Jon Keegan - Beautiful Public Data (Page 2)

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Jon Keegan

Jon Keegan is an investigative data journalist who covers technology. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Markup and MIT Technology Review. Jon’s work has won several journalism awards, including the Loeb Award, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Excellence in Journalism Award and the Society of News Design’s Best of Digital Gold Award.

Website: http://jonkeegan.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@jonkeegan
Threads: @jonkeeganstories

A mosaic of images collected from the sea floor showing sand, lobsters, starfish and shells.

Mapping the Sea Floor

USGS research vessels equipped with cameras, sonar and scanners created a map of 125 square miles of the sea floor off Cape Ann, MA.

Vehicle Crash Test Films from the 1970's and 1980s

Vehicle Crash Test Films from the 1970's and 1980s

Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some ugly) 70’s and 80’s cars being smashed into smithereens.

Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data

Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data

Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.

A Rover's First 590 Days* on Mars

A Rover's First 590 Days* on Mars

I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since landing there in Feb. 2021.

Utah Highway LiDAR Scans

Utah Highway LiDAR Scans

Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.

The GOES-16 Weather Satellite

The GOES-16 Weather Satellite

Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is worthy of your attention.

The Pillbox Database

The Pillbox Database

The National Library of Medicine's Pillbox dataset contained 8,693 photographs of pills, with an accompanying database of drug information. It was built to help with the identification of unknown pills.

Photologging Vans

Photologging Vans

These sequences are from New York and Connecticut’s state photolog archives, which I obtained through public records requests. Almost every state’s highway departments had highway photolog programs, some dating back as early as 1961. These sequences were captured by specially tricked out vans. The earliest used 16mm film,

Highway Photologs

Highway Photologs

Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as 1961. Each year, specially tricked out vans would drive each mile of state road snapping photos to document the status of roadways.