notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

gwire:

Disclaimer added to Google Maps widgets on DFID’s Development Tracker.

Borders are a problem.

Map Stack | Stamen Design - London, Toner background & labels with an orange building layer.

NASA creates the first topographic map of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon (Engadget via arielwaldman)

From the abstract of the paper at Icarus (on ScienceDirect.com):

Cassini RADAR SARtopo and altimetry data are used to construct a global gridded 1 × 1° elevation map, for use in Global Circulation Models, hydrological models and correlative studies. The data are sparse, and so most of the map domain (∼90%) is populated with interpolated values using a spline algorithm. The highest (∼+520 m) gridded point observed is at 48°S, 12°W. The lowest point observed (∼1700 m below a 2575 km sphere) is at 59°S, 317°W: this may be a basin where liquids presently in the north could have resided in the past. If the deepest point were once a sea with the areal extent of present-day Ligeia Mare, it would be ∼1000 m deep. We find four prominent topographic rises, each ∼200 km wide, radar-bright and heavily dissected, distributed over a ∼3000 km arc in the southeastern quadrant of Titan (∼40–60°S, 15–150°W).

See also: a rectangular projection of the topographic map.

Worldwide edits using the new MapBox iD OpenStreetMap interface.

sexpigeon:

Those dotted lines at the ends of the yellow, blue, and orange lines: how long have they been there? How long will they persist there? When does a hope turn into a lie?

I think they’ve been there since the map redesign around 2010. Given the label says “approved or planned”, there’s no commitment that they’ll ever be built.

That said, it turns out the Warm Springs extension is meant to be in revenue service in “Fall 2015” with a further extension to Berryessa under construction. Meanwhile, the East Contra Costa line (which will run diesels rather than electrics)  is under construction, leaving only the AIRBart, Livermore, and San Jose extensions as unapproved

Income inequality along the San Francisco KT light rail lines. Can you tell where it goes past the Tenderloin, and where it passes from the rapidly gentrifying Dogpatch waterfront into Bayview?

Then there’s the chart for Caltrain’s local service. That’s a heck of a difference between Redwood City and Atherton.

Flattest Route, a new web application by Zivi Wenstock that finds the flattest routes in SF. Here it’s showing a route from Cole Valley to Noe Valley that’s actually pretty similar to the one I worked out. Maybe I’ve got this hill business sorted out?

Edit: it actually finds the routes suggested by Google Maps in bicycling mode. It’s sometimes possible to optimise routes (to avoid having to dip and reclimb) by nudging the route a little. In other words, computers can’t quite replace local knowledge. Yet.

If you scroll the map of wildfire perimeters southwards, the underlying map tiles vanish, and you end up with this rather worryingly vast number of wildfire areas in Southern California.

Wildfire perimeters in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 The “Chevalier” Commercial, Pictorial and Tourist Map of San Francisco overlaid on Google Maps, mainly to show the route of the old Southern Pacific alignment through up to and through the Mission. (via)

The southern part of this is now forms part of Interstate 280, and the turn onto San Jose Avenue is now used by the J Church, as extended at the end of the 1990s. Further north there are still signs of the railway’s path in aerial photos and in oddities such as the Juri Commons park between Guerrero and San Jose near 26th Street.