I'm back in New York, Queens to be precise. We flew in to LaGuardia this morning. We had nothing in particular planned for today, but the most exciting moment of our trip so far was when my mom picked us up from the airport. As I was about to put our luggage in the car, I looked up and saw the Google Street View car right next to us! I recognized it immediately and started waving at the car. Hopefully in a few months I'll be able to find myself waving at LaGuardia airport in the next Google Street Viewupdate.
Google's Street View launched in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago, one of 37 news cities added to Street View all at once. When the Street View feature first launched in select cities last year, every blogger in America was posting about the strangest and most interesting sights that could be found (and I was one of them.) Several websites sprung up to share all the interesting candid shots that people were finding.123 Now over a year later and with Street View available in dozens upon dozens of cities nationwide, the novelty has largely worn off. I was eager to see what other people had found in Charlotte's version of via Street View but other than a few passing message board mentions, nobody seemed to care, or even notice. So that's why I've taken it upon myself to present, A Tour of Charlotte via Google Street View.
A Tour of Charlotte (sightseeing)
Trade & Tryon This is the center of Uptown Charlotte. Pictured here is Bank of America Corporate Headquarters. Pan down to see the four statues on each corner of the intersection. (Wachovia's corporate headquarters are just a few blocks south.).
Queen Charlotte This statue of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg is the first sight many visitors see when arriving at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. She is the reason why the city is named Charlotte, its nickname is "the Queen City", and the county is named Mecklenburg.
Queens and Queens Charlotte has many confusing roads but this is definitely the city's most notorious. Queens Road loops around and meets itself again only to take a 90 degree turn. At the same intersection, Providence Road also takes an unexpected 90 degree turn.
Time Warner Cable Arena Home of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats. Also home of minor league hockey's Charlotte Checkers.
Lowe's Motor Speedway The Charlotte area is NASCAR country, and LMS in nearby Concord is its mecca. Lowe's Motor Speedway holds over 200,000 spectators and is home to both the NASCAR All-Star Race and the Coca Cola 600 .
Baseball Water Tower Sticking with the sports theme, this is the baseball water tower next to the Charlotte Knights stadium in Fort Mill, South Carolina. This is a landmark along Interstate 77, just south of the state line.
Carowinds Amusement Park This a 112 acre Cedar Fair amusement park is half in North Carolina and half in South Carolina. This image is of the Thunder Road roller coaster.
Meck Deck This nondescript location marks the historic signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence - the first colonial government to declare independence from England in 1775. Nearly nobody in Charlotte even knows this historic event happened at this spot.
Buster Boyd Bridge Another spot that most locals don't even know about. Well they know the bridge is here, but most people don't realize that the Buster Boyd Bridge is the only place where you drive north to go to South Carolina and south to go to North Carolina. Take a close look at the states and directions in this image.
Caught On Camera (other interesting shots caught by Street View cameras)
Motorcycle on Sidewalk I'm no law expert, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to ride your motorcycle on the sidewalk.
Do you know of other cool Street Views in Charlotte? Post it in the comments and if it's good enough I'll add it to the list above.
Stupid Is As Stupid Does (Google is stupid) Some commentary: Google is stupid to have paid whomever they got to take these photos, and Charlotte has been jipped. There are dozens of places around Charlotte that were photographed at night time. WTF? The very point of Street View is for users to see what cities look like - so what's the point of photographing the city at night time when all you see is blackness and headlights? Here's what should be a great shot of Uptown Charlotte from the John Belk. Here's I-77, College Street, Bank of America Stadium, Ballantyne, and Carowinds. All taken at night so they're all useless photos. Just plain stupid.
P.S. The answer to the question "When were these photos taken?" is as long ago as last year and as recently as last month. I happen to know that this road was newly paved only about 6 weeks ago, yet less than a mile away the you can clearly see that the Lynx light rail line near Clanton is still under construction (and missing those huge clay circles that they call art) despite the fact that it was opened to the public and already running in November 2007 (so the photos have to be even months earlier than that).
This is awesome if you use Adobe PhotoShop! Other than being funny, I've been using PhotoShop for over 10 years and I picked up over a dozen useful shortcuts that I didn't know before.
Time: 00:00.00 #1: Wanna copy a layer? I say jump it: Ctrl+J. You a Mac user? Awesome. #2: When I say Ctrl, press Cmd, the one with an apple on it. #3: For a new layer, press Ctrl+Shift+N (Cmd-Shift-N on the Mac). #4: To delete a layer, get the move tool and press Delete (or Control-Delete). #5: Every letter selects a tool. #6: Except F for full-screen, #7: Q for quick mask, #8: and D #9: and X for default and switch colors. Who knew X stood for "switch"? #10: Press a number to change the opacity. #11: Or two numbers for better control. #12: Press Shift+plus to advance a blend mode; #13: Shift+minus to back up. #14: Press Shift and Alt with a letter for a specific mode. #15: Mac folks, Alt means Option. #16: Ctrl+plus zooms in. #17: Ctrl+minus zooms out. #18: Spacebar gets the hand so you can drag the image around. #19: There's also Ctrl+spacebar in #20: and Alt+spacebar out. #21: Ctrl+spacebar-drag to zoom way the hell in. #22: Ctrl+Z undoes. #23: Ctrl+Alt+Z backsteps. #24: Ctrl+Shift+Z steps forward. #25: Ctrl+Shift+F fades an edit. #26: F12 reverts, #27: Itself an undoable operation. You hear that? You can undo a revert? That's a hell of a tip! All that pasteboard stuff works too: #28: Ctrl+X cuts. #29: Ctrl+C copies. #30: Ctrl+V pastes. Dan Gookin of DOS For Dummies fame joked that V stood for "vomit," as in vomiting up the Clipboard. His publisher refused to print that. They actually refused to print that!
Time: 01:15.43 #31: Photoshop's most essential command? Image Size: Ctrl+Alt+I. #32: It's partner, Canvas Size, Ctrl+Alt+C. #33: Ctrl+F repeats the last filter. #34: Ctrl+Alt+F for different settings. #35: Using a selection tool? Drag to start a new selection #36: Or move a selection outline. #37: Shift adds to the selection. #38: Alt deletes. #39: Shift and Alt finds the intersection. #40: Press the spacebar to move the selection on-the-fly. #41: Ctrl+A selects everything; #42: Ctrl+D selects nothing. #43: Ctrl+Shift+I selects what's not selected and deselects everything else. #44: Ctrl+Alt+R brings up Refine Edge. #45: Alt-click with the lasso tool to draw straight-sided selections. #46: Shift-click with a brush to paint straight lines. #47: Press Alt with a brush to get the color-lifting eyedropper. #48: Press Ctrl to get the move tool. #49: Ctrl+H hides selections and other "extras." What's an extra? Press Ctrl+H and find out? I gotta quicken the pace. Shit! #50: Ctrl+1, #51: 2, #52: 3 to switch channels. Hell yeah, I'm counting those as three! Here's another one: #53: Ctrl+tilde for full-color composite. #54: Ctrl+L for Levels, #55: Ctrl+M for Curves, #56: Ctrl+B for Color Balance, #57: Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation. #58: Add Alt to bring up the last settings. #59: Mash your fist on Ctrl, Shift, and Alt and press B for Black & White. #60: In Levels and Curves, Alt-drag that white slider triangle to preview the clipped highlights #61: Or that black one for clipped shadows. Want to duplicate an image? Don't choose this [Duplicate]; #62: Just click here [Create new document from History state]. #63: Press Ctrl+W to close an image. #64: Y to save changes, #65: N to abandon them. #66: On the Mac, that's S and D. #67: Either way, it's Esc for Cancel. You know, Esc. C'mon, Esc!
Time 02:48.36 #68: Press Ctrl+T to invoke Free Transform. #69: Press Enter to apply or Esc to skip it. #70: Ctrl+Alt+T transforms a copy. #71: Ctrl+Shift+T repeats the last transformation. #72: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T plays a transformation sequence. #73: Press a bracket key to change the size of a brush. #74: Press Shift+bracket to change its hardness. #75: Caps Lock for precise cursors. #76: Alt switches dodge to burn and burn to dodge. #77: The comma and period keys cycle through gradients. See this tool [sharpen]? Worthless. Look at this. You want this? Worthless! Yes, that's a tip: Don't use the tool! #78: Bang, there's another one! #79: Ctrl-click a thumbnail in the Layers, Channels, or Paths palette to load a selection. #80: Press slash to lock a layer's transparency. #81: Press tilde to hide the image while viewing a mask. #82: Press backslash to view the layer mask. #83: Ctrl+Backspace fills the background color; #84: Alt+Backspace: foreground color. #85: Add Shift to fill just the opaque pixels. #86: Press Shift+Backspace to get the Fill dialog box. Hey, look at that! #87: That's trans lock's opposite [Behind mode]. It locks opacity. What the hell is it doing here? #88: Ctrl+bracket moves layers forward and back. #89: Add Shift to go all the way. #90: Alt+bracket selects layers. #91: Press Shift to select multiple layers. Press Ctrl+Shift+A to select all layers. #92: That's wrong. It's Ctrl+Alt+A! I don't even know what Ctrl+Shift+A does. It doesn't, Adobe, it doesn't do anything! I don't think it does anything. #93: But Ctrl+G, that groups layers in a folder. #94: Ctrl+E merges selected layers. #95: Ctrl+Shift+E merges visible layers. #96: Ctrl+Alt+E stamps a layer onto the one below. #97: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E merges everything on a new layer. #98: Ctrl+Shift+C copies a merged version of the layers. #99: Ctrl+Shift+V pastes an image in a selection. #100: Alt-click here [Add layer mask] #101: Or here [Cancel to Reset] #102: Or here [trash without warning] #103: Or here [color ramp to switch background color] #104: Or here [eyeball to hide all others] Yeah! #105: Or here [horizontal line to make clipping mask] #106: Or here [color swatch to delete].
Time: 05:08.16 Holy crap, I just went over! 106 tips! No! No, no, no. [to off-screen director] You should've stopped me, you should've let me know. That's your fault. [to viewer] That's his fault. I do not fail. Remember, I do not fail! Alt-clicks out. I want them all out. Gimme that time back!
Time: 05: 27.92 [clock rewinds]
Time: 04:56.73 Okay. Nicely done, me. For those wondering why I left out your favorite tips, #100: Like Tab to hide all palettes #101: Or Shift+Tab to hide just the right-side palettes.
Time: 05:00.00 I didn't! Ha ha! I just mentioned 'em. Works for me!
Happy End of Daylight Saving Day. What a perfect time to share this related bit of trivia that I learned just this week:
Did you know that it is possible for it to be the exact same time in a state bordering the Atlantic Ocean and a state bordering the Pacific Ocean?
Go ahead and click the graphic above to see for yourself. The western edge of the Florida panhandle is the only part of a US state bordering the Atlantic Ocean to be in the Central Time Zone. A section of eastern Oregon is the only part of a US state bordering the Pacific Ocean to be in the Mountain Time Zone. Therefore part of Oregon is only one hour behind part of Florida. Which also means that earlier this morning when CTZ "sprung forward" an hour due to the end of daylight saving time, for one hour before MTZ "sprung forward", somebody in Florida and somebody in Oregon could both report that it was the exact same time.
When I was a kid I loved playing with Legos. I probably played with them every single day. Perhaps that's why I wanted to be an architect when I was younger. I don't know how many sets I had but they kept adding up. I had a Lego bag exactly like this one I found in somebody else's blog, but picture it completely filled edge to edge (yes I know there's really only one edge in a circle) and piled several inches deep with plastic bricks. That's what I had. No wait, that's what I still have. Maegan used to enjoy playing with them when she was younger and one day Darah can too.
Today I found an article on c|net that Lego is currently developing a MMOG called "Lego Universe". (MMOG is an acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Second Life and Club Penguin are examples of MMOGs.) I have the Lego Star Wars game for Xbox and I think it's great, so how cool would that be to build my own stuff in virtual 3D lego creations, and to interact with an entire virtual world where thousands of others have done the same? Sorry to say I wouldn't pay for it, but I would definitely check it out. Lego Universe is still two years away from any public release, but that will still be well before Darah's ready for it.
I let Maegan stay up late tonight to see the total lunar eclipse. The weather was perfect; cool but there wasn't a cloud anywhere in the sky. We went outside just after the shadow would be obvious at 9pm (when she would normally be in bed already) and looked at the moon through binoculars. Then we checked its progress every 20 minutes or so until around 10pm when the eclipse became full. It was pretty cool. And then right off to sleep because Maegan has school tomorrow.
I've previously blogged about my historic 1946 Town of Huntington Planning Map. Today I learned about Yahoo's new Map Mixer application, which overlays uploaded maps over the ones found on Yahoo. Naturally I tried it out with my 1946 map to share with others. Aside from progress in general, it's pretty cool to fiddle with the layer opacity and have line up (mostly) with the modern map and see how the paths of some roads have been changed over time.
Last weekend my sister Amy went away to an adult sleep away camp. How awesome does that sound? This one she went to is called Club Getaway and it's located in the Berkshire Mountains in western Connecticut.
I did archery for the first time since [Camp] Norwich!!! I also went hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, waterskiing, zip line, and trampoline. And there was a big campfire with guitar and singing. Just like camp, plus alcohol... and air conditioning.... and bathrooms inside the cabins... and no curfew...
I've seen her photos (which I'm not posting, but here are similar photos from other "campers") and it looks like so much fun! I wonder if there's anything like this closer to me (and for married couples).
Not long after Google Maps and Google Earth were introduced, people began searching for interesting shots that were accidentally captured by the overhead imagery. These include everything from catching a mid-air military plane refueling in California to an in-progress Major League Baseball game in Philadelphia. So it was no surprise that after Google introduced their new "Street View" feature on Google Maps, people immediately went on a frantic virtual scavenger hunt to find the most interesting images captured by Google at street level. Since the service was introduced on Tuesday there have been hundreds of finds posted on the internet. Here's my list of the Top 10 Street View Images from the 1st 100 Hours. Hopefully cooler images are found with more time but these are the best found so far.
#10 Promoting the Competition Forget about the amazing new Street View feature that actually makes these images possible. Not the best image but ironically, here's a billboard for it's competitor, Microsoft's Live Maps. Note, Live Maps' "Bird's Eye View" feature is pretty damn cool too.
#9 When You Gotta Go, Ya Gotta Go In broad daylight, on a busy public street in the heart of San Francisco. I guess he just couldn't wait.
#8 Adult Book Store Nobody's looking... except for that van taking digital photos of me which will soon be all over the internet.
#6 Censored Police Incident Somebody found this police incident in San Francisco. It's been called everything from a routine traffic stop, to a crime scene investigation, to a police stand off. Whatever it was, it was quickly yanked off Google's Street View. The image on the left shows you can still see the incident from farther down the street.
#5 Under Where? What else do I need to write about this photo?
#4 Forbidden NYC Tunnels Just a boring photo from inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. But since the September 11th attacks it's been illegal to take photos inside any tunnels in New York City. Oops. Read more here.
#3 E.T. Phone Home or Beam me up, Scotty Somebody spotted this mysterious alien figure on the side of a New Jersey highway. There are tons of other odd photographic glitches in Google's Street View, including odd colored blotches, glaring lens flares, riderless bicycles, and a man with no head.
#2 Google Maps Team Of course this was a planned shot of the Google Maps team responsible for this Street View project but who cares. It's still a nice easter egg.
#1 Home Invasion In Progress Man caught on camera (at point-blank range) breaking into a house in San Francisco. Now that's an unusual sight.
Of course many of these examples have raised privacy concerns. Views from a public street are perfectly legal, but that's not stopping many concerned citizens from speaking up. Some have serious concerns, and then there's this lady who complained because her cat was photographed.
We're planning to take a trip soon. Since we'll be on highways far away from populated areas around lunchtime I was trying to determine where we may find some descent places to stop for a quick bite along the way. I came across this cool map mashup called fastfoodmaps.com. It shows the location of major fast food chains on a map. This way we'll know ahead of time if that McDonald's we just passed was the last place to get food for the next 200 miles. Pretty cool.
Here's another example of why Google is a such cool company. They like to have fun. Google Earth just announced a virtual world-wide scavenger hunt. The premise of this search is that Santa's elves have left presents all around the globe and if you visit the North Pole you'll find a clue at Santa's workshop. After downloading a small file to Google Earth, there will be a new clue that will send you someplace else in the world every day until Christmas
[Spoiler Warning] Above you saw an image of Santa's Workshop at the North Pole. The clue for day #1 sent me to "Bollywood". I knew it was in India but didn't know that it was located in the city of Mumbai until I did a quick Google search. See, I learned something from this game. There I found this present, an enormous toy top and gift box that is apparently crushing the good people of India.
Where's George? is an interesting "activity" where you track your dollar bills online to see where the money you spend eventually ends up. You don't know everywhere the bill has traveled - only locations where somebody took the time to enter the bill's serial number on the website. I tried it myself last year after I received a dollar in change that had www.wheresgeorge.com stamped on it. I think it's cool to see how a dollar bill travels all around the country and you have no idea how it got there. (This bill has been tracked 15 times.)
I had totally forgotten all about Where's George? but I just received an email notifying me that one of my bills was just found and logged. After 1 year, 36 Days, 22 hours, and 27 minutes, a dollar I once had in my pocket is now in rural Ringoes, New Jersey. How did it get there?
Imagine if the fictionally warped world of M.C. Escher was taken off the flat easel that makes his illusions possible, and thust into the real 3D world? Now throw in some busy city sidewalks and a bucket of street chalk and you've got the work of a European artist named Julian Beever. Beever creates chalk drawings on flat city sidewalks that amazingly appear three-dimensional when viewed from just the right angle. From any other angle the drawings look totally distorted.
Above you see an amazing illusion of Beever acting as if he's ready to dive into the drawing, which is really a totally flat section of sidewalk! On the right is another of his drawings where he is being rescued by Batman and Robin from a subterranean Gotham City. Below are two links with photos to many more of Beever's 3D illusions. Enjoy.
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