woowoowoo – Page 37

Melbourne 2006 on Google Earth

It’s my first attempt at a Google Earth file, so I’m ready for criticism. All the same, I think it’s OK. Along the way, I learned how to make a network link, and how to draw a path, I’m sure that’ll be useful one day!

I’ve tried to cover as much as possible of the venues to be used in the Commonwealth Games starting here in Melbourne in just over a week. I’m also keen to hear any suggestions, and there are a few details I’d love to fill in, such as exactly where the Mountain Bike Trail is – even though the satellite image is only low res. So if you do download it – refresh it from time to time – there will hopefully be updates and I hope to add a few more flickr links to it.

Download The (unofficial) Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games kmz file now!

Oh, boy! I’ve been picked up by the Google Earth Blog!

On a lighter note…

Tonight I joined the latest internet bandwagon, creating a public transport map with all the names scrambled into anagrams. There’s a heap more here at boing-boing.

I want to print off a few hundred and give them to visitors at the Commonwealth Games!

another rant!

As a long time BigPond Cable subscriber, I’m used to receiving their self promotional emails. Usually shopping specials I’m not interested in and promotional guff about their content.

You see, they have quite a bit of video and music content, but I’ve never used any of that either. Not that I wouldn’t like to, some of the sport video I would love to see. No, the reason I haven’t used any of their content is because I have a Mac, and their system is only compatible with Windows, that’s it.

VICROADS’ wasted opportunity

This morning, I visited VICROADS new real time traffic information map, hoping to see something half way useful. I was disappointed! So, I sent them some feedback:

Congratulations on the release of your new traffic info service. What an utterly wasted opportunity it represents!

Why didn’t you develop a tool using Google’s Map API? Then you wouldn’t have excluded Mac users or the growing percentage of Windows users who have discarded the buggy, fault-ridden, default browser.

Through the Google maps interface, you could have accepted user submissions that hilighted local traffic problems instead of just concentrating on the freeways.

I have no doubt you could also have cut your development times dramatically – not having to develop a navigational interface, but that’s alright – you’ve got my taxes and fees to pay for all that!

It’s good enough for dozens of government and semi government organisations to use in the US and UK for traffic information, so why not here?

And what is it with this pathetic 2 line comments box! You want to discourage people from saying too much?

Was that too ranty?

If you wonder what I’m going on about – check out these examples:

Toronto must have some nice data for people to play with. Here’s another excellent Toronto traffic mashup.

opening pandora’s box

Do you like music? Then you will love Pandora.

Visit the Pandora website – type something in: an artist name or song title and this site uses the collected wisdom of the Music Genome Project to serve up a stream of music related to your selection by an array of musical attributes – “genes”. The genes might be melody, rhythm, harmony, arrangment, you don’t have to worry about that. All that is important is that it quite unerringly serves up the ‘right’ music.

Your selection automatically creates a ‘station’ that you can edit, send to a friend – whatever. Here are a couple I’ve already tried: Hallelujah , Manu Chao and Nick Cave.

A great way to find new music that you’ve probably never heard before, but will almost certainly like!

the best iPod bug I’ve ever seen!

A colleague called me over to look at their WinPC today. She plugged in her iPod and it appeared in iTunes, but the name and music were not hers! It was like it was someone else’s iPod. The music played, everything worked, but it was 6Gb of someone else’s stuff! Spooky!!

google maps – zoomier than before?

Has Google Maps just added another feature? They used to come thick and fast – but almost always on a weekend.

Today I visited an old bookmark and found ‘We are sorry, but we don’t have imagery at this zoom level for this region.’, which was odd, because I know I had it at maximum zoom before. No, it seems like they’ve added two new levels of zoom to their imagery.

before and after the new zoom levels This thumbnail shows the swimming pool at Australia’s top secret Nuclear Facility. On the left is the old ‘zoom level 0’, on the right is the new ‘zoom level 1’ – there is no data available at the new level 0.

I still haven’t found an area in Australia supported by the new zoom levels – the ones in the US I’ve seen are eye-popping. I know there have been super high res areas before, but I’d be interested to hear if others are seeing this the same way I am.

apres cave

When you’ve ‘done’ with the caves at Buchan, what can you do? Well, there’s a very nice walk to a place called Granite Pools that’ll get your appetite up, but what do you do then?

Font of the Gods, Royal Cave, Buchan. Well, we’d done the tourist walk through Royal cave – quite spectacular and beautiful – and then a good long walk, so when we returned to our car to find a flyer under the windscreen wiper advertising a gourmet cafe, we felt obliged to give it a try.

Very welcoming it was too, like a little bit of Brunswick Street in Buchan. Comfy chairs, eclectic decor, smooth jazz, enthusiastic staff and a tempting menu, The Two Fat Ladies and her delivered on most counts, though unfortunately the food wasn’t up to the promise of the name. It was good, but lacked finesse. Still, we enjoyed it thoroughly and this was only it’s third week in operation, so there’s plenty of potential for improvement. Definitely worth a visit.

dinosaurs

I’ve just seen the news report about a protest by Victoria’s Mountain Cattlemen – leading cattle, in defiance of the new laws, into the mountains in the Wonongatta Valley in the east of the state. I know it’s romantic, and it’s been going on for over a hundred years, but I’m afraid – at least in my opinion – they’re wrong!

the bridge that fell…

This is the section of The Westgate Bridge which fell while under construction on 15th October, 1970, killing 35 workers.

We lived nearby and I was in school (grade 4) at the time, and I remember an announcement coming over the public address calling children whose fathers worked on the bridge to the office. Thought nothing of it at the time, but gives me chills now.

There is a recently renovated memorial park underneath the bridge span – it’s a beautiful spot.
More information about the disaster and the memory here.

what I did on my holidays…

Back at the coalface today, bit of a letdown after a fabulous 11 day break. A relaxing Christmas with family and far too much good food, but a few other items of note.

a beautiful little trout Fly Fishing: those of you who know me well, will be aware that I don’t get out fishing anywhere near enough to satisfy my wishes, but holiday times offer me a glimmer of hope. So, boxing day saw my father-in-law and I head up via Adaminaby to an old favourite stream. Perfect weather, swarms of grasshoppers, and abundant small Rainbow trout intent on self-harm, punctuated by the occasional slightly larger brown. Nothing huge, but a wonderful day out… definitely what keeps me coming back.

Then there was the heat. I’m also a fairly keen weather watcher (you have to be living in Melbourne!), so the prediction of a 42° New Year’s Eve had me nervously watching the numbers. At noon, it looked like being a fizzer – the unpredictability of Melbourne’s weather seemed to have got the better of the forecasters. Even at 3pm when we went into a movie theatre, it was only 32°, but when we came out a couple of hours later it was 10° hotter… amazing. The airport recorded 43° and 43.1° on consecutive hours. So, it was a sticky and uncomfortable New Year’s Eve, we saw the fireworks at Docklands and went home to a restless night. Melbourne didn’t disappoint… the next morning there was rain, a south westerly and we were wearing jumpers! I love Melbourne!!

a two movie weekend

I’m not a big moviegoer, but circumstances saw me visit the wonderful Nova Cinema twice this weekend.

First up was “The Constant Gardener“. I’ll admit to not being that keen to see this one. I found the book so sad that I thought it would spoil my enjoyment of the movie. Sure, the movie was sad, but the story was so sympathetically reproduced that I’d still say it was well worth seeing. The real positive was the colour and music of Africa that the medium of film could bring to the story. Excellent!

Walk the Line, the movie. Next up was a preview session of “Walk the Line” – the Johnny Cash story. Now, I’m a bit of a fan of Johnny Cash. Along with “Hard Day’s Night” and a Louis Armstrong record, Johnny Cash was the only other artist I remember from my family’s LP collection. I grew up with these songs.

Obviously, I enjoyed it! It was great. A story about the extraordinary forces that helped shape his life and talent. Some of the historical detail was new to me, but one of the most impressive ‘forces’ in Johnny’s life was June Carter. She must have been a force to be reckoned with… and Reese Witherspoon did a fantastic job of the part. I believe she sang her own part in the music too. Respect!