Meme Watch

Arctic Sea Ice Coverage

    
  Made by: Andy Lee Robinson

A really nice data visualization of Arctic Sea Ice from 1979 - 2013.  Bonus that they used a circular layout that looks like the North Pole.  Also, the data is compelling.  That's a lot of ice gone in a very short period of time. 

Stalingrad Map Project

Here is another map of the Battle of Stalingrad.  It shows dispositions on a divisional basis on November 18, 1942, the day before Operation Uranus.

I can't find a definitive document showing the Orders of Battle or unit locations.  This map is interpretive, synthesizing  information from the sources below. A spreadsheet with my complete Order of Battle is here.  SVG version of the file is available here.

Sources:

Books and Articles

Author	Title	Notes
Alexei V. Isaev	Stalingrad The Volga no land for us	Soviet forces and tanks
Antony Beevor	Stalingrad, The Fateful Siege	Most widely cited Order   of Battle
Wikipedia	Red Army order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad	Useful
Wikipedia	Axis order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad	Not particularly useful
Staldata	Staldata.com	Axis and Soviet Orders of Battle & force strength
Wolf Höpper	Against the Flood - Operation Uranus (I)	German tank numbers
Joel S. A. Hayward	Stopped At Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe And Hitler's Defeat In The East 1942-1943	Bases used for Airlift
Akhil Kadidal	Stalingrad Pocket	Really good maps and annotated photographs

Maps

Title	Source	Notes
OKH Situation Map Nov 18 42	WW2 Photos Maps	Axis forces locations   Fantastic Site! Jpg is here.
OKH Situation Map Nov 18 42 2	WW2 Photos Maps	Axis forces locations   Fantastic Site! Jpg is here.
S4231 Summary of combat operations in Stalingrad	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations  Excellent map
S4239 Operations in Stalingrad area	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations
S4251 Combat operations of the South-Western, Don and Stalingrad Fronts	Armchair General/RIIAWW2	Red Army locations

Notes:

• There are more units listed in the Order of Battle than appear on the map.  I didn't place any unit on the map unless I could find it in one of the source maps.
• In conflicts between locations on the OKH map and the Soviet maps, I used the Soviet map.   The Germans had not picked up the Uranus build-up, so the Soviets had much better intelligence at this time.
• I could find no information on the strength of the 8th Italian Army, or Soviet 6th and 3rd Guards Armies.
• Unit lines are thicker or thinner based on strength and density.  These are characterizations, not precise measurements. 
• Unit strengths are shown in the layers in the SVG version of the map.  These are based on the Order of Battle spreadsheet linked above.  The spreadsheet includes notes on the units shown on the map.
• The base map is derived from the OKH maps.  I do not know the map projection.
• Please feel free to comment on any inaccuracies!  You can help to make the map better.  I'm particularly interested in proper place-names.
• The license is Creative Commons, share alike, attribution, non-commercial.  You can do anything you like with the image except use it to make money, claim property rights over your derivative images, or not provide attribution.  I encourage anyone to use or change the map.  I do not consider classroom use commercial.  Like all my images, anyone who would like to use the image for commercial purposes should contact me and I can give you a custom license at a reasonable rate.

Merry Christmas

Yes, I ran this last year.  And yes, I will run it next year too.

Meme Watch

My Pix

    Dramatic Clouds, Toronto, July 2012

Pix

Oh. Oh.  Cold War nostalgia looms.  Nice plane though.  Its just a jet engine with stubby wings and a seat on top. 

Like many Russian weapons of the era, it was cheap, simple, reliable and very good.  Anyone who could mount the infrastructure to maintain the plane could afford one. 

Happy Birthday

Shigeru Miyamoto is 57.  The old boss at Nintendo decided to take a chance on a skinny art student and let him have a go at video game design.  It worked out well for everyone.  Here is a partial list of Miyamoto's games:
Donkey Kong 1981
Mario Bros. 1983
The Legend of Zelda 1986
F-Zero 1990
Super Mario World 1991
Super Mario Kart 1992
Star Fox 1993
Yoshi's Safari 1993
Donkey Kong 1994
Pokémon Red and Blue 1996
Super Mario 64 1997
Paper Mario 2001
Pikmin 2001
Metroid Prime 2002
Nintendogs 2005
Wii Sports 2006
Super Mario Galaxy 2006
Wii Fit 2007
Wii Music 2008               

Pix

This is a visualization of the frequency subjects were mentioned in the New York Times in 2003 and their relationships to other stories by blprnt_van at Flickr.  An amazing visualization. See them all here.  Its worth the effort to see the detail, how they change year to year and his other visualizations.  I love the idea of making art from data.

Pix

Self promotion.  I made the drawing during a stay at the hospital. It was converted to Illustrator for coloring.