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Forums > Your KMF Community > Off Topic Discussion
Subject: Google Earth...
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Username: Gregoriancant
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Katharine Addict
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Location: Oregon, USA


Member Since 5/26/2006
01/14/2007 4:01 AM Alert 
Some of you may have discovered the use of Google Earth on some people's MySpace pages recently. I've had the program on my computer for a couple of years now...though hadn't checked the updates on it recently. After seeing a few famous regulars from here adding it to their MS pages, I decided to check it out again to see if my local area was clearer now. A year or more ago, my local area was all blurry when you zoomed in for detail. Looking the other night, I almost fell out of my chair when I could see vivid detail of my entire city where I grew up.

I'm sure some of you have played around with GE and gotten either emotional or scared at the potentials of this (amazingly) free software. After looking up and flying over old homes where I grew up, I had to wonder how a lot of you here felt about the software. Seeing homes I haven't seen in a while (let alone fly over) made me emotional...plus putting the world around us in better perspective. Most people I've talked to who've used it say the same thing--in addition to worrying a bit about how far Google is going to take this. Thank God you can't see home addresses...yet.

So far, I haven't seen any nude sunbathers in someone's backyard. Google, however, has a professional version of this that you pay for--and shows live GPS pictures from satellites. That means you can pry into someone's backyard in real time for about $400. What that says about this country's freedoms (especially in an era when terrorists are something to worry about)--makes you think deeply.

I'm sure many of you have something to say about this amazing program and how it's affected you. Many say they get addicted to it...and I admit I spent more than an hour looking up old, familiar locations and getting goosebumps in the process.

By the way, I'll save a capture of my old childhood home and post it here in the next few days. I was fortunate to have numerous close relatives living all around where I lived then...and all out in the country where you'll notice more green fields (from the air) than you've ever seen in your life...

Edit: Here's where you can download Google Earth. You need a computer with lots of memory, however:

googleearth.com
Username: Sammer_Bammer214
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Member Since 8/18/2006
01/14/2007 12:30 PM Alert 
I like it!
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Username: Sammer_Bammer214
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Member Since 8/18/2006
01/14/2007 4:28 PM Alert 
I SEE SHERMAN OAKS!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! O wait am i startin to sound like Taylor Hicks? I better quit with the wooo thing.
Katastrophic McPheever =^.^=
Username: Sammer_Bammer214
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Member Since 8/18/2006
01/14/2007 4:46 PM Alert 
I dont like looking at the ocean on this thing, though. Its rather depressing.
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Username: beautifulrescue
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Location: California


Member Since 12/29/2006
01/14/2007 7:41 PM Alert 
Thats pretty cool. I have actually never heard of this before now, but it's interesting!
Username: Collette_leyton
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01/14/2007 8:52 PM Alert 
Wow, Greg! This is so cool... Can i see my place too? I'll check out..
Username: Gregoriancant
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Location: Oregon, USA


Member Since 5/26/2006
01/15/2007 3:51 AM Alert 
^Not all places are crystal clear to view, unfortunately. Like I said in my first post, my area was blurrier than hell for the last two years...until now. It was more than surreal to finally fly over your local area and see amazing detail. Give it a try, though, and see if your city is clear. I know a lot of international cities are crystal clear on GE. Of course, there's a middle-of-the-road version of GE too (the Pro version I think) that only costs $20. That one provides better clarity so I hear...plus GPS capability.

Another warning: Sometimes you'll have a clear area...and then suddenly go out of the bounds of what the satellite picked up. Looking in my area, once I started going outside the valley borders...it went blurry again. So, Google is slowly improving this city by city. Unbelievably, NYC still has those 3-D simulated buildings as you'd see in flight simulator games. I don't get that. Why can't we see actual images of the skyscrapers there?

Well, I lamented in my first post about this program being used by the wrong people. You can't help but think that some terrorist organization could be using this and suddenly blurting out !

Username: shinamarih
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Location: Laguna, Philippines


Member Since 7/16/2006
01/15/2007 4:03 AM Alert 
LOL Greg, but I have to say that the detail is really amazing. I haven't had the time to really scour through roofs and roofs of houses to find ours. I may have a hard time doing that because our roof has different colors; my father commissioned someone to replace it and all they found were scraps of different roofs..
ALL YOU HATERS AND BASHERS, TAKE HEED!!!

"One day you'll see her and you'll know what I mean, take her or leave her, she will still be the same..Only the curious have something to find, it's KATHARINE on this side."

Excerpt from This Side by Nickelcreek

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Username: gato13
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Location: Boston


Member Since 5/16/2006
01/15/2007 7:39 AM Alert 
Definitely a very interesting program...

I can see my house and I what I think is my dog in the backyard.
Username: kathryn28
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Location: va


Member Since 7/20/2006
01/15/2007 10:40 AM Alert 
i cant find houses.. i just see land... help?
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Username: wyo_for_kat
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Katharine Addict
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Location: Wyoming


Member Since 4/30/2006
01/16/2007 6:38 PM Alert 

Google Earth is a great tool for a bird's eye view! Most of what I use it for is a landscape view of areas I work in. The 3D aspect is pretty cool too.....

Zoomed into my house the other day, luckily my little town is still a little blurry.....

I wonder how often they update the satellite images and if the $400 program has really sharp detail????
One does not meet oneself
Until one catches the reflection
From an eye other than human
-Loren Eiseley
Username: Gregoriancant
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Location: Oregon, USA


Member Since 5/26/2006
01/17/2007 4:43 AM Alert 
If you can't find houses...then you must be only going over areas of land. That's amazing considering the encroachment of housing developments. Keep in mind, though, you only see roofs of houses rather than getting all sides.

Well, actually--(and as I said above)--not all areas are clear yet. Some of the topography (a term being used here lately) can be detected regardless of that. Though some cities just haven't been given approval yet apparently on being more clear than other cities. I'm glad my area finally got the go-ahead to show more detail...because I'm using it a lot now for various things.

Wyo: That $400 edition supposedly has "live" GPS images available of most cities. I'm not sure about the clarity issue...but they claim it's about as good as you can get without actually looking into someone's window.

By the way, I just figured out why they put simulated skyscrapers up in NYC and other cities. If you've noticed, most buildings and houses look "scrunched" due to the satellite pic making things look flatter other than natural terrain. So, in order to make the skyscrapers look normal and not angular, they apparently had to put those simulated buildings in there. I frankly find those annoying. It makes you feel like you're playing a flight simulator game that (the outdated old versions)...and crashing your plane into the Empire State Building.

Edit: Apparently  someone used this program once to look up the McPhee house in Sherman Oaks (even posting a pic)...which makes me reluctant to promote this thing. I'm very much against anybody placing a pic of a private residence on a message board...especially the McPhee house that should at least try to stay private as much as possible.
Username: shinamarih
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Location: Laguna, Philippines


Member Since 7/16/2006
01/19/2007 7:52 PM Alert 
My officemate downloaded this program too onto his computer and he told me that the images are not updated by a few years. I don't know if this is the same with everybody else..

We checked out a local mall but when we saw it again, it was not yet the finished mall that what we thought it was. It was just in its beginning stages.
ALL YOU HATERS AND BASHERS, TAKE HEED!!!

"One day you'll see her and you'll know what I mean, take her or leave her, she will still be the same..Only the curious have something to find, it's KATHARINE on this side."

Excerpt from This Side by Nickelcreek

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please check out my blog!!!

http://musingsandmumblings.blogspot.com
Username: Gregoriancant
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Posts:3706

Katharine Addict
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Location: Oregon, USA


Member Since 5/26/2006
01/23/2007 3:59 AM Alert 
^Yes, those images we're seeing on the free version of GE are probably a couple of years old. But it's more current now than the previous images were I think...depending on where you live. I sort of estimated the images at about two years ago based on the front of my place that shows just a flower bed rather than the lawn turf that's there now.

I'm not going to pay for the professional version to see if the GPS satellite images are current--because that's only for people who have businesses that need to depend on this software for those things. I just use the free one for basic road directions and general entertainment/education value. However, it'd be super cool to see up-to-the-second satellite images in the same clarity. Google is basically revolutionizing the internet with their recent developments...so that may be available free eventually after Google tinkers around and makes more momentous deals.

It's probably not a good time to go zooming in on French beaches in the summer with live satellite feeds... Strangely, you don't really see people walking around all that much in these images. You see cars very plainly though. I guess people just don't show up very well based on the lopsided image problem for vertical objects.
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