Historical Aerial Photos

Remember when air photos were a thing? Well, they still are! This place https://e-topo.com/mapv2.aspx offers the low-res 300 dpi versions for free somehow.

Are Rooftop Solar Panels the Solution to America's ...

This looks great, but unfortunately behind the NYT paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/27/business/energy-environment/rooftop-solar-panels.html

Climate Trace

Incredible data & visualization from Climate TRACE!

• Track Global Emission of air pollution.
• Pollution Plumes shows how they disperse from point sources.

Nerd Alert: Python, The Documentary!

Read more about it here: Python, the movie! The programming language’s origin story comes to the silver screen. Then watch it!

Want more? Here's the NumPy and SciPy video.

The future of universities

The future of universities is an excllent special in Nature. The focus is obviously on 'typical' universities and not the 'job mills' that are typical of public higher education in the USA such as state universities or community colleges.

How people are using ChatGPT

How people are using ChatGPT is a quick web article from OpenAI that summarizes the findings from a working paper entitled How People Use ChatGPT. The key figure is below.

The true size of Africa

The true size of Africa (by Reuters) is well-done & here is my favorite figure:

The Electrotech Revolution

The Electrotech Revolution is a good read & a great slide deck - here are the three take-home bullet points:

1. Physics: Electrotech makes the energy system more efficient. Electrotech is around three times more efficient than fossil fuel systems, which waste two-thirds of primary energy inputs (380 exajoules) as heat at a cost of $5 trillion every year. Solar and electrification enable us to harness the power of the sun, which gives access to 100 times as much energy as fossil fuels. 
2. Economics: Electrotech gets cheaper as it scales. Fossil fuel commodities get more expensive as extraction continues, and their prices are elevated by major producers controlling the supply. Electrotech is manufactured and modular, resulting in clear technology learning curves, with costs falling by around 20% every time deployment doubles. Electotech is already capturing two-thirds of global energy investment and is responsible for all the expected growth in energy jobs. Electrotech contributed 10% of global GDP growth in 2023, including 22% in China, 5% in India, 30% in the EU and 7% in the US.
3. Geopolitics: Electrotech enhances independence and security. 80% of the world lives in fossil fuel importing countries, with over 50 countries importing more than half their primary energy as fossil fuels. In contrast, 92% of countries have renewables potential over ten times their current demand. Replacing imported fossil fuels using three key levers—EVs, heat pumps and renewables—can cut net fossil fuel imports by 70%, saving $1.3 trillion globally each year. Once electrotech is bought, it lasts for decades, providing insulation from the vagaries of global pricing. When fossil flows stop, the economy stops. When electrotech flows stop, only growth is at risk.

Charlie Kirk: Climate Denial & More

In case you missed it: find Charlie Kirk quotes @ https://zeteo.com/p/charlie-kirk-in-his-own-words.

The Nature-Positive Movement

This looks like a great book: Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future and here's the review in Nature: How to build nature back better — read this manual

The idea is that it is insufficient to just reduce environmental harm or become sustainable, but rather to regenerate nature in an active way = become nature-positive. This would be the opposite to the standare greenwashing that we see all over.

Here's an interesting angle mentioned in the review:

• Purpose-led businesses (e.g. Patagonia, etc.) can pursue ambitious goals & lead by example.
• Smaller companies can be agile and influence their local communities.
• Large companies have a) the resources and b) the scale throughout their entire supply that even small improvements can have a large aggregate impact.

Related: Rengerative Agriculture. I'm not a farmer, but these all seems like no-brainers: plant cover crops, rotating crops, reduc tilling, and integrate trees all to a) prevent soil erosion and b) improve the soil. Read more about here: A revolution is sweeping Europe’s farms: can it save agriculture?

The Correct Map

Notthing really new here, but a few nice resources:

1. The Correct World Map
2. The “correct” map
3. A cool scrolly-type story map: The true size of Africa
4. The Equal Earth Projection

TLDR? Here's the short version: It is mathematically impossible to transform the surface of a sphere on a 2D surface without distorting at-least one of these properties: 1) angles, 2) shapes, and 3) distances. These distortions are minor at large-scales (e.g. neighborhoods or cities), but considerable at small-scales (e.g. countries, continents, or wolrd). Catographic projections need to balance these distortions in-order to make the map as useful as possible for its intended purpose. Therefore, there is no such thing as a 'correct' map: every map is wrong, but there are well-established cartographic projections that are most-suitable for certain applications.

How To Make Animated GIFs

Great video: How to Make Dataviz GIFs (4 Steps with Free Software)

1. Assemble the frames as slides in MS PPT.
2. Save each frame as an image (use JPG as it creates a white background).
3. Upload the JPGs to a free GIF website (e.g. Ezgif).
4. Share the animated GIF!

Or, make it natively in MS PPT = save as animated GIF! But this does not allow you to adjust the timings between the frames and transitions.

Pickleball vs. Tennis

Pickleball wins...it's not even close: How Pickleball Took Over Thousands of Tennis Courts, as Seen From the Sky