Two new additions to the family of animated Solar System diagrams for Google Earth Sky.
These Orrerys combine KML Screen Overlays to display a top-down view of current planet positions in the top left corner of the screen, and run on a 3 month time-loop alongside the default Our Solar System Layer.
To squeeze everything into the corner [...]

This is a Google Earth, time animated version of the U.S .ZIP map in my post from a couple of days ago. Based on Robert Kosara’s ZipScribble maps. 
The KML file contains 43,000 lines connecting every ZIP code in the country, TimeStamped in ascending numerical order.  
Just a slight warning: This is a very large and detailed time animation. It runs smoothly on my [...]

About a year ago, Robert Kosara at eagereyes.org published a fascinating set of visualizations demonstrating the overall structure of ZIP (and post) codes in various countries, for obvious reasons he called them ZipScribble maps. Robert compiled  PDF maps of the USA,  and a dozen more countries. 
The concept he uses is remarkably straightforward:
 1) Plot the centroid of every ZIP code area onto a map.
 2) Join these [...]

Where are the busiest commercial passenger airports in the USA, and how are they distributed across the country ?
This Google Earth KML file mashes up a geographic database of FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) airport codes,  with passenger boarding totals (enplanements) for the year 2006.
Download the file here:
2200 Airports (USA) (150kB)
Icon dots are scaled in size [...]

Google’s LatLong blog has announced a bunch of changes to the default Google Earth Sky Layers. Some of my files are closely tied to the update, so here’s a quick list of the KML addons directly affected.  Check out Gearthblog’s post for the other main additions:
Planet Locations
Firstly I’ve updated my Orrey animation. This is the file that shows a simplified, top down [...]