Posted: 6/29/2005 7:35:56 AM EDT
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Okay, some of you are going to hate us after reading this post, because we are bringing to your attention one of the best new ways to waste hours and hours fooling around on the Internet. The new Google Earth application should, by a conservative estimate, reduce overall US productivity by some 1.5%. Especially this time of day (around 7:30 PST), when, as far as I can tell, the Google servers are being hammered by thousands of American office workers who are not busy working as they should be. It's a lot faster late at night. Go here to download Google Earth. It installs in seconds, and it will only take you a few more seconds to figure out how to navigate around. Most folks will probably spend most of their time flying around urban centers, but the coverage of wilderness areas is awesome. Here's Mt San Gorgonia, in the San Bernadino Mountains, from above the South Fork Trail, with the Dry Lake trail camp in the center. Mine Shaft Saddle is just above Dry Lake and the Mine Shaft Flats trail camp would be on the other side of the ridge above Lodgepole Spring. Up the draw to the left from the Spring is the Fish Creek Saddle trail camp. You can clearly see the Sky High Trail winding across the eastern face of San G:  This is a shot of the Hamilton Lakes area in Sequoia National Park, on the High Sierra Trail. I hiked this trail during a week in the summer of 1976 and I am thinking of going back next year for a 30th anniversary hike. The trail can be clearly seen switchbacking up the slope to the left. Eventually it crests the high pass you can see at the top:  I found these places just by flying around and navigating from memory. It's really easy. And a terrible, terrible waste of time. Be careful. |
Hell with the delayed download, click here!  But it asks for a login name and password 
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What they have done is rather simple in concept, but kind of amazing in application. They have combined satellite imagery datasets with topographic information to make a 3D map of the Earth. You can zoom in and out of the map, and fly around as far above the surface as you want. The other night I was cruising around inside the Grand Canyon, and at the base of Hoover Dam. It uses the Internet in that the data required to build the scene is streamed from Google's servers as you move around. I use it with DSL; I dunno how it would work with dial-up. I suspect the response to the release was overwhelming their servers, so they had to disable downloads. I hope they work it out soon so you folks can try it out (and waste more time than ever!). In the meantime, the streaming data service still works for those of us who already downloaded it. |