BlackChampagne.com -- No longer new; improvement also in question.

BlackChampagne Home Buy Crap! I get 5%. Direct donations to cover hosting expenses are also accepted. Site Information --What is Black Champagne? --Cast of Characters & Things --Your First Time. --Design Notes --Quote of the Day Archive --Phrase of the Moment Archive --Site Feedback --Contact/Copyright Info Blog Archives --Blogger Archives: June 2005- --Old Monthly Archives: Jan 2002-May 2005 Reviews Section Movie Reviews (153) Ten Most Recent Film Reviews: --Infernal Affairs -- 5.5 --The Protector/Tom Yum Goong -- 6 --The Limey -- 8 --The Descent -- 6 --Oldboy -- 9.5 --Shaolin Deadly Kicks -- 7 --Mission Impossible III -- 7.5 --V for Vendetta -- 8.5 --Ghost in the Shell 2 -- 8 --Night Watch -- 7.5 Book Reviews (76) Five Most Recent Book Reviews: --Cat People -- 4 --Attack Poodles -- 5 --Caught Stealing -- 6 --The Dirt, by Motley Crue -- 7.5 --Harry Potter #6 -- 7 Photos Section --Flux Photos --Pet Photos (7 pages) --Home Decor Photos --Plant Photos --Vacation Photos (12 pages) Articles See all 234 articles here. Fiction Original horror and fantasy short stories. Mail Bags Index Page Features --Links --Slang: Internet --Slang: Dirty --Slang: Wankisms --Slang: Sex Acts --Slang: Fulldeckisms --Hot or Not? --Truths in Advertising Band Name Ratings (350 Rock Bands Listed) FAQ -- Feedback A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z Hellgate: London --The Unofficial HGL Site --The Hellgate Wiki Diablo II --The Unofficial Site --Flux's Decahedron --Middle Earth Mod
	BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: Google Pedometer Hack Saturday, July 30, 2005 Google Pedometer Hack Lanth mailed me this clever and very useful URL the other day, and I've been meaning to share it. The site is here, and what they've done is write an application that loads maps and satellite images from the glorious maps.google.com site, and then allows you to plot distances on it. You just get a map you like, at any magnification, start recording, and double click your way around it, putting in a little marker at every click and drawing a blue line that traces your path. The program calculates the distance travelled as you click. The example URL Lanth sent me is a trek around the Lafayette Reservoir, where I used to go jogging regularly before I joined the gym to save my knees. (See photos of it here.) I like that one since it tells me the program is largely accurate; it says 2.6506221430230603 miles (It might be just a teensy bit more precise than humans require to plan their walks.) for the route, and the painted lines on the ground around that paved path say 2.7 miles. That's well within the margin for error, considering how many tiny curves and twists the path makes. While I was there I ha to try mapping the upper reservoir trail, a path that's as steep as any you'll ever walk without a sherpa. It worked nicely and you can see it here, and learn that it's about 5 miles around, though that doesn't give you any hint of the incredible hills you'll have to travel. The greatest weakness of the program is that it does not measure elevation, but until Google does some magical thing to transform their 2D maps into 3D charts, we'll have to live without it. The program also seems to break when you try to chart very long distances, since the blue lines and markers stop showing up, though it does keep plotting the distance. I measured down the freeways from here to San Diego and got very accurate mileage, even though the lines I'd drawn wouldn't show up in the window. It's still a lot of fun to play with though, and you can map distances "as the crow flies" as well, to surprise yourself with just how close you live to X, once you don't have to follow the roads to get there. Posted by: Flux # 4:00 PM Comments: With regards to elevation, I did hear a month or two ago that some service provider, I'm not sure whether it was Google or Microsoft, were going to incorporate satellite images taken at 45° angles to the earth. This is particularly useful for cities, as it gives you a sim-city like view with all the buildings showing their height (rather than just their shadows). I doubt they'll use this service to re-shoot the entire planet though, at least not for several years. I also recall something mentioning at the time that it might be a pay-only service (which makes me think it was Microsoft), but we'll see how things pan out. #: 5:43 PM posted by Anonymous I saw that service somewhere, and yeah, it required money to access the angled shots. it didn't look very useful from the test views they had; I couldn't much tell depth very well with them and you had to sort of look at the overhead and the diagonal side by side and estimate from them. But perhaps it'll be improved with further refinements. #: 6:15 PM posted by Flux What about Google.earth? Would it work with that application, as that one does give the somewhat of a 3d view. #: 5:15 AM posted by Anonymous Post a Comment << Home Archives May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2012

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