Archives: August 2008
Sun Aug 31, 2008
Dear Google Streetview: I'm Ready for My Retake
When Google announced the Street View service of Google Maps was available in my neighborhood, I had to run right out and have a look at my house. Just vanity and unbridled geekiness I suppose, but kind of interesting in a vaguely creepy, 'Is my privacy being invaded here?', kind of way.
Imagine my dismay when I saw that the photo shoot of my street happened when the house was apparently in the final weeks of construction. From the photo posted in Street View it appears that we were just wrapping our year-long construction/renovation project but hadn't yet moved back in. I can see that the permit box is still nailed to the fence and since this shot was apparently taken early in the morning, and there are no cars out front, it doesn't look like we had moved back in yet. Close, but not quite there. (Masochists may click to enlarge this thumbnail.)
In the interest of setting the record straight I think it's incumbent on Google to send their little camera van back around and get a more accurate photo of how the house looks today. After all, I invested a lot of my vacation time this summer getting the landscaping done out front and the house looking as it does today.
So what do you say there Google? I mean, if someone is using your service and decides to orient themselves to the house with the concrete debris in the front yard and a decidedly unfinished look, might they not get the wrong information and become hopelessly lost? We wouldn't want that to happen would we?
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Thu Aug 28, 2008
Two Things That Never Change In School
I get these funny little flash backs to the time many, many, many years ago when I wasn't an employee of a school district, but was merely a young lad attending the neighborhood school. Frequently that happens when something triggers a memory, like these two things that have remained the same over the span of years:
1. The feel of that gritty handsoap that they put into the bathroom dispensers.
2. The taste of school cafeteria fish sticks.
My theory on the fish sticks is that the government bought millions of pounds of the stuff back in the '50's and have been feeding it to American school children ever since.
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Thu Aug 21, 2008
Boys Will Be Boys
There's just something wonderfully stupid about this picture that I came across yesterday in our local newspaper's photo coverage of Tropical Storm Fay.
Take a few boys, give them the day off from school, and then provide a flooded canal next to the street, a pickup truck, and a wake board and you've got the perfect recipe for either:
1) A great memorable boyhood experience
2) A painful lesson in why combining the things above is not a good idea.
Either way, you gotta love the capacity that boys have for the foolhardy, dangerous, and totally stupid things that they get themselves up to.
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Wed Aug 20, 2008
Snow Day for Floridians
Tropical Storm Fay has come and gone, and as you can see from the radar images down below what we mostly received here in South Florida was a whole lot of rain. Steady winds for about 24 hours and some real blustery moments, but for the most part Fay didn't give us all that much.
Except for a day off of course! Sort of a snow day for us as schools and most employers close their doors and everyone "hunkers down" and prepares to flee into the safe room. OK, most of us are a lot more experienced these days, after going through 4 hurricanes since 2004, so for the most part I imagine folks just stayed home, watched the Weather Channel, or found other ways to entertain themselves at home. We got a little stir-crazy ourselves in the afternoon, so we hopped in the car (against all official advice) and took a short cruise over to the beach to watch the wind blow the tops off the waves and see mountains of water that the storm was piling up against the beach.
But for the most part Fay was a welcome break, even if schools were only able to get the first day behind them then take a day off and have the second day of school today. A bit weird, but part of life here in Florida these days, where tropical storms that bring lots of rain to areas that are too dry--and a free day off--are actually welcomed.
(Best source of cool stuff for weather geeks? Definitely Weather Underground where these radar images were found.)
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Tue Aug 12, 2008
Please Upgrade Your Computer to View the Olympics on MSNBC
You know, it really frosts me when a web application requires that I own a particular kind of computer or have a certain plug-in installed to view information. It just seems so--I don't know--2002-ish--for a web publisher to assume what I ought to own before I can see or hear something or perform a particular operation. Hasn't the wisdom of the crowds taken us past the place where information technology is more important than the information?
I guess not, since MSNBC and their choice of Silverlight from Microsoft to deliver video of the Olympics requires that I upgrade my perfectly fine iMac to a newer model with an Intel processor.
Oh well, I'm sure I can find the video clips I wanted to see at another site. 'Cause when I go to MSNBC all I'm offered is a warning window and a list of my choices for viewing their vids.
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