Here’s an interesting one: this is the first time I’ve ever seen a housing estate laid out on a hexagonal grid. I imagine it would be as confusing to drive around as Canberra ;-). This one is near the Jarama Motor Racing Circuit in Spain. There are cars on the circuit, but no sign of a crowd. Maybe a practice session or a club race?
relax and enjoy…
This pic is of a rich, comfortable armchair overlooking the Royal Arcade. On the table is my (sadly) empty coffee cup. The lucky ones among you will recognise Koko Black.
A couple of times recently we’ve found ourselves in the vicinity of one of Melbourne’s Max Brenner shops and have braved the inevitable queue to order, then the long wait for the ‘goods’ to arrive. Not bad when they come, but it’s a real machine.
By contrast, on the weekend we dropped into Koko Black – it was busy and yes, there was a queue to be seated, but only a short one after which we were ushered up to the coffee lounge where we sank into these fantastic chairs and watched the comings and goings in the arcade below. The drinks are fabulous, probably not better than Max Brenner, but the service, the place, the whole scene is another world. I shouldn’t be touting for them – it’s busy enough as it is! Go to the one in Lygon Street instead!
I have seen the future…
and it is full screen, full motion and it should scare the bejeezus out of the traditional television broadcasters.
An organisation with a solid background in peer to peer networking, participatory culture have just released a beta of a product they call DTV. This is internet television. At the moment it is only available for Mac OSX 🙂 and still has some rough edges, but I found it immediately usable and instantly convincing.
It is the blissful and logical convergence of RSS, BitTorrent and VLC. I can see my broadband usage is going to increase somewhat! I’ll bet the PayTV companies thought this was still years away! Ha Ha!
our nuclear secrets laid bare!
You’ve got to admire the level of self importance enjoyed by the staff of Australia’s only nuclear reactor, Lucas Heights. Apparently, there are calls to censor the google satellite images of the reactor [ ABC News Online ] as they may be used by terrorists.
The precedent has, it seems, been set by the blanking out of the roof of the White House (though they left the Pentagon untouched), so naturally the next logical step is Lucas Heights! Never mind that you can plainly view the rows and rows and rows of military hardware at any number of bases in the US.
So you’d better get a good look at it now. I think this is the top secret cooling pond – for staff!
and the tidbinbilla dish…
Actually, it took me a little while to find this one. Funny, because I’ve driven past it quite a few times and it stands out like a sore thumb among the rolling green hills of Canberra. It’s the Nasa Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station. Nasa have a very informative site about it.
In a sobering aside, it’s worth noting that many of the nearby hills are bare from the devastating bushfires that struck the area in 2003.
the dish…
No, it’s not that dish. Parkes is still not in high res, but as soon as it is, I’ll let you know. This dish is the Nasa Satellite Earth Station in Carnarvon, in the north west of Western Australia.
Built in 1963 for the Gemini program, there’s a nice ground shot of the dish here.
mystic spiral…
Yay!, googlesightseeing have posted another of my suggestions. This time a cool spiral thingy in new zealand that turns out to be some kind of a scuplture. They’ve got more information about it and a couple of links on their site, or if you’d rather go straight to the map, here it is.
go pies!
I have absolutely no idea what they’re saying, but they obviously enjoy the game immensely and they’re wearing the right colours!! Komazawa University Magpies.
the oyster farmer…
If you haven’t seen the new movie release, the oyster farmer, then make the effort. It is one of those wonderful, simple films that only seem to get made in Australia – maybe the French could do it too, but they’d make it too pretty. I’m sure the US film industry would be saying “but there’s no story!”.
Forget all that, this is a great story, eye-popping photography, lovable characters – perfectly underplayed, scenery that you’ll never forget and music that fits it perfectly.
Not only that, but I have a google map location! There are a couple of scenes in the movie where a train snakes along the Hawkesbury waterfront… well, I reckon this is it, a siding with a small wharf to connect to boats that ply the system. Follow the river to the south west a little way and you’ll see some oyster leases that appear as dark lines (must be high tide).
it’s gastronomical!
Oh, wow!! three of my favourite things in the one place! Food, Alcohol and being Trivial!! Not only that, it’s local – just a few minutes away. gastronomica
Now all I need is a babysitter for the next eight Monday nights! Any offers?
google maps mania!
Up until now, pretty well all my googlemaps posts have been related to the cool things that turn up in the photos – I’m a very visually motivated person!
However, I’m also a web developer, so it hasn’t slipped my notice that google have created a very flexible API for people to hook other information into. The results are absolutely incredible, try these three as a starting point.
If you want to keep track of these amazing developments, check out this fantastic site, googlemapsmania which catalogues many of the best of these tools – known as ‘mash-ups’.
Edit: yoicks! they’ve linked back to me. That’ll give the stats a blip!!
again! – what’s this *again*?!
Over at googlesightseeing.com I think they must be getting sick of me. They posted Australia’s Parliament House, which, among others, I suggested. However, in the spotter credits they say “woowoowo (again!)”. What’s that all about?
Anyway, I’ll show them! While we’re in the Nation’s C we’ll stop by a few other sights:
But I think the real charm of Canberra on Googlemaps is how organised it all is – everywhere you look there are beautiful circles and angles and public spaces!