iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Earthling Maps @earthlingmaps.com · 29/09/2026

Area masking means only the labels within your area of interest are visible. It's one of over 40,000 areas on Earth currently available to highlight in Earthling Maps v2

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 28/09/2026

For the clipping, or area masking, there's shapes for all 7 continents, 271 countries/territories, 3,919 states/provinces, and 38,908 smaller regions like counties and districts. Ready to go in an updated UI. (OpenStreetMap data via @overturemaps.bsky.social)

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 28/09/2026

Emerging from the mines to write about this month's UN map news, automatic map projections, and new ways to make maps

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 21/08/2026

Nothing like a leader line when you need it. Basemap improvements and region highlighting coming up next

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Quincy Morgan @waysidemapping.org · 25/02/2026

Pinhead v5 is now released with 38 icons added since v3, including icons from the OSM Americana map style. I also added a page where you can compare Pinhead to the likes of Maki, NPS, and OSM Carto pinhead.ink/coverage/ github.com/waysidemapping/pinhead/releases/tag/v5.0.0

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Earthling Maps @earthlingmaps.com · 29/07/2026

*New article*: How to create maps for Substack posts that look great in email and on the web www.earthlingmaps.com/learn/add-a-...

earthlingmaps.com

Earthling Maps | Add a map to a Substack post

Make a map in Earthling Maps and embed it within a Substack article or email

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 24/07/2026

I'm really interested in making the app accessible for a public audience so I'm restraining myself for the time being in talking too much tech. But I'm wildly excited about what's going on under the hood here! For me, it's a certain holy grail of web map rendering I've been after for years.

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 24/07/2026

This is made possible by a home-grown map renderer to pull off what MapLibre and OpenLayers haven't quite prioritized, combining vector tiles with arbitrary projections. It's D3's vast palette of projections combined with @protomaps.com vector tiles/styles, rendered to Canvas and SVG.

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 24/07/2026

And for my more technical friends: in future posts I'll go deeper into its automatic projection system, meaning that even if users have never heard of projections they'll result in maps with less distortion. See you later Web Mercator!

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 24/07/2026

Big news 🌎🌍🌏: Earthling Maps v1 has launched! Read about it, give it a try, and reach out with any feedback. They're maps that aim to work well even when really small, with defaults to set the stage for great cartography regardless of map-making experience.

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Kevin M. Gill @kevinmgill.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Mars, just prior to the Psyche gravity assist on May 15th. flic.kr/p/2sdBnYJ

Rocks and sand, but further away than usual.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

NASA's Psyche spacecraft captured this stunning view of Mars on Friday, while approaching the planet from the night side for a flyby. #Psyche 🔭🧪 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß flic.kr/p/2sdBDyw

A C-shaped crescent showing a pale reddish color. At the top of the crescent some witeish cirrus-like clouds are covering the North polar region.
The arc of light from the atmosphere extends almost two thirds around the planet.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Processing: Simeon Schmauß CC-BY

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Gregory @dreamwieber.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Let's give a Bluesky welcome back to my friend Brian Jacobs. If you're into journalism, design, maps – follow! And check out his new tool that allows you to create beautiful maps for your stories, essays, etc!

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

This is just the beginning, and you can sign up to find out when @earthlingmaps.com launches its public preview, coming soon. Learn more in the FAQ www.earthlingmaps.com/learn/faq

earthlingmaps.com

Earthling - Maps for Humans

Create maps for newsletters, articles, and social media, and add context without the clutter

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

Behind the scenes, @earthlingmaps.com uses global vector tilesets (via @protomaps.com) combined with D3's vast palette of projections, with all the automatic labeling expected from basemaps. This is the starting point to add labels and markers specific to your story.

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

While I'm a map nerd and am wildly excited about breaking free from Web Mercator, non-nerds won't have to know anything about this. @earthlingmaps.com automatically chooses appropriate map projections, so all can benefit from this in the form of good defaults.

Map of a donut shop in the Rondout district

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

Earthling @earthlingmaps.com centers around a home-grown map renderer that strives to respect cartographic ideals whether creating a map of the planet, or of your neighborhood. Web maps were never meant to be locked into a few standard projections.

Global map pointing out the Hudson Valley

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

Earthling @earthlingmaps.com is all about making locator maps for newsletters, articles, and social media. They're small maps that are meant to add context.

Hemisphere map pointing out the Hudson Valley

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

More recently: I've been working on an app called Earthling, and I'm gearing up for its public preview. I'd love if you'd follow along @earthlingmaps.com www.earthlingmaps.com

earthlingmaps.com

Earthling - Maps for Humans

Create maps for newsletters, articles, and social media, and add context without the clutter

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 12/05/2026

I'm long overdue for a social media update, so here it goes. I moved out of DC to the Hudson Valley and I've been freelancing, continuing to enjoy making graphics and tools, designing, coding, and a lot of mapping. I'm about 2 hours north of New York City:

Regional map pointing out the Hudson Valley

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 06/03/2026

Doing some casual reading on fused quartz and happy to see that the Time Magazine deep archive is right there on the internet serving up articles from 1924 with a take from Einstein time.com/archive/6651...

Highlighted article text: "Albert Einstein, interviewed in Berlin, was interested in its applications to his theory of the curvature of light, paid high tribute to the activity, courage, and idealism of American scientists."

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Nadieh Bremer @nadiehbremer.com · 12/02/2026

📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on! “Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤 A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

This is a real timelapse video of the Moon transiting in front of the Earth. It was captured by the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft in November 2022 while flying at it's furthest point from the Earth. The video covers about 3.75 hours of real time. 🔭🧪

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 05/09/2025

Spoiler alert, great maps and words from @rsimmon.bsky.social

Map with divergent color scale and smoothed contours

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 29/08/2025

It's like my hometown dentist Lou Smoler • “Cartesian” comes directly from Cartesius, the Latinized name of René Descartes. • “Cartography” is rooted in the Latin charta and Greek -graphē, concerning maps and writing — with no connection to Descartes’s name or mathematical concepts.

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 11/08/2025

Mango lassi is great too

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Zoltán Sylvester @zzsylvester.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

I have been experimenting with different ways of visualizing the curvature of meandering rivers. Plotting curvature in the context of the meanders themselves helps QC-ing the curvature data ⚒️🧪

Thick black line is the centerline of the Beni River in Bolivia. Circles that are tangent to the centerline represent the radius of curvature ag the location. Smaller circles = higher curvatures.

In this version the circles are colored according to the curvature; brighter colors = higher curvatures.

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 08/08/2025

Same here. Uniquely useful, so expensive

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 23/07/2025

Having some GOES NetCDF flashbacks... this article is getting outta date but there's a few resources linked here in the Processing GOES section source.opennews.org/articles/how...

source.opennews.org

How We Made "Billions of Birds Migrate"

National Geographic's web-based takeoff on the classic bird migration print poster

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 21/05/2025

Geospatial pareidolia: when you stare at maps all day, things like the eastern seaboard appear in coral shadows

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Daniel Huffman @pinakographos.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

The Alliance of Freelance Cartographers needs your help! By taking our short annual survey, you strengthen your #cartography community. This survey is for anyone (globally) who did any amount of freelance mapping last year (even a little). forms.gle/VaZqPpxeB8Qu... Please help spread this widely!

A slightly stylized screenshot of the survey.

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Johannes Enevoldsen @johsenevoldsen.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

I wrote a short interactive article👆 It uses simulations to demonstrate how different cardiac arrhythmias can develop. Try it out! (It has defibrillators ⚡️) jenevoldsen.com/posts/excitable-cells #medsky #cardiosky #cccsky #emimcc

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 15/10/2023

Can you also post the room with your PowerBook G3 duowide etc

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 15/10/2023

Yesterday's eclipse captured in 2 frames about 2 hours apart, from the eyes of DSCOVR's EPIC camera (epic.gsfc.nasa.gov) parked around Lagrange point L1. I've been working a lot with this data recently, project coming soon...

Full disc of western hemisphere of earth, eclipse over north america

Full disc of western hemisphere of earth, eclipse over central and northern south america

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 22/09/2023

Today, Doogie Typer is loaded up with Doogie's first entry, written on his 16th birthday in the pilot episode. He would have turned 50 today, just a tad younger than @nphstuff.bsky.social. Happy birthday Doogie. 🎂⌨️🔊 btjak.es/doogie/

btjak.es

Doogie Typer

You're a genius teenage doctor and it's time to reflect

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 14/09/2023

Cover illustration I did for the book “Ultimate Dinosaurs: Stegosaurus” by the talented Professor Ben Garrod. The book is out today! 🐡 🎨 🧪 #paleontology

Illustration showing a Stegosaurus (brown with lighter stripes and spots) on a clearing of a dark Jurassic forest. To the right of the image there is s large ginkgo tree with three Hesperonithoides (a small feathered Troodontid dinosaur)

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 14/09/2023

Happy belated crab day

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 03/09/2023

I can think of few things better to do on a holiday Sunday than wander through this meticulous 3-D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan at its height. tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl (I particularly dig the overlays between modern Mexico City and Tenochtitlan as it was.)

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 25/08/2023

To be fair, I’d be proud of such a ‘shop effort

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 21/08/2023

Another day, another amazing anatomy fact! 🧪 Your teeth are joints. They're a fibrous joints called dento-alveolar syndesmoses. Science speak for: pegs of tooth fit into jaw socket. LOOSE teeth are bad right? Why's it a joint? Because a tiny bit of movement tells you how hard you're cronching!

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 26/07/2023

All aboard the crustacean cruise ship

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Brian T Jacobs @btjak.es · 26/07/2023

On the shores of the Rockies

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Reposted by Brian T Jacobs

Andy Baio @andy.baio.net · 25/07/2023

Congrats to @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com for winning the first Tiny Awards! rotatingsandwiches.com was chosen from over 300 nominees and publicly voted from 16 finalists as best representing the small, playful web. twitter.com/kleinkleinklein/status/…

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