Google Maps 3D Hack - get down to eye level

I had an enoyance while browsing the new 3D landscape feature on Google Maps regarding how close I can zoom in. Histon now has the 3D view thanks to it's proximity to Cambridge and it's rather lovely to be able to see my neighbourhood in stunning graphics (yes, I realise this will be outdated in a few years time and you dear future reader will chuckle at how impressive we though this was). The manual controls (ctrl+click) allows you to drag the view round freely and zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. But it seems that you can zoom in and tilt only so far, and less than I think you used to be able to. I did some brief googling to see if there was a way around this (or indeed anyone talking about my observations) but nothing came up. One lifehacker site mentioned that you used to be able to manually edit the URL of an old version of the website. This inspired me to check out and have a play with the new URL. Low and behold - success, if somewhat fiddly.
Take the URL: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2509106,0.1046145,94a,20y,25.28h,60.55t/data=!3m1!1e3.

Look at all those interesting numbers in the URL: @52.2521678,0.1056801,5a,20y,135h,83.59t/data=!3m1!1e3, here's what I think they mean:

@52.2509106,0.1046145

this is the latitude and longitude in a North East postive system (-ve values are South or West).

94a

this a is for altitude, I assume it's in meters. Setting 3 gives a good eye level view, below that and the screen starts to clip the terrain. Large numbers take you off into space.

20y

this I can not yet work out. It's something like the zoom level, but the API converts it into a change in elevation.

25.28h

h is for heading taking a value from >0 to 360 (north, default).

60.55t

this is the view angle with 180 being straight up (mostly sky), 90 is horizontal and below is tilting down. Above 180 gets reset.

Red Lion pub in Histon from Google Maps

The Boot pub and Coop in Histon from Google Maps
2015-06-25

Email posts working again. Hello again Twitter.

Looks like an odd issue had killed off my automated email sender meaning that Blogger was't getting set my blog posts. Hopefully this is now fixed.
2015-06-23

The pain of customer engagement with wrist notifications

Not a massively interesting article this, other than the suggestion from one research firm "Gartner" that 1.2 billion traditional watches are sold each year. Each year? If every human brought one for each arm that's less than 12 years before saturation of a market that must already be saturated. This must be yet another example of crazy consumerism with people tricked into buying more watches than is strictly necessary (a number I consider to be ~0, having now been watch-less for well over a decade.)
The reason to post this is the highlighted paragraph which brought to mind a recent Hello Internet podcast which discussed the Apple Watch shortly after they went on sale (but before delivery). While this article brings up the more obviously anticipated suggestion that those with more notification will find it most useful, I rather fall in the the Grey camp in that notifications are bad and that filtering them is a must to maintain sanity. I can't imagine having a wrist vibrating almost continuously every time Facebroke or LinkedOut feel the uncontrollable urge to notify you of the "One People" who have looked at your profile or the 17 posts which have been "liked" by people you once met drunk in a pub at university. It's just going to be maddening.
>Can we please stop it with modern companies painful drive for "engagement".

link to the actual Guardian article this morning
2015-05-29

Getting close now. Was that my final good night sleep?

I left Dr K in the hospital last night as there is no accommodation for partners (and also there is not much for me to do yet). I came home ate and, after sorting out my Toppy PVR which was having a channel crisis and installing the update to MyStuff 6.6 TAP I went to bed. I slept. I woke. A glorious morning met my eyes (far beyond the expectation of the BBC Weather forecast) - is this the day that I become a Dad for real? Update is that Dr K wasn't induced in the end, but looks like she's slipping into labour naturally (hurrah for the collective intuition of her and the staff nurse who decided to temper the doctors desire to push on). Labour is not established yet, and while I wait for the call in I can recharge my batteries a little out here in the garden in the glorious sunshine. I've taken our visiting cat for a walk round the garden - literally on a leash, I've not let him loose as I really don't want him to escape and wonder back to his owner's place.
2015-04-06

Connecting Skype and Facebook - all or nothing.

Somehow it's impossible to link Facebook to Skype without allowing it full access to post to your Facebook. There are two option buttons: "OK" and "Not Now", so I clicked not now as I don't really want Skype to post, but perhaps in the future I might, just not now. Of course this is not an option. Clicking not spits you out and returns you back to the Skype front page. Why is this? Why should it not be possible to link two services but in a limited way? 

Fuck you @Skype.

Apparently I'm not human...

After a conversation in the office I wondered if there was a way to determine which programming language was most appropriate for me. I found this, which is not quite what I was looking for and didn't really do the job, but gave the following fun result:

Which Programming Language are You?
What I was actually after was something that asked non-technical questions yet achieved a technical result. So for example something along the lines of "what are your attitudes to cleaning:"

• I always clean up after myself
• I like cleaning, but tend to prioritise mess making
• I enjoy cleaning when the cleaning has accumulated to make it worthwhile
• I clean on a regular basis whether it is needed or not
• What is cleaning exactly?

And the result might be that because you clean up as you go, C++ is best because you'll just love the manual memory management. Anyone heard of this or want to create it then let me know.
2015-01-27

Just For My Records

As Apple never respond to any feedback I send, nor do they copy the feedback form to my address I'll post it here for future records.

-- ---- --

In the next OS version you need to include something that provides the user with some feedback as to whether or not the battery calibration sequence has been performed correctly.

I've had my MBP a few months and have tried a number of times to calibrate the battery (not because I was getting erroneous readings, but just in case). I tried again last night, leaving it over night after the battery ran out and it went into hibernation. When I came down this morning the glowing led had gone out so I juiced her back up to full (green). When I then booted the screen came up initially greyed out with a progress bar. Could this be the calibration conformation?

Ideally I'd like to inform my MBP that I'm going to do a calibration run so that we are both prepared.

Cheers,
Nick Bailey



apple feedback, MacBook Pro, OSX

Those lovely folks at GoogleTalk

Damn it I love Google. This here is a lovely little story on the GoogleTalk talkabout (their blog).

What do you mean you've never heard of GoogleTalk? You mean you still think msn Messenger is a good idea?

GoogleTalk is Google's own IM and quality Voice Over IP software. Sure it doesn't have all the features of Messenger (thankfully) and you sadly can't set up conference calls (yet...). But it's Google. It works. It's beautiful. And it now has the feature to add a personal icon (some of which are pretty cute).

Go get it now and then get me on your list.
Nick