Ever wondered what would happen if StDavros and Stephen Hawking got their freak on?

No? then watch this anyway because it's really fucking funny.

Bomber out

(no T&A, apologies to Jezza; I will try and dig up some smut, if I can just remember where I put it all)

I can see the pub from here!

If you read Neal Stevenson's Snow Crash you may recall that our protagonist (for t'was his name) had a computer programme called something like "Earth". This programme presented itself as a globe in his workspace and allowed him to zoom down, using satellite feeds, to anywhere on the planet. It was really fucking cool, almost as cool as the motorbike with the telescopic spoked smart wheels (although not quite). Well, Goggle have written one and it's free.

You can't see into people's living rooms or read their newspapers (yet) but I could pick out my father-in-law's house in Toronto and my old flat in Happy Valley. I could not find my parent's house, it seems that the quality of images available varies significantly depending on area, North America and HK seem very well covered though. Figering 1 sqkm pixel resolution that covers Sydney (you can make out the bridge, just) would still enable me to find Dave, I tried but to no avail. He must have been in the pub. For an easier web interface of the same thing, but with fewer bells and whistles try Google Maps, which now concedes that there is life East of the Atlantic by finally offering worldwide coverage. I say Maps has fewer bells and whistles it does have one distnict advantage; you can navigate the streets on the map section (like mapquest or what) and then switch over to the satellite feed. Earth has a street map overlay, but I couldn't get it to work, it just seemed to cover the area in random red triangles. Perhaps a Beta thing. Maps does need an appropriate "camera shutter" type of sound when switching from map to sat image to enhance the 007 feel of the whole thing but it's still bloody cool. Sadly, the desktop package appears not to be stand alone, it downloads the images on request but, as your watch will soon have an always on wifi connection I suppose it's only a mater of time before this ceases to be important.

Tons of play time in the office

Bomber out