what’s the matter, elGoog’s pictures of the earth keeping you busy all day? have you realized yet that it’s just an interactive advertising directory, or do you still think that it’s “important“? did you forgot all about the part where microsoft already did this years ago, back when it was all about terraserver? well folks, there’s more to cartography and satellite imagery than streaming pictures of the white house with printable mcdonald’s coupons to your machine…so, uh, let’s now talk intimately (read: ‘with swears‘) about a few of the other very stable alternatives, cleanly organized into things that either require a brain or things that require only a pulse (btw, just reading the descriptions will force you into self selection…that includes barry and sergio, who have become like monkeys choosing between food and cocaine when it comes to solid business strategies lately)…

the blue marble from nasa - it’s been around for years, and it’s not about giant blue balls (tasteless man joke, just had to seize the opportunity after i heard my son refer to his man marbles’ while trying to simultaneously reprimand him and keep my composure (he’s young))..it’s about the big blue earth, and these are the highest resolution images in the world, free for public viewing…and you can download the full images (over 21 thousand pixels across, so much better than when i tried to take pics of the earth by whipping my camera phone into the trees)

the other terraserver (not the one from microsoft) - “Terreserver.com was founded in 1997 in Raleigh, North Carolina with the simple purpose of finding a commercial market for satellite imagery.”…this company is also known as GoDiBU (short for ‘elGoog didn’t buy us, they bought those shits at keyhole instead…keyhole my ass, we were there first…bastards…now we gotta figure out how to charge at least 9 bucks for this because nobody understands what we do…gotta give away fucking hats to everybody…assholes“)…they’re also the folks behind terraxserver (which is the same thing i believe, but a slightly less crappy looking home page with different ideas about how to separate people from money)

the map maker from charles sturt university - plot your own map, and make new friends! this is only for people who get it (go ahead, click on through and you’ll see exactly what i mean)…if the basics (latitude and longitude) confuse you, then don’t even waste the bandwidth…

the latitude and longitude search engine - because you’re totally bullshit that you think you’re so smart but couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on at the map maker link above…use this search engine to get the coordinates to plot your map…

the national geologic map database - yes, i know, it looks it was built on one of those free home page builder accounts at yahoo or something…but it is really good stuff…”In cooperation with the Association of American State Geologists…Funded by the USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program…and Mandated by the National Geologic Mapping Act” (wow, i had no idea that such mapping was mandated! great use of tax dollars, good thing we’re not at war…)

and lastly, the news buzztracker - okay, so this isn’t exactly for mapping the earth exclusively, it’s really a new experiment in mapping news and information over the top of a map…in fact, if you must know the truth, buzztracker was gonna get it’s own really witty blog entry, but then i was like “nah, fuckit, i’m going to dunkin’ for another iced coffee” (it’s like 109 in boston)…so yeah, for example, with elGoog earth i can find shit that doesn’t matter very quickly along with links to ads for worthless shit that’s nearby, whereas with buzztracker i can find out what matters period, and where it matters across the globe…

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