Image and Meaning 2 : Would like to participate in next installment of http://web.mit.edu/i-m/image4big.htm "discovering new visual expressions forscience and technology: a participatory forum".
This one had ; "2D, 3D, 4D, 'n' D: How Far Can We Go?: Dominique Brodbeck, Ben Fry, Ralph Kahn and David Laidlaw (moderator)", as well as exercises related to how to represent scale? temporality? multi-dimensions? abstractions?.

Escherization : http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/projects/escherization/ ingenious tesselations in the plane. Some were simple and geometric, used as prototypes for more complex endeavors. But in most the tiles were recognizable animal forms such as birds, fish and reptiles. The definitive reference on Escher's divisions of the plane is Doris Schattschneider's Visions of Symmetry ( second edition). View some of Escher's work online at World of Escher (examples from Escher's notebook: E25, E70, and E72).

Non-print reference material, on the subject of historical maps & cartography : http://www.andropov.com/mapref/

"Although much of the early experimentation with the new interfaces has been done by hobbyists, the new wave of consumer-oriented mapping services is shaking up the relatively staid market for what are known as geographic information systems, or G.I.S., which for more than a decade have been tailored largely for business customers." - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/technology/18maps.html?pagewanted=2
Moreover, although companies like Microsoft and MapQuest have pioneered programming interfaces for maps in the past, access has largely been offered on a transaction basis. (For example, if a company developed a map application based on Microsoft's MapPoint mapping data, it would pay Microsoft for each map lookup request it generated). ..Google's decision to court the experimenters and hobbyists is significant, according to a number of Internet veterans, because this is the community that has traditionally been the source of much of the Net's innovation.

"The difference between successful people and the 'one day gonna be' successful is that successful individuals do what other people don't feel like doing. It's that simple." -
"... depending upon others to live "unselfishly" is still depending upon others." - TU
"... and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne, English poet