The IRL Streaming Map / / No Comments lucent.earth is a ‘real-time visualization of global live streams and radio stations’. Which makes it sound a bit more exciting than it really is. Mapping live video streams is hardly an original concept. However, now we’ve entered the ‘influencer age’ – defined by 24-hour real-time oversharing – perhaps the time for lucent.earth has finally come. lucent.earth is essentially a 3D globe Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Streaming
Checking if a Movie has a Post or Mid Credit Scene / / No Comments Tell me if you done this before – you’re sitting in a movie theater after it’s ended and want to know if you should stay for a mid, or post-credit scene (also called a stinger). You open your phone, google, and end up a web page that has five gigs of ads or so and then thirty to forty paragraphs of text talking about the movie before they finally get around to actually answering the question. Yeah, I hate that too. I always tell myself, next time I’ll google ahead of time so I’ll know before going in, but I never do. If this bugs you, I built a web app that literally only tells you if the movie has these stingers – and nothing more. No context, no description... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Checking, credit', Movie, Post, Scene
Links For You (3/22/26) / / No Comments I just shared this on my socials, but this weekend is one of those rare ones where I got not one, but two days of decent sleep, and honestly my body doesn’t even know what to think about it. "Rested" is some foreign concept that is both confusing and incredibly appreciated by my body. I’d love to say I’m going to take this well rested state and get loads of things done, but outside of this post and laundry, I don’t plan on accomplishing anything else of note. Groovy Pretty Maths It was in college when I discovered "good at math" in high school means absolutely nothing when you start going beyond basic calculus, so with that in mind, I don’t understand... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 3/22/26, links
Mini Rennes 3D / / No Comments In 2019, Mini Tokyo 3D revolutionized the world of real-time transit mapping. By simulating Tokyo’s massive public transit system using stylized, 3D colored blocks, it allowed users to watch the city pulse in real-time.Taking clear inspiration from that aesthetic – particularly evident in its sleek ‘dark mode’ – the Rennes Transit Map brings this immersive experience to France Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: mini, Rennes
Two bots walk into a bar… / / No Comments My regular readers know I like to have fun with my demos. I’ll illustrate some API, framework, technique, with perhaps a somewhat silly example as a way of introducing you to something I’ve learned recently that I thought was cool. My hope is that you see me demonstrating something useful in (perhaps) an less than useful demo that helps you apply it to a real world need. Today’s post is not that. Rather, this is a completely silly, useless example and if you have any common sense, you’ll stop reading now. Still here? Good. Many, many years ago a man named Joseph Weizenbaum designed a natural language conversation program named ELIZA. It was not AI, but rather a program... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: bar..., bots, into, Walk
Mapping 600 Million Years on Earth / / No Comments Esri’s Dance of the Continents allows you to travel 600 million years back in time to view the Earth during the Cambrian period – when complex multicellular life first began to flourish. From there, you can scroll forward to watch the slow, rhythmic movement of tectonic plates as they shift to form the world we know today.As you move through the timeline, you’ll see the supercontinent Pangaea Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Earth, Mapping, Million, Years
Implementing OAuth in Astro / / No Comments As I continue to dig into Astro, one of the areas I wanted to explore was security and authentication. The Astro docs have an entire section on authentication in which they mention multiple different third party projects you can use with Astro, but I wanted to take a stab at building something myself. Once again I figured this would be a useful way to get some experience with parts of Astro I had not used yet, specifically sessions and middleware. We all know what OAuth is… right? I can remember being incredibly confused by OAuth in the past. Honestly I felt like I was the only one who didn’t get it. So I forced myself to build a few demos in that area to help it click and I realized... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Astro, Implementing, OAuth
The No.1 YouTube Music Map / / No Comments When The Pudding launched its Cultural Borders of Song map in 2018, it offered a compelling snapshot of global music tastes. But the map stalled in 2021 – and hasn’t been updated since. For a truly up-to-date view, the new Cultural Borders map delivers a live glimpse of what the world is listening to right now.Cultural Borders is an interactive map of global music trends. Click anywhere on the Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Music, No.1, YouTube