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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"

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Featured Post

March Findings & 3-year Anniversary Live stream

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...

14 days ago • 2 min read

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...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

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...

2 months ago • 7 min read

Hey there, Deep Down the Google Maps Rabbit hole I like preparing quite a bit ahead of conversations I have on the podcast. These past few weeks have led me to learn quite a bit about the history of Google Maps & Google Earth, and I'd like to share a few of those learnings A book All this started ahead of preparing my interview with Ariel Seidman, the CEO & co-founder of Hivemapper. Ariel worked at Yahoo on Search & Maps in the mid 2000s so had an interest in maps quite early on. Ahead of our...

3 months ago • 2 min read

Hey there, Today's newsletter is a look at how 2023 was for the podcast. I'd like to bring you behind the curtain, show you how much the podcast was listened to this year, how much money I made (and spent) and where I'm going to next. 🎙2023 Recap Let's start with a caveat: the podcast is actually split in 2: RSS feed & YouTube. These are pretty different ways of consuming the podcast, so I'll keep them separate. With that, let's get into what my data science brains likes thinking about: 📈 The...

4 months ago • 7 min read

Hey there, New month, new readings, findings & podcast episodes! 🔗 Recent Reads & Findings Jed Sundwall shares some thoughts about governance, using the latest OpenAI leadershpi back-and-forth as a stage for his thinking. Jed is someone for whom I have a lot of respect and know puts a lot of thought on how we should build data & software. If you're not familiar with him, Jed spearheded Amazon's open data program, is now at the head of the Radiant Earth non-profit (which aims to expand access...

5 months ago • 3 min read

Hey there, Last month I shared some of the interesting reads I had come across during September and quite enjoyed the process, so I'm doing it again. 🔗 Recent Reads & Findings Element84, the geospatial consultancy company that has appeared on the podcast a couple of times now, shared their 2023 Geospatial Tech Radar. I like seeing what other people are keeping an eye on at other companies. I find this type of sharing valuable and am thankful E84 took the time to put this together and out...

6 months ago • 3 min read

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...

7 months ago • 2 min read

Hey there, Today I'd like to reflect a bit on building connections with people working in that same domain as me. ⛰️ Nerds & Hikes Colorado isn't hard to love I've been working in the satellite image industry and what us domain experts scientifically refer to as maps for about 4 years professionally, yet I've only met few of the people in the same field as me in person. My first real job was at Iceye and I started in March 2020. You know that time which in hindsight was a terrible timing to...

7 months ago • 6 min read

Hey there, A few days ago, I published episode 50 of the Minds Behind Maps podcast I also recently released a video on a completely different format, trying my hand at making videos for a much broader audience, so I wanted to take some time to reflect on the process a bit. What does a 50 episode podcast about maps look like? I'm a data scientist so let's start numbers. The industry standard for podcasts is download numbers, counting -as the name suggests- how many times a podcast file has...

8 months ago • 3 min read
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