The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has published a fascinating visualization exploring the language of rivers in the United States - a map that doesn’t just show waterways, but the words we use to describe them. Their Map that Glows with the Vocabulary of Water reveals how terms like arroyo, bayou, creek, and marsh are not randomly distributed, but instead cluster in ways th...

There’s something oddly satisfying about seeing the world reduced to text. The new ASCII OSM Viewer  leans fully into that aesthetic, turning modern web mapping into something that looks like it belongs on a terminal from the 1980s.Built by Lionel Lim, this browser-based experiment takes data from OpenStreetMap and renders it entirely using ASCII characters. The result is a...

As part of NASA’s Artemis program to return humans to the Moon, Artemis II is sending four astronauts on a crewed journey around our nearest neighbor - an important step toward future lunar landings. I’m one of the many thousands of people currently hooked on NASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage on YouTube. It’s incredible to see live footage coming straight from th...

Artemis 2: Experience the Complete Moon Mission Here I don't usually link to paywalled maps, but I'm making an exception for Die Zeit’s extraordinary 3D scrollytelling visualization of humanity's return to the moon.Their Artemis 2 simulation is a triumph of interactive journalism. It transforms a complex, $100 billion engineering feat into a visceral, cinematic journey. For m...

Sentient Street ViewSince Google first launched Street View in 2007, its mission has been simple: to provide a window into every corner of the globe - from the peaks of Mont Blanc to the depths of the Great Barrier Reef.Throughout that journey, Pegman has been your faithful, silent guide - a cursor with a purpose, but no voice of his own.But looking toward the future of mapping,...