Map aficionados from the in-tray continue the debate:
As a former cartographer for the Department of Defense, I often heard the following sentiment:
A laptop (or a smartphone) with a bullet hole through it is now a paperweight.
A paper map with a bullet hole through it is still a map.
However, the digital maps of today are much easier to update and distribute, and the Army certainly appreciates not having to bring along a cumbersome printing press when they are deployed. My view is that one can appreciate both the advantages of modern computer map technology while still enjoying the artistry of many of the WWII-era maps.
Meanwhile, a paper partisan makes his case:
If I take reasonable care of the 70-year-old maps in my map collection – they are in a canvas bag that lives on my bookshelf – someone will be able to use them in 100 years. I don’t know if your KML file will be able to do that. Or if the hard-drive analog in your cell phone will still be working.
Another reader suggests that paper maps could have prevented a near-disaster in New Hampshire’s White Mountains:
These morons took a long hike with no maps, but trusty GPS. They were completely unaware of the risks they were taking, proceeded to ignore any warnings they were given and then not only pass the buck to the locals but go out of their way to do so in the largest newspaper in the region and who, at the end of the trip, wound up second-guessing their doctors.
From the article: “When his GPS died, he dug out the spare battery, but because of the cold, it would not turn on.” No one has ever had a map die, and no one has ever been unable to read a map because the map’s battery was too cold.
But another stands up for digital mapmaking:
There are many apps for Android and I-devices that allow one to preload maps, including full-detail topo-maps. From then on, one does not need a cell-phone connection, only GPS, which is available almost everywhere. Maps on a phone (or tablet) have the advantage of showing exactly where one is standing. This is particularly useful when navigating at night. I used to hike in the snow beginning many hours before dawn to get photos at sunrise in the Rockies, and if it weren’t for the maps on my phone my companions and I would have undoubtedly fallen off a cliff. One can also hike the trail in the day, save a record of the path, and then use it another day to hike in the dark.
The only major problem arises if one drops one’s phone into a lake (which I have done.) A lake-soaked map is still usable, whereas a phone, it appears, simply gives up.
Previous Dish on cartographic controversies here, here, and here.
The Dish 