Planetary maps and mind maps

I seem to be in a bit of a cartographic and LOLCats phase right now. While checking out some maps of Africa, I stumbled onto these maps of the far side of our satellite, the Moon. Wired Science refers to them as the “most beautiful planetary maps ever”. Not sure I’d go that far. Seem a bit Jackson Pollock to me or a bit “here’s what I had for breakfast after I threw it up”. The United States Geological Survey dudes, in partnership with NASA, have been mapping planets – not sure how it’s done but here’s a map of the far side of the Moon. Pretty awesome.

The colours of the map depict minerals and various geological materials. And here’s the Moon’s western hemisphere:

Source: Wired Science

And at a totally different level, you can map your ideas and thoughts with some pretty cool Mind Mapping tools I’ve found. Mashable has a list of 30+ mind mapping tools. They may not produce a Jackson Pollock like map but they help to model arguments, ideas and perspectives. Considering we’re heading into a Federal Election in Australia on November 24, Australia’s politicians should probably check out Debatemapper, a free web-based tool that can model and evaluate debates in politics and public policy. On the site there’s an interesting debate map showing ex-UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s eighth and final Our Nation’s Future lecture on public life and the relationship between politics and the media in the 21st Century. The verdict? The relationship is stuffed and needs repair.

And Mind42.com is pretty cool as it allows for multiple users and you can include Wikipedia entries. Cornerstone is a highly visual tool that the kids can use (good to get them young into the discipline of organising thoughts if you ask me). So here’s a couple of mind maps using Logotron educational software:

Go here to Mashable to see the complete list of 30+ mind mapping tools – very useful.

Given all the stuff I’ve seen recently on LOLCats, I’m sure there’s a mind mapping tool to map the thoughts of kitty

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