Google Earth

[Macsen]

I'm obsessed with playing this. I think I've learnt more geography in the last few weeks of fiddling with this program that in the other 21 years of my life combined. You can sneak a peek into the back garden of Japan's Emperor, spy on Kim Jong-Il, and look for Noa's Ark on Mt. Ararat. Bliss...

 

You can get it Here! I only wish they had more detailed satellite pics for Wales, so you could see me waving from my garden.

 

Type 'll55 4bj' in search to find my present location...

[FishFace]

Still no Linux version. maps.google.com will have to survive. On that note, have you tried Google Moon? Unfortunately, the maximum zoom is quite low...

[SneaksieDave]

Me too, I'm all over this thing. Can't stop! The fact that you can get a simulated 3D(!) view from the top of Everest, or get a spectacular 360 degree view of Mt. St. Helens is just mindboggling. I hope they get more high res shots going soon - I've always wanted to get a nice look around Europe.

 

Visit Mt. Tamany in New Jersey (at the Delaware water gap, eastern border, near routes 46 and 80, IIRC) to see the mountain (ahem, only 1500 feet... hey, even Everest is only 15k feet or so higher than surrounding areas!) I climbed a month ago. That was my first, and it was just awesome. That's when I learned going UP is not the hard part - coming DOWN is! A real knee killer.

 

I haven't completely learned how to use this thing yet, as I only have access from work (broadband), but it just seems incredible. I seriously think, with Google's big thinking, they should get to work on universe.google.com. They've got decades worth of starmaps, red shift data, incredibly accurate equations.. heck, there are even 3D maps of the visible universe - thousands and thousands of galaxies - in part.

 

Share your favorite locations, all - this could become a very interesting thread. Here's a good one: look at the north border of Venezuela - a mile high mountain range runs a very long way along the coast, shielding the cities within from the ocean. Also, look for Angel Falls (sorry, no coords again, I'm at home) - very cool area with plateaus and racing rivers across forests.

[obscurus]

With lots of hi-res maps of mars constantly being churned out by NASA and ESA, it can't be long before we have google Mars...