The BBC has a story on the possibility of using pulsars for deep-space location and navigation. It’s all kinds of sci-fi – but happening in real life – and well worth a read.
GIM International has a story on a 16 year old Dutch schoolboy who used a weather balloon to photograph the Earth from 35 km up.
Google Maps Mania talks of a handy little site that allows you to define URLs for Google Maps in terms of https://maps.example.com/country/state/suburb/street/number. It’s a great little idea, even if it only works well in English speaking countries or for places with addresses in that format. As the original post points out, there is a good discussion of that issue going on at Hacker News.
Canada Post is suing a website owner who uses the term “Post Code” to allow uses to search by, well, post code. Canada Post believe that they own the term, and are entitled to some profit through his use of it. Terrifyingly stupid.
The All Points Blog has a post on the progress of Urthecast, as it is about to deliver its cameras up to the Space Station, ready for near real-time broadcast of video and images in the second half of the year.
The New York Times has a piece on the recent death of Kenneth I. Appel, aged 80 from esophageal cancer. Kenneth was the first to use computers to create a mathematical proof – specifically, to prove that you only need 4 colours to differentiate boundaries for any map.
Very Spatial is showcasing the latest episode of the wonderful Minute Earth. This one looks at why Earth has deserts.
