Environmental Geomatics program and have incredible opportunities to learn about GIS, geospatial technologies and drones at the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis.

Rutgers Landscape Architecture is within the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS). This context provides easy access to other sciences - soils, ecology, environmental and social sciences - for both faculty and students. Not only is this a unique context and unparalleled source of expertise, but it also helps build multidisciplinary experience, which is an essential element in contemporary landscape architecture. 

Another reason that the program stands out is that the faculty include prolific researchers and scholars experienced designers. Multiple faculty have recently published important books while others demonstrate their impact through papers and funded research. These faculty often bring their scholarship into the studio, especially in the Praxis Studios. The department's community engagement makes it a leader within Rutgers and ASLA. The program's innovative faculty regularly publish research in urban forestry, spatial dimensions of human health, and landscapes of food. 

Located halfway between New York City and Philadelphia, the Rutgers Landscape Architecture program benefits from professional exposure, office visits, and easy travel to some of the most important new built-works in the country. Job placement is remarkably strong, with alumni being prominent in leading offices around the country. The program has also benefited from a grant supporting student placement in National Park offices, which has increased public sector opportunities for students and alumni. 

This is an exciting program increasingly known for swinging big and embracing innovation. No wonder it is featured in these rankings.

Links

 As a small personal bit of news, I have set up a LinkTree.

Blending local knowledge and science

NPS has a feature that looks at the ways that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are responding to climate change. This quote sums it up well:

"Knowledge, once learned, cannot be taken away," Wagner said. Federal funds may completely disappear, he said, but "it's not going to take away the truth, and we have that knowledge now, and we will continue on our path to protect what's out there."

Wiki places: Uggubseni

Ukupseni or Uggubseni, also called Playón Chico - described as one of the most densely populated islands.

LAM in Hoboken

Landscape Architecture Magazine has a feature on the new OLIN park in Hoboken, Northwest ReslienCity Park. 

GIS History

Meagan Snow has posted a fabulous GIS history piece on the Library of Congress blogs, called SYMAPping the Puget Sound: Exploring Early Techniques in Computer Cartography. 

Tree planting at Rutgers

Exciting to see that a Rutgers landscape architecture and urban forestry project is getting attention. Read more about Josh Kover's project that got the community together to plant trees on a former road.   

FS

 Jim Pattiz has an update on the changes at the Forest Service at Hatch Mag.

bell hooks quote

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”

― bell hooks

Ghostly aerials of an Iceland glacier

 After a fascinating Common Lecture today by Joyce Hsiang on glaciers and the cryosphere, I was surprised to see an amazing photo by Dani Guindo of an Icelandic glacier. The link can take you to a whole series of photos. 

Bill Nye on wetlands

 

Wetlands restoration video

 

Erosion can be fast

 The Grand Canyon might make you think that erosion happens slowly, but this video of gully erosion shows that it can happen fast too.

the world

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

― E.B. White

Data Centers

 In New Brunswick they successfully fought against a new data center. Meanwhile in Louisiana, Governor Landry happily announced that three Amazon data centers were coming to Northeast Louisiana. Data Center Infrastructure is the  newest planning board version of the big box store or cell tower - the controversial topic that is loved and hated and poorly understood.

Not everything should go down the drain

 Someone noticed sludge in the Elizabeth River and called it in. Based on the coverage in NJ.com, it looks like someone might have by-passed the sanitary sewage system and released it into a storm sewer catch basin instead. The EPA is investigating.

Using the EPA WATERS tool, we can see what the path might look like:

Learn something

On Fridays this spring, OSU Center for Urban and Regional Analysis is hosting free webinars. Here are some topics worth watching for:

• Local Data, Local Impact: Community-Centered Research in Central Ohio
• What are child-friendly cities like, why do they matter, and how do we build them?
• Building Cities for Everyone: Disability-Forward Housing Futures
• Creating Age-Friendly Communities: Local Approaches from Practice, Policy, and Research

Topo Map from Culver's Gap NJ

 

USGS Topographic Quad Maps

After talking about USGS topographic quads for NJ in class, these might be useful ways to explore the language used throughout the US on these amazing maps.








A special thanks goes out to Mike Siegel and the Rutgers Cartography Lab.  This is a great resource for students and for pros.

Federal government shedding PhDs

Science reports that the US Government now has 10,000 fewer STEM PhDs than it did a year before. 

Updating Canada's Floodmaps

10% of all houses in Canada are in the floodplain, but the maps in Canada are out-of-date. It turns out that the question of whether they should update the maps to a more accurate outcome is being fiercely debated.

Nature's 10

A fascinating list of people worth knowing about: Nature's 10

Submarine Cables

Check out this impressive sequence of annual maps designed to tell the evolving story of submarine cables. It would be easy to think that everything has gone to microwave or satellite communications, but these maps show an incredible growth in cables AND do it gorgeously.

Wiki-Poundbury

England has a town, designed by architect John Simpson, that was started in 1993 and should be completed in 2028. With roughly 5,000 residents, Poundbury is an experiment in planning, design, and social engineering which has been built with support along the way from Prince/King Charles (who studied architecture in school).

Wiki-Otis elevating railway

 Otis Elevating Railway - a defunct funicular in the Catskills

Wiki-Spore Drive

Spore Drive - mushroom-inspired sci-fi propulsion system.

Wiki-ICD-11

ICD-11 is the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision. It is a list of nearly 90,000 things that you could worry about. 

Wiki-Garret Hobart

Garret Hobart is a Rutgers graduate who experienced mild success.

Wiki-Edison Record

Edison Record - a very early record label. Closed abruptly in October 1929. 

Wiki - Calendar (New Style) Act 1750

Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 - Deleted 11 days from September 1752 in order to shift the calendar. Modified the calculation of the date for Easter.

Wiki-Catalan Vault

The Catalan Vault is a brickwork arch that allows more open ceilings. Maybe you have seen it in a Gilded Age house or Grand Central Station.

Bucranium

Bucranium - you have seen them but didn't know what they were called or how serious they were.

Wiki-George Wyllie

George Wyllie - described himself as a "scul?tor" because his works always asked questions.

Wiki-Fujiwhara effect

The Fujiwhara effect - when two cyclone circle each other. 

Things to think about...

Inside Higher Ed: 87 percent of Gen Z said they feel unprepared to succeed at work due to limited guidance, unclear paths to career from school and uncertainty about which skills matter most.

Wiki-Thenar

Thenar eminence is the mound formed at the base of the thumb.

Wiki-Cotard's delusion

Starting the year with some interesting Wikipedia entries. 

Cotard’s delusion: also known as Cotard's delusion or walking corpse syndrome, is a rare mental disorder in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that they are deceased, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs.

Data Center water usage

Lots of  people talk casually about how much water is used by data centers. It is worth reading this detailed accounting.

Wilson

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” 

-E. O. Wilson

This fabulous quote is from a larger 2009 story in Harvard Magazine about the tensions and reconcilliation between Wilson and the recently deceased James Watson. (h/t Kottke) 

Terracotta

Our department just had an enticing lecture by Haemee Han, whose recent design in South Korea featured a creative use of terracotta. 

The talk reminded me of an often overlooked source of terracotta here in Central NJ: the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. It was based in Perth Amboy but continued much of its later production in Rocky Hill. You have seen their tiles and architectural ornamentation. They are on the Philly Art Museum and the Woolworth Building and the Flatiron Building. And many others.

This brief history of the local terracotta company is worth a peek.

You may want to go hiking

After reading about Jean Muenchrath's hike on Mount Whitney, you might feel ready for a hike: “Well, yeah, and I’m carrying 15kg [her backpack] on my broken spine and pelvis, and I’ve got gangrene now in my butt because of the injury.” 

Feynman quotes

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” ― Richard P. Feynman

“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

― Richard P. Feynman

“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”

― Richard Feynman

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”

― Richard P. Feynman

Lifehacker on gardening

Lifehacker wants you to use more apps in the garden.

Other Katrina memories

As we are reminded of the 2005 damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, I encourage readers to reflect on stories beyond those from New Orleans. It was a huge storm with a wider path than many remember. Mississppi lost more than 200 lives when a storm saurge, possible as high as 30', washed across the coastal communities of Biloxi, Waveland, Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis. Houses built on 10' or 15' stilts were washed away. The Bay St Louis bridge, US 90, was collapsed.                

Energy visualization

 How much wind, solar, gas, or nuclear energy does your visit to this website require? Click and see.

River clean up

The Danube is benefiting from a clean-up culture that has people competitively collecting plastic on the river in homemade boats. The ability to create a positive culture that helps the environment is a remarkable thing. 

Fall theme

 Change is inevitable. Our response matters.

Two (maybe three) kinds of books

As I race to finish some of my summer reading, I found Austin Kleon's description of the centrifugal force of books to be quite intriguing.

Celebrate with Rutgers

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF BOTANY AT RUTGERS

24 October 2025

We are delighted to invite you to our special jubilee symposium to celebrate botany at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

The symposium will be held on Friday, October 24th and will include presentations by invited researchers, a poster session, an open house at Chrysler Herbarium, and a field trip on Saturday, October 25th. 

Please sign up for the Chrysler Herbarium’s mailing list to stay up to date with information about this event and other herbarium news at this link: https://tinyurl.com/CHRBlist. 

Registration information will be sent to recipients of the mailing list in September.

Ancient quote

“These individuals have riches just as we say that we ‘have a fever,’ when really the fever has us.” — Seneca

The words of NYC

NYC's Urban Textscape mapped out all of the visible words in StreetView. "The data is astonishing; it feels like sifting through the city's source code"

Trees quote

 “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

― William Blake