Let’s take a walk
Holy cow! Have you checked out Google Maps lately? They’ve got practically everywhere on street view now.
I was checking out the land around Badger House on the satellite view, accidentally hit some button or other, and — yep, there we were. Up close and street level. Way out here in East Sheeptesticle, England. (Fortunately, we’re set back from the road, so you can barely make out the house).
After that, Uncle B and I took turns showing each other all the places we’d lived and worked and hung out.
I know Google is Teh Evil and they’re doing some very dodgy data mining on these trips — but, goldurnit, street view is just so impossibly cool! It’s one thing to see a map of the first house you remember, it’s quite another to walk down the street where you lived when you were six. From the shores of the English Channel.
Our old neighborhood in Southeast London has changed hugely in the couple of years since we were there. Whereas my hometown, Alexandria, Tennessee, has changed hardly at all since 1970 — except it’s paved now. (Outside town, there’s a giant orange billboard with “home of the finest folks on earth” on it. And “Population 630”).
Check out a few of my favorite places (after you hit the link, give it a second and it’ll switch automagically from map to street view):
Have a gander at Battle Abbey. Take a stroll down Rye High Street or around lovely Winchelsea (two places very much on our short list when we were looking at houses). Scope out the Long Man of Wilmington and Stonehenge — the pictures prove just how close the henge is to the road. And Arundel Castle (I tried and failed to find the spot where we saw all the little shops in blue shadow below, with the castle looming over it, shining and golden. But have a look around the town; perhaps you’ll find it). How about Trafalgar Square? I took one of my favorite shots of Uncle B there years ago. It looks like the fountain is pouring out his left ear.
Too fun! Excuse me; I’m off to Rome. Or maybe Hollywood. Or Wasilla. Or Amsterdam.
Ah, I love the internet. It grants me all the awesome godlike powers I have always known were destined to be mine.
Posted: April 29th, 2010 under internet, personal.
Comments: 21
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 29, 2010, 10:25 pm
That’s everywhere in the States and Canada and Britain and parts of Europe. The rest of the world is still iffy.
Comment from Elphaba
Time: April 29, 2010, 10:32 pm
Stonehenge…yeah, you drive over a hill, and boom! There it is! We took a docent tour there in 2005…got to spend about 45 minutes walking around inside the circle and touching the rocks. Very, very cool. As in freezing ass cold (as well as neat to see), because the tour took place right before dawn.
I don’t I feel comfortable about Google Earth and all the Big Brother satellite and street camera invasion of privacy thing…I mean, you can’t even stiff a freaking toll booth at 2 a.m. any more. They’ll photograph your license plate and mail you the bill. Sometimes, just for fun, I like to flip the cameras off, just to see if anybody is paying attention. 😉
Comment from Big Google Brother
Time: April 29, 2010, 10:46 pm
Yeah, we noticed those Ephaba. You’ll be getting some special treatment in the re-education center soon.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: April 29, 2010, 10:49 pm
Can’t help feeling uneasy with it. What next – ‘a picture of your living room. If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about…’ as that vile excuse for a human being, Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO), has said.
I tried using Bing for a few weeks as an alternative but, sadly, it stinks.
I was early on the Google phenomenon (indeed, I distinctly recall the space cadet glow of having told Her Stoatliness about it – a rare first for badger kind). Now I wish they would just get lost. Worse than Microsoft? Maybe. Certainly more threatening.
Comment from Allen
Time: April 29, 2010, 11:46 pm
Mwahahaha! I’m immune from Big Google. I looked up my place in the mountains and it only showed forest. Stop that in back, it’s not a treehouse.
You know you have to really be in the sticks for that to happen. However at the other house I can see my horses in the round pen. Weird, looking down on your critters from the Big Google Eye in The Sky.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 29, 2010, 11:55 pm
Well, Google doesn’t get within three miles of the actual farm in Alexandria where we lived. Or within ten of our hunting cabin in North Carolina.
Comment from GoodKarma
Time: April 30, 2010, 2:17 am
I found out from a neighbor that my picture is on Google Maps. I was walking my dogs a few streets away from my house, and I must have been photographed. The talented photographer captured one of my dogs in mid-squat. I guess I am now famous – check it out here
Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: April 30, 2010, 10:16 am
Wooo-HOOOOO! Google-Earthed my house back in Joisey and it looks like the wife got me a new car! A whole bunch of them, in fact, all parked in the driveway and on the street and
*…*
Waitaminnit…
Comment from Carl
Time: April 30, 2010, 11:49 am
The side street in Arundel with the small shops is Tarrant Street. Is that what you had in mind?
Comment from Sporadic Small Arms Fire
Time: April 30, 2010, 1:51 pm
>East Sheeptesticle, England
You must mean Ramsbottom.
Or maybe Tupsscrottum-on-the-Wold, Shropshewsburyshire – a bucolic picturesque pastoral hamlet where sheep scat piles waist deep and subjects own 7 teeth (combined).
The Britisher unhealthy fixation on sheep’s dangling reproductive kit manifests itself in the most unlikely places. Search for “Tup’s Indispensable” trout fly.
Comment from Sporadic Small Arms Fire
Time: April 30, 2010, 1:55 pm
Uncle Britannicus,
this Wired blurb has Cool Search Engines that are not g00gle.
I’m a scroogle.org man, meself.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 30, 2010, 2:44 pm
That doesn’t look quite like it, Carl. Maybe Queen Street? It was a bunch of funky old antique stores — junk stores, really — huddled at the foot of the castle. I bought a little wooden box in one that is still on my bedside table.
We were there in February and it was bitterly cold. We came by train. As we were waiting on the platform to go home, Uncle B gave me a chocolate-covered cherry. I didn’t realize they were so liquid inside, so when I bit into it, it went all down my shirt front. In the station loo, I discovered my very first (and only) pull-chain toilet!
And that was my exciting trip to Arundel. The end.
Comment from MarkT
Time: April 30, 2010, 4:29 pm
There’s something conflicting about sitting here with my tinfoil hat on, convinced that Google is intent on devouring my Essence, yet at the same time being astonished and amazed at how easy it is to see all the places we can go and look. Still, after I’m done clicking all over the place, searching out the castles of one hero or foe after another, I end up a bit queasy like I’ve been stashed in a shrub waiting for Lady Godiva to pass by.
With that in mind, here’s The Keep of one of my hero’s castle’s: the entrance to the EIB Compound. After looking at the streetview, go back out to Sattelite view and figure out where the real EIB Compound is in relation to the House. And how the mama and baby sea turtles come down all queer if Rush’s lights are turned on.
(Apologies for the gross URL. Sweasel, a request, please, for those of us unfamiliar–a quick tutorial on how to embed links? I’ve tried Safari, I’ve tried Firefox–neither of which presents any options for formatting. Do we have to know HTML? Ugh. That’s like studying for a driver’s licence. 😉 We like clicky boxes better.
Comment from Carl
Time: April 30, 2010, 5:38 pm
Wease, I can’t remember anywhere in Arundel such as you describe but it is a long time since I was there and places do change.
It is a long walk from the railway station into the town.
For MarkT, here is a simple explanation of how to insert a link into a comment.
Spaces (or absence of) are important and you have to remember to put the URL in quotes.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 30, 2010, 5:44 pm
The spam filter is also highly likely to pluck you out of the comments when you include a link. It shouldn’t — I have it set to let links through — but it’s a touchy beast.
Comment from TexMex
Time: April 30, 2010, 5:48 pm
Neat. I can finally check out Wasilla, AK without have to physically go there! I’ve been told AK is beautiful and very wild country, but this pussy Texan DOES.NOT.LIKE. cold weather. Guess I’ll have to wait for Sarah P to come down to the Lone Star state.
Comment from mesa in Texas
Time: April 30, 2010, 6:05 pm
Woah, this is crazy. Head left on Marshal street (click the arrow)– http://tinyurl.com/2vavdjm
Comment from Carl
Time: April 30, 2010, 6:34 pm
Bugger. My link re how to insert a link didn’t work.
Here is the actual URL
Comment from mommer
Time: April 30, 2010, 8:45 pm
my oldest daughter went to school at Battle Abbey. Sigh, sure brings back memories. Kinda sad ones though.
Comment from MarkT
Time: May 1, 2010, 1:45 am
Cheers, Carl! I stand with head hung low that I didn’t learn this a long time ago. But I learnt good!
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