Google Earth Updates Doha Imagery
Every now and then I think “wasta” is a good thing. (Wasta is connection, wasta is knowing someone who can help you out. It can be good when you need a favor. It can be bad when it gets you out of a situation for which you are responsible.) I have wasta with Google Earth. When I moved to Kuwait, I complained that my area was all blurry and within a week – WOW. High resolution.
I got word this morning from my connection, Earthling, that new imagery for Doha is up and any blurriness is being cleaned up. Thank you, Earthling! You have no idea – Doha really doesn’t have street addresses that you can figure out, so Google Earth helps me get to where I need to go.
If you are not a GoogleEarth user – yet – I urge you to download and give it a try. It’s free, and it is awesome.
(Earthling, can you call it work when you love what you do and where you work so much?) 😉
Science, Cows and Serendipity
This is from BBC but I first heard this story on National Public Radio.
Scientists at the University of Duisburg-Essen were studying naked mole rats and discovered that when they build a nest, the sleeping areas are always south. They wondered if humans also had an unconscious magnetic sensitivity and decided to use GoogleEarth to study how campers set up their tents around the world, but found that it was too difficult to see tents, but they could see cows really well. Since they could see cows, they decided to survey the cows and discovered that MOST of the time, cows face either north or south. Who knew?
Cattle shown to align north-south
By Elizabeth Mitchell
Science reporter, BBC News
Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.
Wild deer also display this behaviour – a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.
In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth’s magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals.
The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles.
Many species – including birds and salmon – are known to use the Earth’s magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS.
A few studies have shown that some mammals – including bats – also use a “magnetic compass” to help their sense of direction.
Dr Sabine Begall, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, has mainly studied the magnetic sense of mole rats – African animals that live in underground tunnels.
“We were wondering if larger animals also have this magnetic sense,” she told BBC News.
I don’t know why, but random discoveries like this fascinate me. If you want to read more, you can do so here, at BBC News or here at National Public Radio.
Dont’cha just love these scientists? They figure out things just because they are curious!
Breakfast at Google
The groom, my favorite nephew, Earthling, invited us to tour Google and have breakfast there this morning. What a thrill. We are all such geeks; being in Cupertino is just so much fun. Even Mom raved at the good breakfast available at Google, and . . . at the HEATED toilet seats in the ladies room!
Travel Nerds
We are a bunch of travel and geography nerds in my family. Nothing makes us happier than jumping in a airplane, reaching an exotic location and driving, getting our feet on new ground, seeing new things, learning new ways. We all have cameras glued to our hands and laptops stuffed in backpacks.
All my married life, people have looked at me with pity and tole me how they can’t believe I live with such uncertainty, never knowing where I will be in the next year – even the next few months. What I tell them is this – the truth is, we ALL never know. We ALL never know when something will happen that will change our lives dramatically, forever. We live day to day, not thinking about all the things that can happen. If we think too much about them, we might go crazy.
I consider myself blessed. I was created with a restless spirit, a spirit for new experiences and new ways of thinking. I was given a life where all those things became my daily bread.
What is fun for me is watching the next generation of young adults discovering their own lives, who they are meant to be.
My nephew, at Google Earth took his love of geography to new heights. He works in a place he loves, doing work he loves. He wrote to me yesterday, to tell me about a new game being played, a grown-up version of the old “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” (one of the earliest computer games for kids) He has published a really really hard one on the Google team LatLong blog (as he says, he has the home court advantage in this game!) and he refers us to another blog, Where on GoogleEarth? where there are a series of contests to see if you can identify landmarks, special places, from the sky.
Here, for example, is the photo from contest #22 – and people have to write in telling what it is. Can YOU tell what it is? 🙂
Google Banned From Military Bases
News from BBC
Google Banned From Military Bases
Last Updated: Friday, 7 March 2008, 05:45 GMT
There are concerns that detailed maps may threaten security
The US defence department has banned the giant internet search engine Google from filming inside and making detailed studies of US military bases.
Close-up, ground-level imagery of US military sites posed a “potential threat” to security, it said.
The move follows the discovery of images of the Fort Sam Houston army base in Texas on Google Maps.
A Google spokesman said that where the US military had expressed concerns, images had been removed.
Google has now been barred from filming and conducting detailed studies of bases, following the discovery of detailed, three-dimensional panoramas online – and in particular, views of the Texan base.
It said such detailed mapping could pose a threat.
Google spokesman Larry Yu said the decision by a Google team to enter the Texas base and undertake a detailed survey, had been “a mistake”.
He told the BBC News website that detailed study of such sensitive sites was not Google policy.
You can read the rest of the story HERE
StatCounter
A week or so ago, fellow blogger Macaholiq8 mentioned StatCounter in his entry, and how much fun he was having with it. I had a couple minutes, so I took a look, and signed up to give it a try.
Oh, what fun.
It doesn’t work on all WordPress functions – or maybe it would if I knew how to tell it to, but the things it doesn’t do for me – analyze key words, most viewed pages, etc – WordPress does just fine.
UPDATE: THANKS TO YOUSEF at Some Contrast who rescued me with the key key command to take a photo of my visitor map:
What StatCounter does is something else. My very favorite part is looking at where the viewers are coming from, they divide it up, give you percentages. I can see that a lot of schools in the United States follow the blog, but also, people in Australia, China, Iran – oh, it is so much fun to see all the drops show up on the map.
You can get an idea what StatCounter can do for you at their website demo:
And it’s free. You can buy upgraded service that gives you more, but for me, and for right now, the free service is just fine, fascinating, really.
Thanks, Mac, for a great recommendation.
Directions to Northgate Mosque, Seattle (Idriss)
Today I have had many hits – over 20 – on a post I wrote a year ago about the Northgate Mosque. I am guessing that people in Seattle are looking for directions to the mosque, to celebrate the Eid. Here is a map:
I must be doing something wrong, but if you click on the blue print, it will take you to a Google Map that shows you how to get to the Idriss Mosque in the Northgate Area of Seattle.
Get an Early Lead and Hold It
The title line is from an old joke: a high school football coach tells his team the secret of winning – Get an early lead and hold it.
Many of you have asked about why it even matters to me what the Yemeni Star is all about. So I am going to tell you a secret from my childhood, a secret that got me through school with good grades.
It’s in two parts. The first is about getting an early lead – it’s called The Halo Effect and it is like getting an early lead and holding it. You work really hard and get good grades when you are young, and those early grades influence the later graders to give you the benefit of the doubt as you move up the grades. It doesn’t always work, but often enough that it has been given it’s own name.
The second secret is to develop an area of interest to YOU. For me, it was the stars. I loved (and still love!) stars, constellations, comets, heavenly rhythms, music of the planets, etc. For me it is God’s hand on this vast, cosmic scale. So I first started writing early reports on stars, constellations, etc. You know, how you have to write science projects?
From the constellations, I branched out into mythology – what a great study. So many references in daily life and literature refer to mythical beings and happenings, and if you don’t have a clue, you miss a whole level of richness. Like if someone refers to a Sisyphusian endeavor, you don’t have to run go look it up, you know they are referring to an almost impossible task. Between astronomy and mythology, there was enough material that I could take previous reports every year and ramp ’em up for the next year. I usually learned something, but the most important thing I learned was that I could succeed without having to re-invent the wheel every year.
If you can develop a particular field that interests you, your school life can be a lot more interesting. And believe me, we all know how deadening the school experience can be, unless you have really good teachers who can make it come alive for you. You have the most amazing tools available to you – a world of information, via the ‘net, and GoogleEarth – GoogleSky,, Wikipedia, and all kinds of illustrations available to add depth to your papers and reports. You are truly a generation who can have a lot of fun learning, if you take responsibility for your own education.
(Big hurrahs and shouts out here for Elijah, Swair, Magical Droplets,, MacoholicQ8, and all my other teaching friends, my classroom-warriors friends, heading back to do battle with and enlighten reluctant minds; you are my heroes!)
GoogleEarth – and SKY!
OgleEarth, one of the best blogs in the blogosphere dedicated to Google Earth, reports a new beta version of GoogleEarth is now available for download with one incredible difference – it also has views of the heavens, a layer called GoogleSky.
I have a hard time believing Google provides so much to so many – FREE. GoogleSky is awesome.
Here is where you can download the new GoogleEarth (and sky!)
Embed Your Google Maps – EASY!
I am totally wow-ed! Did you know that the Google Earth and Maps team has its own blog? I am blown away.
The most recent entry today is YouTube-style Embeddable Maps. How cool is that? Maps you embed are clickable, dragable and zoomable. The step by step instructions are given. Woooo Hooooooooo!
Here is where to go:
You’ll be having fun for days!
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