Month: February 2011

From Flickr to Panoramio

Posted on By Tom 10 Comments on From Flickr to Panoramio
Geocaching and Maps, Photography

Google Earth Panoramio

I finally caved in. I’ve been uploading some selected photographs to Panoramio so that they will appear in the Google Earth Photos layer.  As of this writing I have 121 photographs that have been selected to appear in Google Earth, and I’ve submitted more that are awaiting approval.

If you’ve got a Google account, then you can use that to sign into Panoramio and create an account.  Photos are uploaded just like they are to any other photo sharing site.  Just make sure that your photos are geotagged.  Even if they haven’t been geotagged previously, there is a drag-n-drop map so you can locate your photos once they have been uploaded.

Panoramio has some specific guidelines for approval for Google Earth.  There are the usual conditions – no pornography, discriminative, or abusive photos.  However, there are some other guidelines.  They are looking for photos that illustrate a place, so images of people, events, or detailed images of flowers or other items may not be approved.  Likewise, interior shots probably won’t be selected for Google Earth.

For Google Earth and Google Maps we select only photos about exterior places: landscapes, monuments, streets, buildings, parks, and so on. All photos must comply with the Panoramio Photo Acceptance Policy.

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Sparkleberry Unfiltered

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Sparkleberry Unfiltered
Paddling

The Gang - 14

It’s the second Saturday of the month, and that means another trip with my friends from Lowcountry Unfiltered. For this trip we decided to tackle Sparkleberry Swamp, at the north end of Lake Marion. I had paddled it before, but we only did a short trip that day. I was eager to see more, and I was curious how the swamp would look in winter.

Preparations:

Matt and I went back and forth on this trip. What we wanted to do was to hit the heart of the swamp, and paddle from Sparkleberry Landing to Risers Lake. However, there were lots of variables that had to be in place before we could take the trip – weather, water levels, etc. We had several alternatives, such as launching from Low Falls Landing, or doing something different all together.

The Palmetto Paddlers were also planning a trip to Sparkleberry for the same weekend, but they were going Sunday instead of Saturday. I contacted Kate Whitmire, the trip’s organizer, to see if she had any insight into water levels. She pointed me to the USGS water levels website for Pineville on Lake Marion. According to Kate, a reading of 72.09 was necessary for a paddle without portages.

I took my GPS track from my last trip, trip reports from several other paddlers, and placed all the data I could find on the Lowcountry Unfiltered wiki site. Based on this data, I created a GPS file that included waypoints and routes, as well as a Google Earth file with image and map overlays.

John Nelson also shared a great map of the swamp. It didn’t have the detail of the Google Earth data, but it had the “bones” of the swamp, and would prove useful to make sure we were on a major channel. It also provided names for the various creeks and guts that weren’t available in Google Earth.

I printed out copies of John’s map, my Google Earth maps, and a map of the 7.5 minute USGS topo map of the area. I had also purchased a fishing map of Lake Marion. I put all of these in a waterproof map case I had just purchased, and also programmed all of the waypoints into my GPS. I felt like I was ready.

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80% Won’t Post This

Posted on By Tom 6 Comments on 806 Won’t Post This
Internet, Rants

…and that’s a GOOD thing.

Take a look at this popular Facebook status update…

Every person has 1000 wishes. A cancer patient only has one wish, to get better. I know that 97% of Facebookers won’t post this as their status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who died, or is fighting cancer – post this for at least one hour….

Now look at this one….

Today I’m going to pause to remember all those who are suffering from cancer, as well as their friends and family who are affected by this terrible disease.

…or this one…

Please remember my friend _____, who is battling cancer right now. Feel free to repost if you know someone else that might be concerned about him/her.

The first one is trite and passive aggressive. The last two have similar messages and concerns, and the second even encourages reposting, but to me are much less offensive. There is none of the guilt-inducing “you can’t be my friend if you don’t copy me exactly” sort of language. To me the last two messages are much more effective.

Danielle Foster, a contributing writer at Suite 101, describes this type of Facebook activism very succinctly:

The purpose of raising awareness about an important cause is to inspire people to reflect on the issue. The hope is that after awareness is raised, action will follow. Do status memes promoting awareness accomplish action, or are they merely providing short-lived entertainment and self-validation?…

…What this whole message is really doing is fishing for validation under the cover of supporting cancer victims. If you are the poster’s true friend, you will re-post the message because being that person’s true friend makes you a great person who would not dare dis-honor cancer victims, or the poster’s friendship with you, by not re-posting. You are this person’s friend aren’t you? You don’t hate cancer victims, do you? You had better re-post.

Read more at Suite101: Raising Awareness With Facebook: Does It Work? http://www.suite101.com/content/raising-awareness-with-facebook-does-it-work-a319040#ixzz1D6NkBMuF

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