At the Woodlands Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pa.

In addition to all the other idiocy here, the transport dropping paratroopers at 17s is an Airbus A400M (I think, Spanish), and the tank at 10s is an Italian Ariete. The drunkard at the start, however, is All-American.

A big part of my goal as owner of the oldest map store on the East Coast, is show people that maps aren't antiques. They are living, breathing, ways of seeing the world. Audio-visual artist Eric Theise gets this. Come see him perform at The Map Center next week! www.eventbrite.com/e/a-synesthe...

I see more Hydro Flasks in this story than M4s. wapo.st/468ANfb

Pizza is from sector G. (At least as much from Wichita as from anywhere else in the world.)

The Baltimore Banner is expanding coverage farther across Maryland with the opening of a Montgomery County bureau. (Three Post reporters cover the county but there is no longer an office there.) wapo.st/3JWtYot

An early morning flight by N534P, an Airbus AS350 owned by DHS, with ADS–B Out turned off. This helicopter hasn't much been seen in DC but it is turning into one of the usual suspects—arrived from the east, circled in Adams Morgan, then swung north again.

An older comic about pigeon nests.

another mystery helicopter swept in over Adams Morgan and turned north up the park. No transponder. It didn‘t sound like any of the medium-lift military types.

People keep saying that I should used LinkedIn, but the website looks like trash. If I didn't know the name, I'd think it was going to try and install crypto-mining malware on my computer.

🧵 September 12, 1814:

There are a wild number of helicopters up in the Mid-Atlantic right now. Around DC, there are at least eight Army 12th Avn Bn Blackhawks and a USCG MH–65 to the east.

The tide is turning. This piece says that gray cabinets are out, and warm wood is back in. wapo.st/3V9Ye1m

The National Guard could at least locate the ~4 benches that had been begrudgingly placed in Union Station’s main waiting room and put them back.

The helicopter currently circling Mt. Pleasant/Columbia Heights is not one of the DC regulars. White top, red tail and underside, skids, sensor turret forward, single engine, small ship.

A long line of cartological mishaps... www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Some great analysis here about the explosive trajectory of CaBi ridership faltering in August, but of course the occupation of DC may be playing a large role in this as well. The federal force surge has deteriorated public safety, choked our city, and needs to end now.

The Isthmus of Doctor Moreau

The widespread glee in killing spotted lanternflies tells me that there is a need for widespread reflection on killing.

Just saw a UH–72 fly by in Adams Morgan. "Sentry 7" is a DC National Guard utility/medevac helicopter that departed from the National Park Service aviation facility.

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to start two more maps, as if the first one wasn't kicking my ass. This East TN tree cover map is for a GIS conference in a few weeks! #gis #gischat #cartography

FBI agents say that the [ridiculous] DC law enforcement surge DC is inadvertently revealing the agency's unmarked cars. www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi...

"INTO UNCERTAIN WEATHERS is an interactive installation and performance of poetry, weather balloons, mylar and haze... During the event, the audience can ask questions both online + in-person—only to receive cryptic answers modulated by a NYC weather API and accompanied by NASA satellite imagery."

Arrived at the architecture building for a class. Naturally, the wayfinding system is near-nonexistent. A floorplan is posted but the stairs are not visible, although there is a nice scalebar, so I know how far away I am from my destination, just not how to get up there.

Ah yes, I see that the United States is once again going to war against a metaphor, but this time through ignorance rather than overwrought rhetoric.

Hello! (Ladew Topiary Gardens.)

I am skeptical of the line that "people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of violence." So what? Is there *any* social group that is more likely to commit violence than suffer it?

Never seen this before: Eagle, the US Park Police helicopter, launched at 6:55 and flew directly to Adams Morgan, and just spent 20 minutes hovering over Columbia and Champlain. (Not circling, hovering; and I don't remember ever seeing them in the morning.) I'd bet, support for ICE kidnappings.

I would read an academic murder book in which the murder was solved by reading the syllabus

Fuel depot dock on the Wicomico River, south of Salisbury, Md.

New: a map of railroads around Baltimore, DC, and the Potomac, from 1828 through today, shown against the hills, rivers, and mountains that drove their alignments. imaginaryterrain.com/projects/reg...

The railroads, rivers, and topography map is almost wrapped!

Interactive maps of medieval murders, sourced from London, York, and Oxford coroner's rolls. medievalmurdermap.co.uk

The Big Map is up in the Kent Free Library! This is a project highlighting the history of our South End, a neighborhood of immigrants, Black southern migrants, and railroad workers. communitygeography.kent.edu/index.php/20...

National Guard doing full-on landscaping work in McPherson Square. (The ghost of Montgomery Meigs is not going to be happy.) www.reddit.com/r/washington...

A sculptural snag, rising from the marshes of McIntosh Run, in St. Mary's County, Md.

A good piece about the design world's reaction to Joe Gebbia's appointment as the government's chief design officer (crouching atop the smoldering ruins of the previous federal design studios, 18F and the USDS). www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/s...

This is the National Mall and Memorial Parks Urban Forestry crew, marching in the 2024 Cherry Blossom Parade. This unit alone is 156 acres, and it's less than 1/10th the size of Rock Creek Park.

I'm not going to get all excited about the Cracker Barrel rebranding, which is of little consequence and will be forgotten in a week, but there is one larger lesson about design and culture: that this rebrand, like so many, has no attitude, no stake in the world, no substance.

Anyway...this Wednesday evening! Got a busy weekend? Spend a weekday evening on the "Baltimore's Confederate Shadows: Wyman Park & Charles Village" walking tour. Beyond the Baltimore you thought you knew (yes, really)

For Baltimore type aficionados: for sale, an apartment in the Mergenthaler Mansion, once home to Otto Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype machine. www.instagram.com/p/DNp9MYfx-mT/

It's out! 🧪 "Lines in the landscape," on the under-appreciated importance of #ditches as diverse ecosystems: doi.org/10.1038/s432.... By @peatymike.bsky.social, @fluitans.bsky.social, @drtatariw.bsky.social, @timaukel.bsky.social, @jordannabergman.bsky.social, @juliecrabot.bsky.social, ...

Slide rules would serve well for kitchens, for scaling recipes: set the proportion once and read the new amounts. entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slid...

Amos Garrett Park — Annapolis has a network of pocket parks at the ends of streets, creating public water access in a county that has deeply limited public shorelines. (Also, a lush rain garden with tall Joe Pye and flocks of butterflies.)

The Baltimore Keychain Library, in Hampden. Drop off tchotchkes, and artist Rachel Warren will convert them into keychains, free to take. www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/comm...

The tide was about 2 ft. higher than normal down on McIntosh Run, in St. Mary's County, driven by onshore winds. Also, you can pick pawpaws from the boat. (Not yet ripe.)

Map projections in the news! The African Union wants to promote the use of Equal Earth instead of Mercator. Generally a good piece, but left unsaid is who exactly is using Mercator for continent-scale maps and why. wapo.st/4oTC94E

We love our new logo and we think you will, too.

Otter Creek, on Mount Desert Island, is fading as a fishing village, in large measure b/c the National Park Service owns nearly all the waterfront land. A local fisherman found one sliver of land still in private hands, and built a community fish house there. www.islandinstitute.org/island-journ...