Directions Magazine has the news that the University of Waterloo has released, for free, the most complete map of the Antarctic, to aid in climate research.

Geoawesomeness has a post that outlines the importance of programming skills in your GIS career, and provides a handy list of the most important languages to learn, as well as some resources to get you started.

Also from Geoawesomness is the word that NASA are looking for geography buffs to help crowd-source some of the 1.3 million images of our planet taken from the International Space Station – specifically, those taken at night. Got what it takes? Give ‘em a hand!

If you’ve been following the events in Ferguson since the unnecessary killing of the unarmed Michael Brown, then you might be interested to see this collection of maps that document some of the circumstances seen in the locale of St Louis, Missouri.

Also speaking of unnecessary killings, Google Maps Mania has this Street View of Gaza, which shows some of the destruction wrought by the Israeli army upon gaza.

In case you missed the link in the WordView-3 article we published, you should check out this slightly meta animated gif of the WorldView-3 rocket being captured by the WorldView-1 satellite.

And, on a lighter (if slightly NSFW) note, the Strange Maps blog has a post entitled ‘Scrotum and Totem: Phallic Cartography 101’ that charts the many phallic maps in the world. It comes with the following disclaimer: “Warning. Some words and images in this post may unsettle readers of a tender age or disposition. If that’s you, look away. This blog does not set out to cause offense. But we go where strange maps lead us. Even if that is the field of phallic cartography, booby-trapped with innuendo.”