GeoRSS Weblog finds a gem. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard comes with DashCode, a tool for developing widgets to populate the Mac’s dashboard… One of the pre-made templates is for a Google Map, and all you have to do — literally — is add a GeoRSS or KML URL, get a Google Maps API key, and publish. Really:

I borrowed the USGS GeoRSS feed for earthquakes and made this in 2 minutes:

Isn’t it gorgeous? None of it is my doing. Download the widget.

But nothing’s perfect — I found the tool balking at some of the KML I threw at it, and of course, it only works on a Mac — here’s wishing this thing could output javascript for embedding in websites. Still, I’m somewhat stunned by how idiot-proof programming has become.