Red Borders No More

I generally avoid simple geo-news regurgitating on this blog.  I want this to be a component of the interweb that explores things and their impact on people and place rather than something you can find in a thousand different places.  On occasion, the poignant issues to me and the things you can find in a thousand places cross, and today's post is an example of that.  Having said that, if you haven't heard about the attack at a bar in Bujumbura, google it. So few of us ever hear about stuff like this and that's a travesty.  I feel it's incumbent upon me to encourage people to learn more on their own. It makes me wish I was back in seventh grade discussing current events.       

It's official, South Sudan has come to Google Earth.  Gone are the days of a red line border.  In the eyes of Google Earth it's a bona fide yellow border country.  I was quite pleased by this news.  We've all been following the quest for independence and as trivial as gaining full recognition on Google Earth may seem, to me it's an awfully big deal. 

Here is a picture as it appears today

And here is the article as posted on the Google lat long Blog.

Google continues to excel in Africa, both in bringing information in and working to educate people on Google's products.  How cool would it be to be invited to one of these?

Finding Osama with Mr. DNA and Google

I'm absolutely eating up all of this Osama (Fox: Usama) talk and simply must write one more post on the topic. For this post I'm going far beyond my area of expertise (hobby) and for that reason it's important you not allow facts, incorrect math or easily disproved thoughts to get in the way of the point- if you can decipher it. I would at this point insert the rules read by a member of the audience from "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" but I cannot, for the life of me, find the text. Curse you Google!

I have heard the phrase "hiding in plain sight" far too often this week, but it got me thinking about how common an occurance it must have been for random Google Earth users to unknowingly look at Osama's compound (and you know SOMEONE is looking into that data). The pictures we usually see of the compound show about a quarter square mile of area. So what are the odds of someone looking at this area or how long might it take to look through ALL of the Google Earth imagery at that scale?

I was reminded of the great Mr. DNA movie from Jurassic Park talking about the length of the human DNA sequence.

Google search delivered this time:



So the question is simple. Using Mr. DNA's logic, looking at screens as he described how long would it take to find the compound. This of course would only work if there was a picture of bin Laden on top of the compound ala Col. Sanders.



So if DNA has about 3 billion base pairs (don't worry I had to look it up too and am probably wrong despite it) reverse engineering leads us to a number of about 142 things being displayed per second...or as Mr. DNA says "screens like these".

142 things * 60 per minute * 60 per hour * 8 hours * 365 days * 2years. That was fun to figure out.

Let's use what we just learned.

Assuming we could comprehend 142 images of quarter square mile areas once a second (we've already skipped out on reality) for eight hours a day and just looked at areas covered by land. It would take us...

228000000/142/60/60/8/365 = .15 years or about two months.

If only the compound looked like this.

Good thing we have SEALs

Corktown and My Tracks

You know how I love Google. Google and Apple. While I was disappointed in some respects when I switched from an iPhone to an EVO 4G running Android, the Google "My Tracks" app has been a great tool. I immediately thought of recording runs when my coworker introduced me to the app. This past Sunday was the Corktown 5k run in Detroit- a perfect opportunity. I used the "My Tracks" app to record the low-key run. Despite being a battery hog, the likes of which I’ve never seen, I managed to record the whole run on as little as 25 % of my battery (note the sarcasm). Corktown is a fascinating neighborhood with a rich history- so check out the link. Its roots make for a perfect celebration of St. Patrick’s Day while the Corktown run and parade provide a great opportunity for EVERYONE to pretend they are Irish, if only for a day.

I uploaded the recorded run track from my phone and emailed it to myself as a kml file with a few quick commands. As I reviewed the track for accuracy, or at least consistency of the altitude, I was amazed at how closely the hills matched up, especially since this is only dealing with about ten feet of variation.

While I foolishly allowed myself to think this was a sign my phone's GPS was amazingly accurate, I quickly figured out it was, in fact, just another clever use of other Google data, the terrain model data from Google Earth.

Notice the terrain map of the out-n-back race format is almost a mirror image. My GPS might not be state of the art, but the Google terrain data fills in with a great dataset that will suffice for almost any project!



It's just another example of how easy Google is making things for us by making their products interact seamlessly.

Australia and the 24th Parallel

Being the WORLD Geo Blog, I reckon it's high time we have a post involving Australia, mate. Growing up, my thoughts of Australia most often involved kangaroos, Paul Hogan and the Coriolis effect, although not all at once. The latter was mostly because I realized how very far from down under I existed. Beginning with the miracle of the World Book Encyclopedia and culminating with panoramio photos in Google Earth, my views of Australia have expanded and matured, like a Laphroaig 30. ;)

While this doesn't qualify as a full blown nerd project like my last post on Twitter, inspired by Catholicgauze, it's still a fun way to visualize data!

My experience to this point with the Google Earth terrain profile was limited to testing running paths, cities or perhaps small mountains or lakes. Always looking for extremes, I went ahead and drew a much longer path today, 2,400 miles, in across Australia. I chose the 24th parallel because, well, that's where my mouse pointer first clicked. My thought was to find something significant about the parallel. Unfortunately, the southern 24th parallel is the Cooper Manning of parallels- never gaining the notoriety of its bigger brothers, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and dabbling on the edge of forgotten-paralleldom.

Below is a screen shot which shows the 24th parallel drawn across the Australian continent as well as its terrain. Never reaching more than 2600 ft with an average slope of about .2% Australia is the flattest continent. A fascinating continent, though, and one which will be the subject of posts to come on World Geo Blog.


For more detail, click on the image above.

In case you were wondering, yes, that is Membata marked by the blue anchor. :)

Where in the World is the Mosque Near Ground-Zero?

In the last two weeks the "Ground-zero mosque" aka the "cultural center near ground-zero" has grown into one of the most divisive topics on American news shows in recent memory.

Before we get into my commentary, lets get to the point (and the fun part) of this post and take a gander at the area in question in this Google image of the week, the area around ground-zero in New York.

You can navigate to this site by searching the following coordinates 40°42'46"N 74°00'36"W

It's clearly not AT ground zero but it certainly is close and considering the circumstances opposition is certainly understood.

I, like most, support the first amendment, protecting freedom of religion. I appreciate the argument that a mosque should not be built "at ground zero" but do not approve of the fear-mongering hate speech tactics being used by some.

What has become almost as big a story as the debate on the mosque is the discussion about the naming conventions of this story as highlighted in this NPR blog.

The blogosphere is all over this controvery, here is one example opposed to the mosque. Notice all the American flags plastered across the site - purposefully sending the message that to be for the development is somehow anti-American. There are also several images from 9-11. This does not have anything to do with honor for the site or the tragedy but a deliberate attempt to tie main stream Islam to the atrocities of the extremists. John Wayne Gacy's acts should not represent the beliefs of the Catholic community. Just like the actions of pro-life terrorist bombers should not be representative of all pro-lifers.

I do believe that some of those opposed to the development jumped on the opportunity to trick the public into thinking that this mosque was in the footprint of the WTC and I think it's an attempt to feed the perception of the uneducated that Obama is a Muslim. The same uneducated probably don't understand we're not the United States of Christianity.

Here's an interesting excerpt from the Israpundit blog - "If the ground zero mosque is tied to terror regimes and groups financially or otherwise, and we know that it is..." What a good looking argument "and we know that it is". Geesh.

The inability to separate the world's Muslim community from Muslim extremists is disheartening. However, just as it is their right to practice their religion in the shadow of the worst domestic terrorist attacks, everyone has the right to voice their opposition. Another reason, this country IS so great.

Cracked.com has an fascinating opposition piece to those opposing the mosque/cultural center. Click here to read the article.

It's a fascinating debate and while I fall on the pro side of the argument I do enjoy hearing intelligent points on the other side of the debate. I'd encourage you to leave a comment with your thoughts on the issue - regardless of your opinion!

I'd like to end this somewhat serious post with a little light hearted "news". I see Jon Stewart as the balance to Fox news as Fox sees itself as a balance to the "drive-by media".

Enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Recap - Week of 8/10/10
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Thanks to the Geography Lady for the inspiration!

Google Earth Image of the Week - July 19

I use Google Earth every single day. Its ever-changing wealth of information is intriguing and captivating. Today I'm launching the first weekly blog feature I've ever done, the Google Earth Image of the Week. Check back each Monday for a new image and discussion from around the world.

Today's image comes from a place I have been thinking (and talking) about a lot lately, Somaliland.



The highlighted area shows the location of a MiG jet in Freedom Square, Hargeisa. I know Somalia used its Air Force to bomb Hargeisa and areas of Somaliland, but I haven't found anything definitively identifying the jet in Freedom Square as a Somali jet shot down during the Civil War- which seems to be the most widely accepted rumor. If anyone has any info on the origins of the jet in Hargeisa, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

For reference, you can locate this area in Google Earth at 9° 33'41" N, 44° 3'55" E. Also for your reference (and my own) you can type the degrees symbol on a windows based computer by holding the alt key and typing 0176.

Google Earth on the iPad

Well over a month after iPads hit stores in the US, the folks at Google have finally released an update to the Google Earth application, including native support for the iPad.

It's about damn time.

Previously the only way to use GE on the iPad was using the iPhone app and the pixel doubler. While it's nice that, as Apple puts it, you can choose from over 200,000 iPhone and iPod touch apps in the App Store, iPad owners know the pixel doubler was basically to allow the promotion of the "over 200,000 apps" pitch. This was painfully apparent with the iPhone Google Earth app. The LatLong blog even said "Some iPad users have noticed that Google Earth has been available for the iPad from the very beginning, but until today, this has simply been the iPhone version running in a scaled-up mode." HA!

Now Google Earth is available in much of its glory on the iPad. The layers are the same available from version 2 of the iPhone GE app with the addition of roads as shown below.




The settings button allows easy toggling of the auto-tilt feature which seems to work much better on the iPad. The user gets the sense of picking up a window on the world. As this update will likely be the last one before iPhone 4, I wonder if there will be additional auto-tilt functionality given the addition of a gyroscope. Side-to-side tilt would really add to the user-experience on the iPad, we'll first have to see if it works on the iPhone.




Overall Google Earth works swimmingly on the iPad, but I do have a few complaints and reservations. I don't understand why the Google Earth functionality can't be added in to the Google Maps application. Satellite imagery is already there, add the ability to sign in to your maps account, add more layers and zoom out to globe (as an option) and you've virtually elimnated the need for the Google Earth app all together. Also, there are a couple of bugs that come with signing in with ones maps account. The Google servers see the application as a third party and do not recognize it. That's not too bad in itself but it is a little silly when Google doesn't recognize itself as "Google Earth". I'm assuming this silly little quirk will be fixed in the next update.



Another frustration is that the panoramio icons don't appear in the Google Earth iPad app until the user is zoomed in much farther than in it's PC counterpart. As someone who uses this layer quite a bit exploring exotic areas all over the wolrd, it's sometimes difficult to know where imagery is available.

I was also really hoping to be able to load, create and record tours. I think the iOS would provide a very immersive tour creation platform. Alas, that is relegated to the wish list.

Overall its a vast improvement over the previous release as far as the iPad is concerned but if the functionality could simply be added to the Google Maps application, standard on the iPad, the more streamlined product would likely be better utilized.

Update:

Check out my video review on Youtube:

The Geography Blog

Apparently my love of maps is not shared by many. Niche shops and niche bloggers are out there but with few exceptions one cannot mention their affinity for maps without a look of confusion trickling across the face of the listener.

Maps represent tangible places and experiences. When I was a kid I would look for simple geographic features, like the curving of a coastline or the bending of a road and try to find that feature on a map. I thought about the technology and thought that must go into map making and how refined maps had become compared to their mid-millennium counterparts. I was also a strange kid :)

Now I spend a good portion of my life making maps. For the most part they are simple with a narrow and somewhat boring purpose but I'm hoping to change that. Geography, maps and imagery is my true passion. It's a way to make sense and capture moments in an ever changing and beautiful landscape.

Geography lets us keep our physical place on this planet and in the universe in perspective. It allows us to relate to each other in a multitude of geospatial and cultural ways. It makes us human.

On this blog, I'll run the gamut from google earth to maps, general geography and did you knows, how to's and new technology. I hope you enjoy it as much as I like experiencing it!

Let's get started!