Here's a summer special freebie that I thought I'd share with everyone!
For once, I'm posting not about Atlas Altera, but instead, about a one-off idea I had in which North America (ATL Zephyria) is more believably treated with the "losers lose less" alternate history magic wand that I so enthusiastically waived to create the world of Altera.
You can read more about the lore of the map in the original posts...
2024-07-18 16:25:12 +0000 UTC View Post
A couple weeks ago, we launched a community survey to get a better know who was engaging with our maps, as well as how we might be able to improve. This is a quick, initial update on who we've heard from so far.
First, thank you for all those who already did complete the survey. We've received nearly 90 responses so far. The two winners of the prize draw are from Sinaloa, Mexico and Nailsea, England! They'll be receiving some nice looking 2024-05-29 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
I've finally had a moment to whip together the footnotes for the most recent feature map, We Come in Peace (Space Age in Altera). Though the map covered a very niche subject while relying more on aesthetics than content, there is still a surprising amount of lore and explanations to cover. I hope you too will enjoy the Wikipedia rabbit holes that I went down.
It's been awhile!
As I mentioned before, Matteo and I have been working on a few maps concurrently—at least two of which are now completed, and a couple more in their final stages—to buy us time in the summer to take on the daunting task of completing the next patching and update.
The first one we want to publish this week. It is going to be a map of human presence in outer space. I thought you might appreciate the sneak peak.
Also, regarding footnotes...I have scrawl...
2024-05-15 14:26:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Earlier, I released this feature map, which came more in the form of an infographic reminiscent of the works produced by Visual Capitalist. Now, I'm giving you all the trivial stuff you didn't know you needed to know about ketchup.
While the content on the infographic was simple, I've still managed to put together quite the amount of footnotes to compliment it. I hope you take the time...
2024-04-22 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
March is always the busiest month of the year for me—both personally and professionally. But this year, it's even more hectic because of a major milestone in life that I'm about to reach.
But in anticipation of this year's spring whirlwind, Matteo and I have been busy in the kitchen cooking up a lot of creative maps at the same time, so I thought I'd give you a couple of updates there and some previews.
2024-03-26 16:46:40 +0000 UTC
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I currently have a special offer for existing supporters and new sign-ups for most Patreon tiers (Armchair Academic, Voyager Voyeur ... and up): receive a free postcard in the mail from Altera! These beautiful postcards were first created three years ago as part of the promotion for the launch of the project Patreon, and though I've sent many of them out already, I'm itching to send out more to mai...
2024-02-18 18:46:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Did you catch all the nuances and details that I smuggled into the last feature map Matteo and I put out? Or maybe you're confused as to why Chinese and Mandarin have their own bubbles in the bubble chart graphic for depicting language influence in Altera?
In this...
2024-01-15 12:45:01 +0000 UTC View Post
As we ramp down for the holiday season and get ready to ring in the new year, I've been looking back and reflecting on all the accomplishments we've achieved this year.
In 2023, we focused on completing the Sprouting from Babel map series on regional languages. We completed some beautiful maps focusing on SoN lore with an ambitious shift in our usual aesthetics. We also made clever maps to depict seemingly mundane distributions of staple commodi...
2023-12-22 13:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
The other day, Frank dropped a spreadsheet onto my lap. He had cross-referenced our Altera GaiaPolyglotta spreadsheet with Glottolog's inventory of language families to see if we had any gaps on our end. He came back with nearly 200 potential gaps.
Altera's main purpose is to use a fictional map of the world to represent as much linguistic diversity as possible. So we set out to see how many language families and divergent genera we might have to add...
So I...
2023-12-11 12:33:01 +0000 UTC View Post
After a long hiatus, I've managed to put together this next video on staple steeps. The video is linked to the feature map, A World Steeped in Dr...
2023-12-04 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm excited to announce that, after a long hiatus from doing videos, I'm finally releasing a video that the talented F.T. Winckless helped me produce! This one's been a long time coming.
We're experimenting with quite the change in style, so I'm curious to hear what people think.
Look out for the video on Monday! You'll be able to catch it on 2023-11-30 13:35:01 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a while now since I've posted an update. Here's a quick check-in to see where Atlas Altera is at!
As we move into the thick of fall in the northern hemisphere, it seems we things cooking left and right. Work on the backend database continues, thanks to the hard dedication of Frank. The long-awaited YouTube is basically ready to be released--hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
And apart from all that, the next little while seems to continue to have a lingui...
2023-11-03 02:29:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a quick update for everyone in the community: I've turned on the new membership feature that Patreon just released, allowing people to additionally follow Atlas Altera on Patreon for free. People who do this can see public posts I make here, mostly the project update posts and some free bonus content.
The the same tiered paid membership options will also remain as they are.
2023-10-06 18:18:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Though the autumn shift seems nowhere near in sight, I thought I'd take the time now to highlight some of the things we're working on for the fall.
The goal of this next season is to get all language-related map content produced. This means we will prioritize the completion of the Sprouting from Babel series of maps, which outline what is the predominant language (colour-coded by language family) of each state within a continent. 2023-08-31 14:35:01 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been another summer of crisis for most of us in the northern hemisphere, and yet, this year seems like another series of first have been broken—including whacky high temperatures in the Andes and the Southern Cone! Perhaps then, the recent map we made on SoN responses to major conflicts and crises around Altera may be on the cusp of being a bit too close to home for some. Nevertheless, there is a bit of optimism woven into the lore here. I hope you'll take the time to explore it. ...
2023-08-28 13:40:59 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a while, but I give you the footnotes and additional lore for last month's map/infographic on Katesh! I really appreciate you patience on this one. It took me a while to complete the footnotes, because I wanted to cover a lot of content referenced in the map, but I promise that this one is full of intrigue and rabbit holes worth going under.
There is a lot more lore covered in these footnotes than I normally would, since this map almost functions as a map plate for Katesh but ...
2023-07-17 00:48:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Matteo and I have been hard at work with producing this month's feature map. This time, we're zooming in on the scale and focusing on a particular location within a hotly contested corner in the world. Based on the screenshot from Google Maps, can you guess where this is?
In any case, I hope you enjoy poring over the world map to try to pinpoint where all those natural harbours are. We were quite impressed by the topography and natural features we got to work with for the map. Sta...
2023-06-22 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
I finally got a chance to update the footnotes for last month's feature map on staple chews. There wasn't much content to cover, but I've been busy with work lately, as well as with tending my garden...
Anyway, for all those who care to even read the notes, I'm sorry for the tardiness! I hope you go down some interesting rabbit holes.
2023-06-18 19:32:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Following last month's map on staple smokes, I thought it'd be fun to do another map in the realm of ethnobotany. I don't know why, but I love thinking about the world based on our base consumption habits, our daily staples, even if some of them may be bad for us...
Can you guess what the upcoming map is going to be about?
I'll be dropping the map next week. Stay tuned.
And here's my discussion and sources for the last feature map. I thoroughly enjoyed investigating these four commodities/cash crops, and especially enjoyed thinking about the alternate history implications of unprocessed coca-based smokes and tax-incentivized marijuana cultivation in a large swathe of the world.
As always, the footnotes for feature maps is fo...
2023-05-01 13:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Matteo and I goofed around to produce this US presidential elections map, which you can enjoy for free here.
Later this week, we'll be releasing this month's feature map, which is a sharp turn from this kind of a map. It will still be an infographic. Can you guess what it's going to be about based on the prev...
2023-04-25 17:11:40 +0000 UTC View Post
We're finally done with patching and updating the main political and chorographical map, as well as all the connected backend datasets! Attached to this post is the comprehensive Patch log. Over 20 new states have been added to the map this time around, and there are also half a dozen state name changes.
You can ...
2023-04-11 17:44:11 +0000 UTC View Post
And here are the footnotes for the the Distribution of Terrestrial Flora, that is, the phytogeography map of Altera. As stated for the zoogeography map, a lot of the content comes from what I already wrote for the footnotes for the Factbook, but I also made additional comments and updates in the footnotes entry dedicated for this feature map.&n...
2023-03-28 14:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the print version of this month's feature map, the Distribution of Terrestrial Flora, a phytogeographic map that showcases the distinct landscapes of Altera through the lens of plants—flora distribution patterns.
As mentioned with the fauna map, a map like this helps you picture what kind of vegetative landscapes and worlds you might encounter in different parts of the world due to shared evolutionary constraints—barriers in physical geography,...
2023-03-24 15:09:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a sneak peak at one of the landscape paintings Matteo used to crown/frame this month's feature map. We're drawing inspiration from the intersection of a few fields/disciplines that came together in the 18th and 19th centuries to give us a boost in knowledge production in a certain field. Can you guess what the map is going to be about? I'll be posting the map on Friday, so stay tuned!
In other news, we're now working on patching the map for the Spri...
2023-03-20 16:07:54 +0000 UTC View Post
I just finished whipping together the footnotes for the the Distribution of Terrestrial Fauna map on the zoogeography of Altera. A lot of the content comes from what I already wrote for the footnotes for the Factbook, actually, though I've also polished some areas and added more links and examples of potential extinct animals that might persist...
2023-03-03 02:10:22 +0000 UTC View Post
I hope you are all well.
I just returned from spending two weeks in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and though it was great to be with friends, it was disheartening to witness the real and very dramatic results of climate change. While Venice's canals have dried up, and Ottawa's famed Rideau Canal was closed for skating for the first time in its history, we in Vancouver have been experiencing a drier but colder winter. It has all been very disorienting, for both tourists and locals alike...
2023-02-23 18:37:37 +0000 UTC View Post
As promised, here are the footnotes for the recent American Nations feature map Matteo and I produced. You can read the footnotes here, along with all the other footnotes for feature maps. If you want a bit more lore, there's always the lengthy lore posts I made in the comment threads of the 2023-02-02 00:33:07 +0000 UTC View Post
This month, I decided to move away from the global scale and put focus somewhere not too far from home. Can you guess where? I'll be releasing the feature map sometime next week, so stay tuned.
In anticipation for the feature month, here's a slightly low-effort and tongue-in-cheek infographic that's full of tear-away style maps of ATL America to show some basic but also quintessential regional differences in the country.
This style of infog...
2023-01-21 01:58:44 +0000 UTC View Post