Mar 21, 2020They Say Some Colors Are Soothing. Here Are Some Colors.Things are unsettling right now. Hopefully these hues might help calm some nerves out there. Take good care, friends.Colors5 min read
Feb 10, 2020Forgotten Map TypesSeveral years ago, I stumbled on a map so shocking to my modern workaday sensibilities that I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. “Oh, zounds, look at this old thing,” I almost certainly thought.Maps3 min read
Published in descarteslabs-meditations·Sep 12, 2019Sharpening The Focus on Methane EmissionsThe European Space Agency’s launch of the Sentinel-5P satellite in October of 2017 ushered in a new era of atmospheric monitoring from space. The instrument provides near-daily global measurements of ozone, NO₂, SO₂, formaldehyde, aerosol, carbon monoxide and, crucially, methane, a substantial component of global greenhouse gas emissions. The enormous…Climate Change6 min read
May 8, 2019A Gratuitous Rundown of More Than Three Decades of Gratuitously Cartographic Advertisements in Fortune Magazine☞ I explicitly excluded any overtly offensive images from this rundown that I could identify. Even so, some of the subject matter (as well as their occasionally unnecessary embellishments) may strike modern audience members as inappropriate. The images are a reflection of both their era and medium (magazine advertising). …Advertising27 min read
Published in descarteslabs-meditations·Apr 24, 2019Member-onlyMapmaking in the Age of Artificial IntelligenceLet’s cut to the chase. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is a buzzword that is applied to so many things that it almost has no meaning at all. What isn’t A.I. these days? We have A.I. on our phones and in our homes. (“Hey Siri, tell me how Alexa defines, ‘Ok, Google.’”…Machine Learning11 min read
Apr 8, 2019Earth in Two DimensionsAlbrecht Dürer to Agnes Denes: 100+ map projection illustrations and explainers (of various accuracies and precisions).Maps8 min readEarth in Two DimensionsAlbrecht Dürer to Agnes Denes: 100+ map projection illustrations and explainers (of various accuracies and precisions).World map (cordiform, or heart-shaped, projection) | 1511----
Mar 20, 2019Seeing the Earth at Night with Daytime EyesYou know that feeling of desperation you get when you walk into a darkened movie theater in the middle of a beautiful sunny day and you can’t see a darn thing? Ohhh, I think I see the exit sign! But where the heck are the seats? …6 min read
Published in descarteslabs-meditations·Feb 15, 2019What We Burn Creates an Eerily Navigable Map of EarthUnless you completely avoided modern society in August and September, you helped make this map. If you were in a car, bus or train with a combustion engine, if you were in an electric vehicle that was charged using non-renewable energy or if you consumed something that was shipped to…Climate Change4 min read
Published in descarteslabs-meditations·Dec 20, 2018Mapping All of the Trees with Machine LearningNote: This post was updated on January 3, 2019 to clarify that lidar was used as ground truth data to train the model only. Lidar is not needed to run the model; it requires only ~1m resolution four-band imagery (near infrared, red, green and blue) as inputs. Much fuss has…Climate Change5 min read