notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

toffeemilkshake:

At risk of becoming a MapBox fan blog:

Using open data, MapBox is taking on the big players in online maps. Now they want to fix satellite view.

Here’s a nice quote from the article:

The team uses some techniques to ensure that they’re capturing peak growth, which is May/June in the northern hemisphere and December/January in the southern. In addition, because the process favors darker pixels, the first output can seem very dim and underexposed, says Loyd.

“It’s a completely natural product,” says Loyd. “Every pixel is a real pixel captured by an camera in the sky. But it’s also completely synthetic.” The goal for the map is to capture roughly what the naked eye can see from space, but for an idealized cloudless planet trapped in eternal summer.

prostheticknowledge:

Rare Cloud-Free Satellite Image of the UK 

Taken 26/05/12. Full resolution version can be found here

Previously in British Isles From Space: cloud free, 26th March (so, not quite that rare, eh?); snowed in, 7th January 2011.

Proposed flag designs for a “Great Britain” in the early 1600s, when James became king of both still-independent countries, as covered in BBC Radio 4’s The Flag That Failed, part of the Shakespeare’s Restless World season.

Handily, there’s a transcript available:

Looking at our flag designs, you can see the intractable politics of union being played out in graphic form. All the designs stumble on the one key problem facing James’s project: how do you combine two kingdoms, but allow each to retain equal status? Crudely put, which national cross gets to be on top, St George or St Andrew’s, and does size matter?

If you’ve never seen a Union Jack, it is surprisingly difficult to come up with an even-handed solution to this particular problem.

The programme page has a zoomable image of the designs. As it was, in 1606 a recognisable Union Flag that has evolved into the current design was used, although England and Scotland were not formally joined as a single country until 1707, after the failure of the Darien Scheme (as covered by CP Grey in one of his informative videos).

Eastern North Atlantic at Night, from the International Space Station, 28 March 2012. Photograph: André Kuipers. (Posted to Flickr by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, via iamdanw.)

Great Britain and Ireland by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr:

This nearly cloud-free view of Great Britain and Ireland was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite on March 26, 2012. Just a few days into spring, most of the land appears green, although not quite as brilliant as the summertime hues that give Ireland the nickname “the Emerald Island”.

London can be seen as a gray circle situated inland on the tan-colored River Thames.

Photograph: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team. Enlarged. via iamdanw. See also: British Isles under snow.

iamdanw:

Great Britain. Her natural and industrial resources (by Boston Public Library)

[this is good]

plastic map by maraid on Flickr.

Fantastic (and shot very nicely too).

From the MODIS Rapid Response System, on 7th January at 11 :50 UTC: Snow across Great Britain. (It’s also available even bigger.) (via) (previously)