I was asked to give bio for a conference. It wasn't approved, but here nobody can stop me: "Maxime Lenormand doesn't have a clue what he's doing with his life: at the moment he plays around with satellite imagery hoping to make something useful out of it. When he's not doing that he asks people long winded questions about the meaning of life, what books they like and how the heck they ended up also playing with maps all day"
Recent read and 100 people on the newsletter!
Hey there,
Today I'd like to simply share a few reads I've come across recently, and take a moment to celebrate 100 people on this newsletter! 🎉
🔗 Recent interesting reads
- What is Source Cooperative: A post from Jed Sundwall, the Executive Director of Radiant Earth on their platform for shared, open datasets. I'll leave it at that, if you're into geospatial data I encourage you to read the blogpost, or listen to my interview with Jed from a few months ago.
- iPhone Pro Max Camera Review: Depth & Reach by Sebastiaan de With. This might sound like a strange recommendation at first. I like keeping up with what everyday tech companies are doing to innovate as sometimes those open up new wider applications. Specifically I've been keeping tabs on Apple's camera efforts and especially when related to their AR efforts. This review doesn't touch on AR but Sebastiaan is one of the most thorough iPhone camera reviewers I'm aware of, and I appreciate reading his thoughts, so you might too.
- 40 companies that are beating the West, another piece from Rest of World. Especially I recommend reading the Mobility section, on companies outside of North America & Europe doing cool map-adjacent work that I had (mostly) not heard about.
🎙️ Most recent Minds Behind Maps episode
- A Candid Conversation with TomTom's co-founder & CEO Harold Goddijn. I am quite excited about being able to share this conversation. It took a lot of preparation and months of back and forth to happen but it was worth the wait & effort. TomTom is a company I've looked at with a big interest in the mapping world, having to re-invent itself multiple times, I'm grateful I got to sit with the man at the top in a candid manner.
One quick podcast side note: If you listen to the podcast on Google Podcast, you're going to have to find a new home as it's shutting down in 2024. Google will migrate listeners to YouTube music. I would recommend using a dedicated podcast app (I don't like having music & podcasts in the same place):
- Overcast (iOS only) is my favourite podcasting app, period. It's made by 1 guy that has shown a commitment not to track people, and wants to just make an app that people who actually listen to podcast like.
- PocketCast (android & iOS). I know less about this one but I just enjoy using it because I can load my own mp3 too (sometimes to listen to rough cuts of interviews to listen to "in the real world" and hear how they sound) and it gives you cool stats on how many hours you listened to podcasts.
✒️ Celebrating a 100 people on this newsletter
Recently the 100th people signed up to this newsletter, thank you to everyone who did!
This is mostly a place where I share some thoughts, every once in a while so I'm grateful to anyone who signs up to want to read more about what I write here.
There are a couple of reasons why I (try to) maintain this newsletter. I think writing is a good catalyst for thinking; I also think that as algorithms take up more and more of our feeds it's become really hard to have a more consistent line of communication with interested people. Newsletters & email for the most part help with that. The last point is that it allows for a 2 way communication.
Podcasting sometimes feels like shouting in the void and barely hearing anything back until one meets people in person. So I want to take this little celebratory milestone to turn the microphone keyboard back to you. If you have a minute I'd love to hear a couple of things about who you are:
- What do you do? Are you a student, full time employee, entrepreneur, researcher? What do you work on?
- If you've listened to the podcast, any episodes you particularly enjoyed?
- Finally, and most importantly: Any favourite, strange (or not) maps?
Cheers,
Maxime
Maxime Lenormand
I was asked to give bio for a conference. It wasn't approved, but here nobody can stop me: "Maxime Lenormand doesn't have a clue what he's doing with his life: at the moment he plays around with satellite imagery hoping to make something useful out of it. When he's not doing that he asks people long winded questions about the meaning of life, what books they like and how the heck they ended up also playing with maps all day"
Hey there, March Findings Google shuts down Google Podcast: <Insert annoyed comment about Google shutting down yet another thing>As might be quite obvious, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about podcasting. Google's relationship to podcasting is weird. On the one hand they're trying to improve Youtube to be a better home for podcasts but then they shut down their dedicated RSS podcast app. I wish Google tried to make some cool innovation, trying to make automated transcripts that pop up...
Hey there, I've teased this multiples times in the previous issues of this newsletter, it's finally time to share it to the world! I spent the last 6 months -when I wasn't working the jobs that actually pays the bills & running the podcast- making a video to answer 1 simple question: How the heck do radar satellites images work? And here's the answer: That's it, that's the email today. For real, there is some sick 3D animation, even more 2D animation and even freakin' LEGO stop motion. If...
Hey there, Let's talk gen AI Oh great, another post about AI. Yes, I know, I know. This post won't be so much about maps, but about creating content online, teaching and trying to convey excitement about a topic as well as getting things right. If you've been online over the past few days, you've probably heard about OpenAI's Sora. If not, the TL;DR is that OpenAI just created a text to video model, with results being mind blowing. Here's an example: Taking a step back first I want to write...