by keepamovin
5 subcomments
- When I was a cartographer in the 1500s I used to hide dragons, sea serpents and the occasional heretical inscription in the blank bits, because at least back then the Holy Roman Emperor had the decency to pretend he didn’t notice as long as the tax broders were correct.
Now look at us: the Swiss federal cartographers, salaried, pensioned, triple-proofread, still cannot resist smuggling a naked woman and a cheeky marmot into the official topography. And the admisntration? They wait until the perpetrator has safely retired on full index-linked benefits, then solemnly announce the marmot will be "removed in the next revision cycle, pending environmental-impact assessment of the pixel."
This is what passes for rebellion inside the European regulatory state: a rodent drawn at 1:25 000 scale that offends precisely no one and will be erased by a civil servant who wasn’t even born when it was sketched. Truly the revolutionary spirit of our continent has been reduced to a change-request ticket with fourteen mandatory approvers and a carbon-copy to Bern.
I fill in another compliance form and weep for the age when men risked the stake for a badly drawn leviathan.
- I love this kind of tongue-in-cheek steganography. In a similar vein: Vermont Inmates Hide Image Of Pig On Police Decals (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/02/03/146358114...)
by comrade1234
1 subcomments
- If you ever come to Switzerland download the swisstopo app. It is very detailed and useful for hiking but even in the city too, showing the locations of fountains, for example, rural and urban official and unofficial hiking trails, closed trails, slopes too steep to traverse, etc etc etc.
The Swiss topographical institute is a treasure.
by jasonjmcghee
1 subcomments
- The marmot, hiker, and fish- alright. I buy it. The others... Feels a bit like finding shapes in the clouds.
But I'm no cartographer so maybe these are more obvious to people that have the skill.
- Previously:
Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490017 - Mar 2020 (22 comment)
Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22461602 - Mar 2020 (1 comment)
Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22407413 - Feb 2020 (1 comment)
by sschueller
1 subcomments
- The digital version over at https://map.geo.admin.ch/ has existed for many years but it is only a few years now that all Cantos have agreed to provide the data for free[1]. There is a lot of interesting data such as "Lärmbelastung" where you can lookup how loud car or rail traffic is at a location.
[1] https://www.geo.admin.ch/en/general-terms-of-use-fsdi
- Reminds me of a message hidden in a NOAA weather forecast during a government shutdown
https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/politics/weather-service-cryp...
- Seems like the hiker at the bottom of the article was introduced in 1997 and removed only in 2017: https://s.geo.admin.ch/be66brq5oby9
- I wonder if these are copyright traps. You used to find those in many places including Ordnance Survey maps (UK State mapping service), where they were used to stop plagiarism. (Successfully in some cases.)
- The spider is a particularly subtle joke: The White Spider is the name given to a snowfield high on the N Face of the Eiger, crossed by the original (1938) Heckmair Harrer route up the face. Heinrich Harrer's book about the first ascent is called "The White Spider"
- I miss all the easter eggs in software. Not just games, but also in business software.
Not sure what would happen if I tried to put one in in his day and age.
by ninalanyon
0 subcomment
- I wonder if any such thing exists in Open Street Map?
And if not how might we bring it about?
by TwoFerMaggie
0 subcomment
- Slightly annoying that the magnified parts are directly over their original location. This blocks the view to see them in their original size and context.
- A different kind of map, but 3d level (map) designers seem to enjoy doing Easter eggs and hidden things in levels. There are the famous Half-Life G-man cameos for example, which aren't quite fourth wall as it were, but still something not many know of.
- As long as they keep their hidden illustrations away from my precious Swiss chocolate logos!
- I haven't read the article, but aren't these introduced to detect illegal copies?
- I recently read 'The Cartographers' by Peng Shepherd. If you like this article and want to read a fun murder mystery about things hidden in maps then that is definitely the book for you. (No relation to the author here, I just liked the book!)
- These are clearly just hallucinations of their GenAI.
by NitpickLawyer
0 subcomment
- Hic sunt illustrationes :)
- Appending a "for Kids" would turn them into immediate heroes.
by philipallstar
1 subcomments
- > illustrations hidden by the official cartographers at Swisstopo in defiance of their mandate “to reconstitute reality.”
This is such an odd idea.
- Visual steganography.
by catlikesshrimp
0 subcomment
- The link is down. This is a snapshot from 2020
https://web.archive.org/web/20200305164547/https://eyeondesi...
- [dead]
by fat-soyboy
0 subcomment
- [dead]
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