Big Daddy is Watching!

This article caught my eye this morning...

Maybe parents don't really have eyes in the backs of their heads, but an increasing number of monitoring devices means they can have eyes almost anywhere else. Right or wrong, advances in technology allow parents to track exactly where their teens are going and how fast they're getting there by using GPS-enabled cell phones. And software is available to keep track of every click on the Internet - sometimes without children knowing they are being tracked.

via sacbee.com

The part about monitoring your kids' speeds reminded me of something the Ohio State Police used to do when I was a kid in the '60s. Traveling along the Ohio Turnpike involved stopping at an entry point and being issued your toll card, which was an old-style hollerith punch card (kids-ask your parents) that was encoded with your point and time of entry. When you reached your exit, the attendant would run your card through a reader to determine the toll. The fun part of this was that by knowing the entry and exit time as well as the distance traveled, it also determined your average speed. If it was over the speed limit-- PRESTO!-- a state trooper would appear (seemingly out of nowhere) to issue you a ticket!

SketchUp is now free!

I've used SketchUp in an educational setting for the past three years. I think it is the easiest-to-use 3D modeling tool out there. As you probably know, Google recently bought this Boulder-based company and not too surprizingly, has now offered a free version:

Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - even space ships. And once you've built your models, you can place them in Google Earth, post them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies.

via SketchUp

My only question is whether they will still give away the infamous "SketchUp-- It doesn't stink!" socks at meetings and exhibitions?

GPS vs Common Sense: Round 3

I've said it before and I'll say it again-- there is only a fixed amount of intelligence in the world and as the population grows, there's less to go around!

Getting from Christchurch to Nelson in four hours was "no trouble", Australian tourists Anthony Hoiberg and Clarinda Mojar had been told. The couple were yesterday resting after their hired car satellite navigation system took them on a 10-hour detour over one of the South Island's roughest passes, described as "a shingle goat track".

It took them seven hours travelling at a maximum speed of 15kmh, and stopping to open gates, to get from Hanmer Springs to the Rainbow Station near St Arnaud, where they encountered a locked gate and waited more than an hour for someone to open it.

"He couldn't believe we did it in a car. His jaw dropped," Hoiberg said of the worker who found them. Mark Watson, of the New Zealand Alpine Club, said: "It's not the sort of road you'd like to take a normal car on." Rainbow Station manager David McEwen said the road could best be described as "a shingle goat track". "To say they're following their GPS quite frankly doesn't wash with me. They've gone past signs that said `Road Closed' that are 6ft high and 3ft wide and are illuminated."

The couple said they were taking to the road again today, returning to Christchurch for their flight home.

via Fairfax New Zealand Limited

Score at the end of round 3: GPS 3, Common Sense 0

GPS vs Common Sense: Round 2

In a recent post, I told you about GPS units in the UK taking drivers along a dirt track at the edge of a 100-foot cliff. In today's installment, motorists are driving into a river, despite prominent warning signs...

There is a lucrative new sport in the Wiltshire village of Luckington: fishing stranded motorists out of a ford at £25 a time.

Since a road closure, dozens of drivers have blithely followed directions from their satellite navigation systems, not realising that the recommended route goes through the ford.

Normally the water — the start of the River Avon — is about 2ft deep but it can swiftly double in depth after heavy rain. Every day since the main B4040 was closed after a wall collapsed on April 8 one or two motorists have been towed out, having either failed to notice or ignored warning signs. Some farmers have been charging £25 to give a tow with tractors.

The ford, known as The Splash, is in Brook End on the edge of Luckington, which is near Malmesbury. Lesley Bennett, 59, a Luckington parish councillor who lives by the ford, said: “When the car conks out the driver looks stunned. When you ask what happened, they say, ‘My sat-nav told me it was this way’.

via Times Online

I can't pass up this opportunity to comment on what my brother refers to as "nominal determinism." On one hand, the name of the ford "The Splash" certainly matches, although the name of the village needs some work!

The score to date: GPS 2, Common Sense 0

The National Map Corps

Still trying to figure out what to do with your GPS receiver? Frustrated with out-of-date topo maps? The USGS wants you to serve your country (as a volunteer).

The National Map Corps consists of private citizens who devote some of their time to provide mapping information to the U.S. Geological Survey's The National Map. Members may be invited to participate in projects within mutually determined work areas. The only requirements needed to contribute to this effort include owning a GPS receiver and having Internet access.

The National Map is a consistent framework for geographic knowledge needed by the Nation. It provides public access to high-quality, geospatial data and information from multiple partners to help support decision-making by resource managers and the public."

via USGS

Finding Your Way in a Pre-GPS World

The April 24 issue of The New Yorker contains an entertaining article about pre-GPS car navigation technology dating back to 1907.

Which of the following devices were not among the GPS precursors:

• McNally's Photo-Auto Guide (a series of turn-by-turn photographs between 2 cities)
  
• Neva's Stop-n-Ask (a device that should make even the most stubborn man ask for directions)
  
• Jone's Live-Map (directions stored on phonograph-like disks that connected to an odometer)
  

You'll have to read the article to find out.

via: The New Yorker

Comparing Online Maps

Online mapping has come a long way in the last year. Google Maps entered the field and added satellite imagery to spring itself into the spotlight – challenging the colorful cartoon-like map images of longtime mapping frontrunner Mapquest. The Google Maps API enabled developers to create new applications and mashups, thereby pushing the Google Maps brand to mainstream audiences. Microsoft, Yahoo and others quickly followed.

As popular as Google is, it is not the most well trafficked map service. It is virtually tied with Yahoo Maps. Comscore says that Google Maps had 19.1 million unique visitors in March, whereas Yahoo had 20 million. Both were dwarfed by Mapquest, with a whopping 46.4 million unique visitors in March, more than Yahoo and Google combined.

via TechCrunch

Walter Ristow Dies at 97

Walter W. Ristow, who was known never to have gotten lost and would have had no excuse if he had — considering he was in charge of more maps than anybody else in the world — died April 3 in Mitchellville, Md. He was 97.

Dr. Ristow's writings covered maps as far back as those of 16th-century explorers. But quirky detours into more populist terrain kept popping up: Dr. Ristow wrote discursively about the history of free gas station road maps, lamenting their extinction after billions were printed.

Dr. Ristow was head of the map divisions at the New York Public Library, which has more than 400,000 maps, and later at the Library Congress, which holds more than 5 million maps. He is credited with molding the profession of the modern-day map librarian, and was a prolific cartographic scholar as well, writing hundreds of articles and several important books.

via the New York Times

Venus Express Enters Orbit

Venus Express, a space probe built and opearated by the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully entered orbit around Venus yesterday.

“With the arrival of Venus Express, ESA is the only space agency to have science operations under way around four planets: Venus, the Moon, Mars and Saturn” underlines Professor David Southwood, the Director of ESA’s science programmes. “We are really proud to deliver such a capability to the international science community.”

If the name of this probe sounds familiar, you may be thinking of ESA's Mars Express that arrived in December, 2003.

via ESA - Venus Express

Using GPS to Find Crackpot

The following illustrates why GPS navigation systems are no substitute for common sense...

Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100ft cliff. Cars, minibuses and trucks have taken the steep, twisty road from Swaledale to Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, UK.

When vehicles become stuck, drivers are reversing perilously close to the cliff edge, say worried locals. Carol Porter, 39, who lives at Summer Lodge Farm, said: "We want this sorting out before something terrible happens." She said that she and her husband Steven, 41, who live next to the track, have been helping at least one driver a week. "When they get grounded on the small boulders, we're having to go up there in the tractor and pull them out," said Mrs Porter. "If we're outside, we try to stop them, but it's a public right of way so we can't put any signs up saying no entry." The
couple want to see the track removed from the route recommended by satellite navigation systems for traveling between Swaledale and Wensleydale.

A spokeswoman for Trafficmaster, which makes the Smartnav system, said it had removed any possibility of through-routes making use of Crackpot from its mapping database after tests on Wednesday morning.

via BBC

The Pop vs. Soda Page

The Pop vs. Soda Page is another one of those "lost" links that I stumble across every now and again.

Alan McConchie has a simple page set up that asks What generic word do you use to describe carbonated soft drinks? Users select either pop, soda, coke, or other and enter their US zip code. He uses the results to map the regional variations across the US.

CommonCensus Map Project

Don't you just hate it when you lose a favorite link? I've been trying to find this site for a week now...

The CommonCensus Map Project is redrawing the map of the United States based on your input, to reveal the boundaries people themselves feel, as opposed to the state and county boundaries drawn by politicians. View the maps to see how the country is divided into 'spheres of influence' between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels.

This information will finally settle the question over exactly where cultural boundaries lie, contribute to the national debate over Congressional redistricting and gerrymandering, and educate people everywhere as to the true layout of the American people that they've never seen on any map before.