Kugelblitz – Mac-Native Google Earth Alternative
apps.metaebene.me
apps.metaebene.me
Even on M1? Didn't Google Earth run smoothly when it came out? (Which was apparently 25 years ago, oh my goodness!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billion_Dollar_Code
(IIRC the premise was that the underdogs invented something like mipmaps, which I found hard to believe. The core tech was probably already invented by 3d shooters at that time)
It's more like turning mipmapping into a paging system.
So, a medium language model?
Load the fiber maps for a facilities based ISP that spans a few county size up to a whole state size of scale, with good granular detail (like splice case and pedestal locations, etc) and watch Google Earth Pro slow to an absolute crawl even on a $599 current gen Intel core-whatever or AMD Ryzen single socket workstation CPU.
To be fair to it, people are trying to do all kinds of things these days with KML files that it really wasn't designed for, or ever intended for, and are much better done with professional grade GIS software.
https://freakshow.fm/fs313-der-tripelpunkt-der-metaebene
As other commenters said: TerraVision vibes.
Shameless plug: I recently built an app that also renders a view of earth, but optimized for aesthetics, with day/night cycle, seasonal ground textures, sea ice, live weather... You can set it as your wallpaper and the app keeps it up to date: https://sunlit.earth/
also, the Hide Toolbar option hides the traffic lights too...? this isn't standard macOS behavior...
Sadly, Kugelblitz is only available for Mac and is closed-source for now. And, of course, it's vibe-coded. He talks a little bit about his reasoning on his podcast (in German): https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp563-des-kaisers-neue-kleid...
Really can't stand him any more.
And yes, project is not even F/LOSS. 3D mouse recommended, this guy is aloft from the rest of human civilization.
There is also a Netflix Mini-series inspired by the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billion_Dollar_Code
Https://Earthlove.live
As if Google Earth wasn’t smooth on a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 in 2009
Well, I would certainly excpect that an application that was already running smoothly on vanilla computers around 2005 also runs smoothly on a computer from 2020 ;)
Kugelblitz shows the Earth and its neighbors as a globe and as an atlas you fly over smoothly like a pilot, even on an M1. Imagery, road map and topographic map lie on real terrain, joined by thousands of open maps from the Library. Everything comes from freely available geodata, straight from its publishers, OpenStreetMap from the Kugelblitz tile server; you need no account.
Everything loaded stays in the cache, and Kugelblitz instances in the same network share it with each other if you wish. Status windows tell how far the view has loaded, where you are looking and where its data comes from, and every source is listed with its license in “Sources and Licenses”. Kugelblitz speaks German and English and uses the units of your choice.- "Imagery, road map and topographic map lie on real terrain"
- "joined by thousands of open maps from the Library" (what "Library"? Why capital L?)
- "Everything loaded stays in the cache"
- "Status windows tell how far the view has loaded"
- "every source is listed with its license in 'Sources and Licenses'"
Many cases of inanimate subjects with animate verbs "Imagery [...] lie", "windows tell". Also, some of it feels redundant and doesn't feel written in a way a human would, e.g. "every source is listed with its license in 'Sources and Licenses'".
Also, things like "the cache" feels like it is obvious for the LLM since it probably has that in the context a lot, but for a user, what does "the cache" mean? For a user facing description I would have expected either "a cache" or another formulation like "Everything downloaded by Kugelblitz is stored in a local cache" or something along those lines.
This single phrase is enough. Claude loves to write this way; no humans do.
Du brauchst kein Konto.
It's precisely what you'd say in German, which is what the author is.
You guys are holding a non-native speaker to an awfully high standard here.
"Everything comes from freely available geodata, straight from its publishers" (as opposed to using "freely available geodata" through mediators?)
"joined by thousands of open maps from the Library" (what Library? Of Congress?)
"Kugelblitz instances in the same network share it with each other if you wish" (yeah "if you wish" sure is how a human would phrase an optional setting)
"Kugelblitz speaks German and English and uses the units of your choice" (same)
and many more
It's slop writing.
In one of his recent podcasts he explained that he wanted to create a mixture of Google Earth and a libray. So "Library" is specifically meant as a name for the mixed data source aggregation.
To be clear: The entire software is vibecoded in a language Pritlove doesn't even have worked with prior to that. But when it comes to talking about his ideas Pritlove surely does not need a LLM. This guy basically started the German podcast scene and has been talking about software for at least 30 years.
Germans are still LLM, just in human form.
I think that's the idea, yes. Usually the mediator is the publisher of the software who at least maintains a proxy, but often recombobulates the data in a way that makes for sense for their software. This is also doesn't leave the original publisher paying for the software user's traffic. Probably not much an issue for a first release.
And whenever HE talks about Software, his feedback is even much worse. Since this is about the piece of software, not the person, we should criticise at will.
As for the person: he usually claims other peope lack his standards in crafting good products with an intelligent choice of ... ? object oriented language X/Y/Z, whatever buzzword he claims is best. Coders gonna code the way they like, but he loudly claims his way if superior since it makes less mistakes. As we all strive, unless we embace the Cuck Coding and/or that perfect is the enemy of good.
Oh, the irony in defending even that guy against clones of himself.
Edit: I can't switch since I need some older intel apps...