William B. Davis

GPT 6 Astra took nearly an octillion calculations to train. Even calling this figure astronomical understates its size: An octillion is a thousand times the number of stars in the known universe. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Vibecoded the map rubbersheeting tool I've wished I had for ages e-n-f.github.io/rubbersheet

In other news, I started a new blog. Living my best internet life like it's 2015 :)

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Some @layercake.graphics news: with @openclimatedata.net's help and @techniq.dev's insights, v11 of the library is out and has fully converted into runes instead of the @svelte.dev Store API. tldr; many fewer dollar-signs!

Three storms in the Eastern Pacific

Disappointingly superficial. New York City has huge issues building anything underground, and the coordination issues mentioned in passing here are a huge reason why. But all the most well resourced newspaper on earth can muster about its home city is "the street markings look like abstract art"?

I’m sharing one tool every week from my list, now at 202 tools published out of 1,500+ I’m reviewing! extract.bbbike.org a handy utility that exports custom OpenStreetMap map data into formats like GeoJSON, Shapefile, or MBTiles. Updated daily by me, not AI. josepablorobles.com/tools.html

Come work with my team on the very best beat: the Economics of Climate Change!!! Excited to make many beautiful charts with whoever gets this gig :) job-boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorkti...

Europe’s first solar eclipse in decades is happening on Wednesday. Will you be able to see it? Here's what to know about the weather forecast, path and time of the eclipse near you.

Today's rain www.nytimes.com/weather?lng=...

For the past couple months I’ve been working on a tiled custom radar layer that works with @maplibre.org. I wanted it to be performant, smoothly animate, and be precise. You can check it out here (the locations that have active radar change every 5 min.) www.nytimes.com/weather?lng=...

Mapping the recent wildfire smoke: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Breaking News: A major, 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Mexico’s Pacific coast near the Guatemala border.

We used data from AllTrails and combined it with weather data to try and find the best weeks to visit 16 national parks across the US. Here's what we found (gift link): www.bloomberg.com/graphics/ame... w @mariepastora.bsky.social on maps!

Fantastic reporting, and clear visual examples, of the danger posed to pedestrians by bigger and bigger trucks with huge blind spots www.nytimes.com/interactive/... from @mhkeller.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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

Big changes are coming to Grand Army Plaza, one of the busiest and most chaotic hubs in NYC. We took a closeup look at how the space is transforming www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Made some creatures using IBTrACS tropical cyclone wind data

Intense days, we’ve published many Moon pieces—including this one today in video format—for which I 3D-printed a model of the Moon exactly the size that astronauts see it from Orion. According to NASA, it looks like a basketball if you hold it at arm's length. tinyurl.com/bs8ytpap

🌖 Artemis II will send four astronauts farther than any human has ever gone. Here’s what you need to know about their mission: tinyurl.com/bdeyx8n9 🎁

Record heat is colliding with a snow drought across the Western United States, where snowpack accounts for much of the water supply 🎁 www.nytimes.com/interactive/... w/ @byscottdance.com & @sachimulkey.bsky.social

Blackouts are getting worse in Cuba. On some days, the entire island is plunged into near total darkness. The electricity crisis has laid bare the risks of depending so heavily on foreign oil while trying to maintain a centrally planned socialist economic system.

Job opening at @upshot.nytimes.com Come help us explain the news! We're looking for a visual journalist and graphics developer to report, write, design and code data-driven stories and visualizations. Details here: www.nytco.com/careers/job-...

Interactive Maps and Charts: Tracking the Northeast Winter Storm www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I've just added three KH-7 images of the Matochkin Shar Nuclear Test Site to the declassified imagery gallery. These shots are gorgeous. There's something about film and snowy landscapes. October 4, 1965: spacefromspace.com/declassified... May 26, 1967: spacefromspace.com/declassified... cont.

Trump's View Of the World Even on a global scale, the president's attitudes reflect a fixation on a single subject: himself. GIFT LINK 🎁 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I recently nerd-sniped myself into thinking about political points of view on maps, and wondering whether it’d be possible to create OpenStreetMap-derived, Wikipedia-informed national borders on a Protomaps base map legal for educational use in countries in conflict. medium.com/@michalmigur...

My thoughts are with the +300 colleagues who were laid off today. This is not good for the industry www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

Introducing 𝐀𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐜-𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐅, a new library for reading GeoTIFFs and COGs. developmentseed.org/async-geotif... - Fast, with a Rust core - Uses a non-blocking thread pool for image decoding - Integrates with NumPy, PyProj, Affine & Morecantile - Remote data support with Obstore - No GDAL dependency

The last few weeks I've seen a lot of great job opportunities shared, listing a few that stood out to me in the mapping/cartography/visual journalism space: www.linkedin.com/posts/lauren...

Join us in Bologna, Italy, 4–6 Nov 2026 for Visualising Climate — the first global conference fully dedicated to climate data visualization and its power to transform public understanding of a changing planet. Come see the data. visualisingclimate.org #VisualisingClimate2026 #DataVis #ClimateCrisis

Playing with elevation data in #Blender. This is the #Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) boundary which includes all of the watersheds that converge in Toronto. Going to try draping some orthophotos and land cover data over this. Other ideas? #Maps #Mapping #GIS #3D #dataviz

From NYT World: (Gif link) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

No time like a holiday deadline to learn MapLibre and how to run a cron job for the first time 🙃 (with a big assist from @willbdavis.bsky.social ) Follow along our “slow blog” as Ray and Chang join a team of scientists traveling to Antarctica: 🎁🔗 www.nytimes.com/live/2025/cl...

From NYT National: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Bringing back the bugle mountains with this work in progress.

Fun little exploratory project. I mapped transit oriented surface parking lots in NYC and applied recent development densities to estimate housing potential. Link at the end. #NYC #Planning #Dataviz #mapping #maps #map #housing

A Dead Glacier Is a Loss. A Dying One Is a Threat. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Tracking snowfall around Lake Michigan overnight and into today w/ @nazaneentv.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...

@nytweather.bsky.social relaunched a freezing temperature tracker for this season. Check it out here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Been obsessed with local flood hotspots since my ground floor apartment flooded during Hurricane Sandy. Seems like a good day to share this beautiful look at NYC's flood risk and some solutions the city is exploring (feat. lovely @nunderwood6.bsky.social maps!): www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

12 hours of Hurricane #Melissa, one frame every minute. 🛰️🗺️