Posts Tagged ‘McNoleg’

Conceptual models of geographic space or mutant pig vs. predatory parrot

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

In ” An account of the origins of conceptual models of geographic space” by Oleg McNoleg, there are many points where questions may be raised on the idea of what one may conceive as geographic space. These points may  lie beneath imaginary animals and tribes, and masked within a silly story, but do make one think about how man perceives himself within his natural environment. The Tessellati, a tribe along the frost line,  for example is shown to perceive a particular area of a few square kilometres divided into sections as their space and world. Whilst, the Vectules, a tribe along an ocean, perceives their world as a set of defining lines (water’s edge) and points of security (trees). The two tribes provide the defining ideas of what can be thought of as raster and vector data and how these formats are utilized to define one’s area. Furthermore, the paper provides a unique way of thinking about how geographic space is actually defined and to what extent a person or group may define that area. For example, is it defined by a point that represents a tree with a predatory parrot or  defined equal area containing a mutant pig. Questions of an individual’s or group’s idea of space  from article seems to be based on one’s need and therefore forcing a particular way of perception on space. Although this article does help to show how personal situation reflects one’s perception of space, it does not deal with how perception may change if the tribes or some individuals from the different tribes exchanged places.

C_N_Cycles

Some kind of account of the origins of coneceptual models of geographic space

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

McNoleg conveys so much, and yet so little, in three pages. Further research reveals the Tessellati and Vectules either never existed, or have succeeded in erasing any trace of their existence from Google, Yahoo, Facebook Graph, etc. It is easy to draw parallels between the raster and vector data formats, though the pigcells of the Tessellati are a much better analogy. What McNoleg fails to mention is what sort of tessellation the Tessellati found to be most successful. A triangular model would simplify the construction of fencing with fewer angles required, but would produce areas in the pen wholly useless to the animal in that the nooks and crannies created by the acute angles would prevent the creature from accessing the area in the first place. Thus, maybe they found that rectangular, or even hexagonal pens worked better. Though, the 90 degrees required for the construction of a rectangular pen are much more common, considering it’s readily available in the hand of any child taunting a friend with the letter “L” on his or her forehead.

The “poly-gones” are a bit more of a stretch. Chances are the name Polly wasn’t even invented at the time, the name Wendy wasn’t around until the writing of Peter Pan. Furthermore, he does not include any differentiation between the single parrot cage, a line of parrot cages, and agglomeration of parrot cages. Whether or not this makes a difference is still up for debate, until then we’ll just have to scratch our heads and wonder what’s going on.

AMac