I Am Here

I was using StumbleUpon and came across a site where a guy figured out the size of one pixel on Google Earth seen from the height of one kilometer. He figured it's an 82 centimeter square. For those of us stuck with feet and inches, that's a tad over 32 inches square. He then created a piece of conceptual art by burning a square that size into some grass and calling it Dead Pixel in Google Earth.

I like Google Earth a lot. It's fun to look at places I've been or lived in. Every now and then I'll look at the house I used to live in back in Massachusetts. I've also used it to look at changes that have taken place in that area since I moved away.

Recently someone in the Circle of Merry Folk on Tribe.net started a thread asking people to add their location on a Google map. Several people did it, including me. Since I live in a major metropolitan area, Google maps and Google Earth show where I live in pretty good detail. My car shows up in the current photo. It's pretty blurry when you zoom in all the way, but I know it's my car. The color is right and I always park in the same spot unless someone else grabs it when I'm gone, and that only happens rarely.

With that level of detail, I figured when I put my locator on the map, I'd zoom in and place it as accurately as I could. So the little blue "pin" isn't just over my address. It isn't just over my apartment. I went all out and using the location of a bush outside next to the window I'm sitting next to, I placed it so it's right above my head as I sit here typing this. It turns out that it also shows up on Google Earth.

I also wrote down the latitude and longitude that shows exactly where I'm sitting, or at least as accurately as latitude and longitude can get. I am at 45º31'20.85 N. (I won't post the longitude - you never know who's out there.) A line drawn along that would probably go through my car, bed, bathroom and kitchen sinks, me, my paper shredder and the porches of four apartments to my left.

It's nice knowing where you are.