Map area and list as resizable panes
I think it would be great to have the map and list as resizable panes (see interactive JQuery example)

While we could limit the minimum width for the list, we could then provide a more useful "hide list" function which actually affects the available space for the map. Currently hiding the list does not provide any benefits in terms of visibility/size of the map.
not sure if resizable panes are a good solution. but you are right that we are not using the potential of the hide list.
the overview state of the map should really show as much of the map as possible at a glance on a desktop screen (this very much depends on the height and that's also a reason why the map doesn't get any bigger - to avoid scrolling)
to me hide list can be really usefull in the zoomed in state of the map. right now we are not showing the titles of neighbouring bubbles.. right now the user has to navigate blindly to the next bubble - which most likely the user won't do ;-) this is really something we have to work on. I'll open a seperate issue for that. meanwhile we can discuss resizable panes here.
I just noticed there is a tooltip on the zoomed in state for neighbouring bubbles.. this is not enough though and sometimes takes a while to show up