thebicycle:

USA cycling map. Saw it on the Guardian. larger link here.

There are actually some gorgeous, amazing bike lanes in Alaska: In Fairbanks, there’s an amazing 9 mile loop around Farmer’s Loop. Gorgeous. In Anchorage, there’s a stunning bike lane along the shore. In McKinley (erm, Denali) Park, the Parks Highway has a bike lane and several run through the park. I suppose it’s tough to distinguish between “trails” and “lanes,” though, and it’s probably true that though they’re marked as bike lanes, they probably only got built so people in the winter could use them for their snow machines and ATVs. 

wnyc:

Census figures suggest tens of thousands people FLY to work each week. Check out Transportation Nation’s interactive map of the top routes to the biggest “super commuter” cities.

You can see that one little line going from Houston off the map on the top left. That’s the oil workers headed to Alaska. 

newsweek:

chels:

laughingsquid:

Every Time Zone, A Visual Time Zone Calculator

Oh. My. God. FINALLY. 

Yes. Real stoked on this.

It would be 10:59 AM on May 16 in this map in Alaska right now, except in the Western Aleutians, which would be in Hawaii-Aleutian time, or 9.59 AM. When I was a kid, Alaska spanned 4 time zones. In 1983, we took over the more-or-less unused Yukon Standard Time Zone, and it was renamed Alaskan Standard Time (the Yukon had switched to Pacific Standard). 

reuters:

Amazon is working hard to limit the amount of states requiring the collection of sales tax on online purchases. The company recently struck a deal with the state of Texas in which the state agreed to delay the collection of sales tax. [REUTERS]

Exception made for incorrect info - Alaska does not have a sales tax.

thescienceofrealities:

Want to See Every Tree in America?

“We may sing about purple mountains and amber grains, but one of America’s most vital resources is its vast amount of carbon-catching, oxygen-spewing trees. Now, after six years of effort, NASA knows how many we’ve got.

Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of Woods Hole Research Center worked in conjunction with the National Geological Survey and US Forest Service to catalog a mix of data gleaned from space-based radar, satellite sensors, computer models, and old-fashioned tree counting. The map above shows the total amount of woody biomass in the USA. It’s displayed at a 30 meter resolution, where every four pixels constitutes an acre and every ten represents a hectare.”

[NASA Earth Observatory viaBusiness Insider via Geekosystem]

This one’s kind of a shame, because it would have added a giant green mass the size of Texas. 

thedailyfeed:

EXCLUSIVE: A bubble is forming in Heartland real estate, and it’s almost entirely homegrown. After a year of record profits, farmers are plowing their savings into expanding their spreads. And thanks to record commodity prices and low job prospects, aspiring farmers are trickling in. Meanwhile Wall Street fund managers are showing uncharacteristic restraint.

Mike Duffy has a bumper crop on his hands. In his three decades teaching agricultural economics at Iowa State University, he has never seen so many aspiring farmers. The roster of names at the school’s Beginning Farm Center is now at 400.

“Are they the hippies of the ’70s? I don’t know, but they’re much less willing to become part of the general stream of things,” Duffy said. “And when the incomes are good, everybody wants in.”

Maybe they should head up to the Mat Su valley and buy up the farms there before Palmer and Wasilla expand into a megalopolis and use up the only farm land in Alaska. 

soupsoup:

Check to see if your congressperson supports or opposes SOPA.

If you actually go to the site, it does show alaska, though there’s no pin for the congresspeople from there. But, then, I wouldn’t sweat it. Safe bet they support this monstrosity of legislation. Doing so will curry them some favor from whoever is sponsoring it, that they will bank away and use when they need to get some bill laden with pork for alaska passed. 

nevver:

Probability of a White Christmas

I suppose it could be there in that sea of white since it’s been snowy up in alaska since like september…

domgoodrum:

USA Skiing by the numbers USA

Come on! Alyeska! Kikkan Randall! Tommy Moe! 

cajunboy:

thedailywhat:

Unreasonable Warmth of the Day: I’m no doomsayer, but Maine was the hottest state in the continental US this morning.

[reddit.]

So f-ing weird.

Super warm in Fairbanks today! Only 2 below!