An unorthodox map provided by the always interesting Strange Maps blog proves that this summer the arachnoid inhabitants on the planet orbiting Chi Draconis are puzzling over who shot J.R.
The light cone from early eighties encompasses quite a few stars already.
Triptropnyc is a new service that shows how long does it take from place A to place B in New York using the subway.
While a similar service (tied to subterranean transport alone) would be useless in Helsinki, in properfly metro-infested cities like London or Paris this would be very useful indeed.
Metro used to reign over this ecological niche. The curious omission of an iphone version seems to be rectified soon.
O’Reilly is about to publish a geek atlas.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a few of the featured sites (no doubt heavily concentrated in California between San Jose and San Francisco): CERN ought to be there on multiple accounts, Linus Torvalds’ crib on Pietarinkatu might be.
Google Maps Typography; visual grep at its very best.
Onion’s atlas, a very iconoclastic take on the whole world seems to be increasingly available on the web as a Google Maps-application.
It’s far more enjoyable in book form since countries are not added by the week, they’re already there. Like Finland, which is missing from the web right now.
Cloverfield, the recent Big Monster Romps Through Gotham-movie, as visualized on a map. Obviously, there are major spoilers involved.
Old school paper maps have been badly sidelined by the constant innovation in the electronic realm.
Panamaps brings in multilayering.
Looks nifty in the ads, obviously – but the techology’s worth in real life remains unproven.
Do not attempt to locate a hidden message in the selection.
There isn’t any.
The unexpected inclusion of a flight simulator in the newest version of Google Earth seems to be the worst-kept easter egg in a while.
And the program itself, these days equipped with a treasure trove of stellar images from several sources, still ranks amongst the worst time stealers there is.
Why, certainly!
[ image nabbed from goopymart's photoset on flickr. ]
No rhyme or reason, just things to poke and click.
[ Abba the Hutt image from studio muscle. ]
Google Maps + Books = showing where the story happens. Brilliant.
Now if only somebody put up a map of the Middle Earth or Westeros in fully zoomable form.
The license and registration, please.
For those about to click.
Jason Kottke has listed the cream of the crop of his 2400 links remaindered last year. Most still as interesting as on the day of posting.
Germany is under martial law, following the appearance of a gigantic insect on the countryside, as shown on the attached image from Google Maps. Fortunately the critter has been very docile, and has not moved since the initial sighting.
Seriously, though, this is old hat, and the insect has been identified as a thrips that got squished during the scanning of aerial (as opposed to satellite) photography.
Where n is 9.
So, all of a sudden the street-level map of Helsinki (and probably of many other places) is available in google maps. Missed the addition of non-satellite map data completely. And the satellite map data seems to have vastly increased in clarity.
Looks good, apart from some names that persist in swedish (like Berghäll in the attached image). I’m sure someone has already complained.
Not all six shots expended here.
EDIT 30.8.2008: Neither the Sarjakuvafestivaali nor the Hubbard links have survived to this day.
Google expanded their mapping service to cover Mars.
But it seems to be missing the canals, and I couldn’t find Dejah Thoris’ palace either. Perhaps she’s just getting ready for Jon Favreau’s movie adaptation of the ERB classic.
And the famous face in Cydonia (at 40.75N, 9.46W, and available as a tagged object) seems less prominent on the maps than in the theories spouted by those convinced that it is a monument of extraterrestrial nature.
Sweet!
What does mine say?
Things that have impressed or stupefied this week. Entirely Sony Rootkit-free, that subject has been discussed and dissed to the death already.
Ok, so it’s NOT rootkit free, but this image is way too clever to miss out on. Sue me.
A random selection of things that have tickled my fancy one way or the other.
Google has gone on a regular release spree lately.
Haven’t yet given their desktop a spin, but will at work where the disk (and especially Outlook’s myriad folders) are just cluttered with hard-to-find nuggets.
Google Earth is nothing short of fabulous, and an incredible timewaster. Even though I do think that the Golden Gate pylons are upright as opposed to reclining on the surface of the bay…
However, the most immediate impact is felt from their brand-spanking new (and still beta) Google Talk, their interpretation of IM. Eschews bells and whistles and concentrates on what’s really useful, talk itself.
Of course, such a closely spaced bunch of releases (though Earth is old news) always raises questions about where the company is heading. Jason Kottke crafted a well-thought out piece on potential future of no less than the entire operating system domain. His analysis preceded the talk-release, but is thought-provoking to say the least. And despite the hopelessly speculative nature of the article, it’s an enjoyable read – and a head and shoulders above the site’s usual fare. While the remaindered links are interesting – the capacity for thorough analysis on various matters is definitely more to my taste.
And while on topic of these next-gen desktop thingamabobs, I finally got around to checking out konfabulator. And nifty it is indeed. Coding-wise as well, so it’s probably time to hoist the sleeves and get cracking. Even though it’s in javascript which I don’t really like – but the choice of an interpreted language means that any interesting widgets can be dissected to atoms. Which bodes well for shallowing out the learning curve…
