Over-the-years | Mapsys.info

Matt Fox’s Topographic USGS maps

A few months ago we showed you Matt Fox’s excellent topographic maps of New Zealand, which were quite impressive. Over the years he’s had many requests to create similar maps with seamless USGS topographic data, and now he’s starting to roll them out on his site.

As you can see from the image above, the maps are remarkably sharp. The are distributed through a rather unique system; rather than just downloading a KMZ file, you download an installation program that adds the maps to your PC as Super Overlays. To try it for yourself, Matt is offering a free download of the San Francisco area, available here.

The new maps are significantly higher quality.

For more, be sure to visit Google Earth Library and read Matt’s full blog entry.

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SketchUp: Models into real buildings

Over the years, we’ve talked quite a lot about SketchUp, Google’s amazing 3D modeling tool. Ultimately, though, many of these models are intended to become real buildings, so how well does the finished product match up to the original model? Google wants you to show them.

As they recently posted, they’re encouraging you to send in your SketchUp stories; a SketchUp model accompanied by a photo of the finished product.

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The Google Earth Flight Simulator

It’s been more than four years since Google first added the flight simulator to Google Earth, and it remains one of the most popular features in Google Earth. As the quality of Google Earth’s imagery, terrain and 3D buildings have improved over the years, it’s helped make the flight simulator experience even better.

However, that wasn’t enough for user ‘that1anonymousdude’. He’s created a file that will modify your flight sim and let you turn the speed up really high. Using his mod, you can fly up to around 100,000 knots, while keeping solid control, and even fly up into space. It’s quite cool. Here’s a video of it in action:

His program modifies the flight sim config files to allow you to reach these crazy speeds (it doesn’t actually modify the actual Google Earth software). He’s released the source code so you can see how it works, and I’ve scanned it to verify there are no viruses or anything in it. However, always use caution when loading a third-party executable file on your computer.

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Jobs on Staying Fresh

“It’s wonderful to have a
beginner’s mind.”

– Steve Jobs (1955–2011)

Co-founder of Apple

Sales inspiration…

To me, it was strange how sad I felt about Jobs passing away Wednesday. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that at that level for someone I didn’t know personally.

I’m sure many of you had the same experience. That’s some great work.

For those who’ve not seen or read it, here’s his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University (the transcript and the video). I find it inspiring even after reading it more than 5 times over the years (if you like it, remember to pass it along to any kids you know).

For Steve Jobs through the years, Wired has this piece. I also enjoyed the little 3-minute video tribute on the right-hand side of the page.

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Fox on Setting the Tone

“I love getting up in the morning. I clap my hands and say, ‘This is gonna be a great day.’”

–the late Dicky Fox

sports agent in the film Jerry Maguire (1996)

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (from the U.S. Department of Labor)

It was the Industrial Revolution (in the late 1800s) with its 12-hour 7-day schedules that inspired a need for better protection of workers (and by workers, we’re talking about physical tough stuff that makes you and I feel lucky type of workers).

The first Labor Day parade (10,000 marching workers) was in New York City in 1882. It took 12 years before Congress made it a holiday. History.com has Canada’s labor celebrations as the spark for that first U.S. Labor Day parade.

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