Holiday collection: fun sites from the end of 2008 (and Maya Lin at the De Young!)

So many site, so little space. So here's my wrap-up from G.reader on the cool stuff floating around at the end of the year (Many from the Map Room blog, a wonderful font of mapping information).

• Boston Globe's Year in Maps article. This has some lovely examples of new cartography. Maybe Tim can start one of these at the Chicago Trib next year!
• NASA's gorgeous and simple Global Fire Map. I like the simplicity and effectiveness of these maps.
• Sean Gordon's wrap up of user-created maps online is an interesting read.
• Kind of gross yet cool: Mapping Rats in NY.

And last, but by no means least, if you are lucky enough to live in the bay area, and have an interest in maps/mapping/representations of landscapes, go to Maya Lin's exhibit "Systematic Landscapes" at the De Young. It is mesmerizing, fascinating, charming and thought-provoking at the same time. I just loved it. It is on through the 18th, so get on it!!!!

Cool Aerial Photo Art

Michael Light's site: lovely aerial photography.

World Processor - Statistical Art (?!)

Check out World Processor -- it's been around a while, so some of you may have seen it, but new maps/globes have been added recently. In a nutshell, this artist processes various types of global statistics, including world television ownership, terrorism, and nuclear stockpiles, in innovative combinations and maps the results onto globes. You can explore photos of the globes, such as the one shown here of the US Naval range, on the website -- http://worldprocessor.com/.

DIY Earth Art and Aerial Photography

Formerly the exclusive domain of egomaniacal artinistas and well-funded academics, corporations, and governement agencies, earth art and aerial photography are know within reach of the common man! Ingredients: rake, kite, digital camera: rake art and kite photos! Once again, via Boingboing.

Cabspotting

Cabspotting is a pretty sweet art project from the explOratorium that tracks San Francisco cabs in near-real time. Via boingboing

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Flight pattern visualizations

Check out these awesome visualizations of FAA flight pattern data. More art than map, really, but it's cool to see recognizable shapes emerge from the paths of passenger planes.

More Cool Earth Imagery

These are two of my favorite sites for earth imagery (besides Google Earth of course). Earth as Art is a USGS project, some of you have selected posters up already, and they keep adding more; Earth from Above showcases photography by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The site is kind of slow and fussy, with some cheese music, but the photography is lovely.