So somebody wrote a press release yesterday about Google Earth Magnetic Cows, but it sounded so silly that I decided to go for celebratory end-of-panorama-trip cocktails instead of dirtying my blog with it. Imagine my surprise to see it hit the interwebs with a vengeance today, but the greatest surprise of all was that only one blog so far, The Earth is Square, has reported this “news” skeptically. [I just noticed Google Earth Blog is also skeptical:-)]
The bottom line: It’s entirely possible that cows have a magnetic sense, but we’re not going to find out about it by looking at Google Earth. What possible fallacies might there be? I came up with these in, oh, a few seconds:
What cow? Have you ever seen a cow on Google Earth? Are you sure? Most of Google Earth’s imagery is not in high enough resolution to let you discern cow from car from […]
For the past couple of days I’ve been seeing the reports of a scientific study about cows conducted using Google Earth. The results from this study sound like a hoax. German scientists studied hundreds of herds from around the Earth found in Google Earth, they say that cows seem to align themselves with the magnetic north when lying or grazing. See Los Angeles Times story. This study was actually published in the proceedings for the National Academy of Science. It’s been a scientific fact that birds and bees seem to navigate via magnetic fields. But, this is the first I’ve herd that cows can do it!
Naturally, I wanted to see if I could duplicate the scientists’ results. So, I started looking for herds of cows in Google Earth and placemarked their locations. Here is a collection of cow […]
Stefan Geens, who writes the tech-savvy Google Earth-oriented OgleEarth blog, has just spent a little over two weeks traveling throughout Sweden recording interesting sights. Naturally, he chose to create a special “OgleSweden” blog and map his trip and use a special camera rig to take some excellent panoramic photos. He says he used the Google My Maps feature to map each segment, and you can view the entire route in Google Earth with links to the panoramic photos. I wish he had included a small version of the panoramas you could view in each placemark, but the photos are definitely worth viewing in a browser where you can see more details. I think the tool he is using to view the panoramas requires an <iframe>, which isn’t supported in placemarks. Make sure you read Stefan’s posts as well, as he provides some […]
On August 13, we picked up our new sailboat in Exuma, Bahamas and sailed it to North Carolina - just a few days ahead of what was soon to be Hurricane Fay. Helping me crew were my long-time friend Fred Burke, and my daughter Trisha. We had just enough time the evening before to put fuel and provisions on the boat. Fortunately, the boat came with pretty much everything you need to conduct a blue water passage. You can download this KML file to see GPS tracks (colorized by speed) with placemarks identifying significant events (such as raising sails, fishing, being boarded by the US Coast Guard, etc.). Read on after checking out some photos and video clips (these pics are also geo-tagged in the KML file):
The winds were forecasted to be light most of the anticipated 4 day passage. The calm […]
Burning Man 2008 - Today marks the start of Burning Man 2008. Burning Man is the outrageous ultra desert party/art exposition held each year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for one week. Basically a wide variety of people build a city in the desert. There is art, music, drinking, and much more. There are basically few rules (except for safety). People build things and destroy things. They play, they party, and they even work. When the event is over, the entire city is dismantled leaving just the desert behind again. According to the web site, you really can’t explain it except by going there. Read “What is Burning Man?“. You can see the 2006 Burning Man in Google Earth - an aerial photo was taken. Last year there was a 3D map of parts of the “city”. This year, […]
Last week I announced the plan to begin a 5 year trip to circumnavigate the Earth by sailboat - and to make use of Google Earth in many ways. There are a lot of details behind this trip, so I’m sharing elements of the plan over the next few weeks in posts here at Google Earth Blog. I’m looking forward to telling you about some of the cool ways I will be using Google Earth to share our trip - but, now is a good time to introduce you to our new home and mode of transportation. Since the trip is for five years, we will be selling our house and our boat will be our main home starting sometime next year. We had previously owned a nice sailing catamaran and found it to be the ideal boat type for cruising and blue water travel. […]
Last May I published a video demonstration of a cool iPhone application I saw at Where 2.0 which looked like Google Earth. The video demo was such a huge hit, Earthscape - the company who made it - quickly made it into a product you can now buy at the Apple store (available for $10). I purchased the app a couple of days ago and have just now had time to make a new video demo:
A couple of things to note: Earthscape has a 3D terrain model for the Earth, and they have high resolution satellite or aerial photos for some areas - especially in the US. But, you won’t find as much high res data as Google Earth. Also, in the earlier demo I saw last May, they had the ability to use the iPhone accelerometer to […]
Ok, I’ve been hinting on this blog in various posts I’ve been up to something. And, things have not been slowing down enough for me to write. So, let me at least explain in general terms what I’ve been up to and how Google Earth will be involved.
A few years ago, my wife Karen and I bought a sailboat and took our kids sailing around the Caribbean (see Google Earth visualization of that trip). My wife and I thought cruising and exploring by sailboat was such a great idea, we planned to do it again when our kids moved out for college. In fact, we decided we would sell our house, buy a new boat, and live and sail around the world for five years. Guess what? Our kids (who are twins) are starting college right now. And we […]
Google’s environmentally focused non-profit has produced an excellent Google Earth visualization which shows information on geothermal energy available in the US. It’s part of a web site Google has produced on Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) which is being touted as a possible answer to long-term electrical energy needs on a vast scale - a Googol even. The resulting KML file is really excellent. It lets you view geothermal energies at several depth levels, choose 3D or flat presentation mode, and uses time animation to view the different depths. Placemarks link to more information as well.
In addition to Google Earth, the KML file they produced uses tools from other Google products like SketchUp, and the Google Chart API. And they have produced a video which uses Google Earth to present their case. Both the KML and the video are definitely […]
One of Google’s documentation engineers, Josie Wernecke, has written a book which will be released this fall. It’s called “The KML Handbook: Geographic Visualization for the Web“. Notice the “for the Web” part - the book is not just focused on its applications for Google Earth - or even the new web-based Earth API plugin. It will be a guide to developers using KML for any applications of KML. The book will be published by Adison Wesley, and should be available in November. Here is O’Reilley’s Rough Cut on the book.
Josie has been a writer of technical publications for graphics applications for a long time. I remember years ago when she wrote the book “The Inventor Mentor” which was a guide to using application tools for OpenGL while she was at Silicon Graphics.
via Let’s push things forward.