A word on Google...

-
I must be honest, I have some concerns over the Google/China situation, although overall I think it's best that Google is in there rather than not - at least it should be fairly honest about what it's not letting you look at.

The main point of this post is not political, however. Basically I, like many folks I know, have spent many happy hours on Google Maps and Google Earth. To no real end you understand... just to have a look around.

Now however, I have a mission. In a couple of weeks I'm going to visit my cousin who has just (and by just, I mean today) moved to Omaha.

Thanks to Google, I have seen his new apartment from above, I know where the local bars and restaurants are and, as this is the US, I have driving directions to the nearest gun shop - of which there are 10 within 7 miles of his house!

Never ceases to amaze me does Google.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I moved over to Linux (part 2)

-
It's nearly the end of April and I've been working from home for over a month, using the laptop running Ubuntu Studio as my daily driver. So what have I been using it for and how has it performed? I've thrown quite a lot of random stuff at the thing over that last 4 months and particularly the last 4 weeks of home working. I've been editing videos for the wife with a few different packages (I think I've settled on Kdenlive for now), trying my hand at music scoring using MuseScore , a lot of work in Google Chrome: email, GDocs, etc. I've been on Slack a lot, and Zoom (as, it seems, has most of the population). I've been developing in various systems and languages: C++ in Visual Studio Code , PHP in Atom and VS Code, Arduino stuff in Arduino IDE, some C# in MonoDevelop , some Kotlin in AndroidStudio . Given the small screen, I've mainly been sitting on the sofa with the laptop plugged into the telly and using Bluetooth mouse and keyboard for remo...
Read more

Giant Carbon Footprint

-
By all measures, this year has not been a good one for me and the environment. No, I'm not referring to my purchase of a 4x4, but the amount of time I've spent in aircraft. It all started with a flight back from County Clare, Ireland following a fantastic few days away for New Year. Next was Paris at the end of March. Two days later I was off to the States with work for just over a week, including several internal flight and almost 1000 miles in cars. Two days after getting back from the US I was off to Barcelona for 3 days, again with work, followed by a well earned travel breather, where any potential DVT could ease off a bit! September saw me in South Africa for a holiday and then less than 2 weeks later I was off to Korea for a conference. So having done the maths, this is what the figures look like: 29 flights taken during 2007 covering a total of 8 countries, 19 airports and (if we include car journeys) 9 US states. A total of just over 43000 miles in the air. That's ...
Read more

Commonwealth Games

-
I read this article by Michael Johnson the other day: his thoughts on the Commonwealth Games that have just finished in Melbourne. MJ could only talk of substandard competitors and the requirement of if you're going to prove you're the best, you have to compete against the best. It's a pretty poor attitude: best or nothing. No mention of people turning up and giving their all. Those people who don't get the millions in sponsorship required to be full-time, professional sportsmen or women, but rather have to train after work or at weekends. Real dedication in my eyes. There's no mention of sportsmanship or the joy of taking part or of pulling on the colours of your country. So what if someone was a second off world-best pace? They trained to the best of their abilities, turned up in Melbourne and said "hey I'm here and this is what I can do." Good on them I say and long may the Commonweath Games continue. No, the Commonwealth Games are not the World Ch...
Read more