Cameron Beccario put together a beautiful interactive visualization of global weather conditions called simply “earth.” It’s a virtual globe, with animated data on weather conditions and ocean currents worldwide. You can turn the earth in any direction and zoom in to get a closer look. Click on the word “earth” to bring up a control panel. Read about the data here.
Sure, it’s got a boatload of important data, but it’s also such a cool web toy that you may find it difficult to stop play with it. I know I spent way too much time just flipping, zooming, and changing the parameters. -via Boing Boing
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The frontier aspect was also important. There are planets run essentially by criminal cartels, like Tatooine, because the Empire was unraveling at the seams. Such uncontrolled areas are the breeding ground for revolution.
Make a movie or sell toys? Post-cinema marketing is everything today, and so characters and extras are made to be easily translated into a line of action figures. The movie becomes a vehicle for selling stuff to kids, and is diminished. It is a gigantic product placement.
It also works this way for making money, so it's not likely to end.