Category: Interesting

Google Expands Central Oregon’s Street View Coverage

I mentioned nearly a year ago how Central Oregon had a limited bit of coverage. Their coverage was primarily to major highways 97 and 20 through Central Oregon, but it appears that coverage has expanded quite a bit. I don’t know when this exactly changed, but it was sometime within the last few weeks as I use Google maps frequently and had not noticed this.

Central Oregon’s coverage has gotten quite a bit larger than before:

googlemapsco.jpg

And Bend’s in general has as well:

googlemapsbend.jpg

Now the real fun begins: Can anybody find themselves on there? Or something fun? Or even a rough idea on the date these were done? It does appear that the images this time around not as much snow like the last Street View images, so they must have been taken during a warmer time of the year. I have a feeling they combined images from a couple different times as there’s still snow around Mt. Bachelor but not around Elk Lake. I’m sure there’s a dividing point along there if you “drive” along the highway for a while, as there wouldn’t be snow at Mt. Bachelor without there being snow at Elk Lake.

Local TV Rants

A couple local readers send in these rants about local TV and local TV companies. Discuss/comment below.

Charlie send this in about Bend Broadband’s newest service:

Today, being 10/7 I talked to a sales assistant at bendbraodband requesting that my silver package be bumped from 12 Mbps to the new offered 14 Mbps, seeing that it is “a free upgrade.” Thats completely false. In order to upgrade they require you to buy a DOCSIS 3.0 even though a 2.0 can more than handle it. They’re old Gold tier was 16Mbps. It makes no sense. The new modem is 79.00 outright. More BBB BS.

And Rod has a beef with how NFL Games are broadcast.

So the local Fox Station that is “Serving” Central has selected Seattle and Dallas as our local teams to show. As a 49er fan, I would love to watch a few games on TV. Yes, Bend broadband sucks, but dish sucks worse, as I’m sure you would agree.

To see how absurd this is, look at the broadcast map for NFL week 5: http://the506.com/nflmaps/ .

WTF? Can something be done?

I don’t watch much NFL as I’m generally at the office on Sundays, but that URL is indeed interesting. Thanks for that, Rod.

Discuss.

Your Cell Phone Is Killing You

Cell phones all put out a bit of radiation, some more than others. My phone is one of the higher radiation modems so I’m sure I’m going to die soon enough or have a brain tumor. Or something. Or not.

The Worst Movies Of The Last Decade

The folks at Rotten Tomatoes have suffered through some bad movies, and have compiled the worst 100 movies of the last 10 years so you can suffer through them, too.

Would You Like A Marshmallow?

How about a couple?

Want To Get As Far Away From The Golden Arches As Possible?

If you mapped all the McDonalds in the US and wanted to live the farthest away from one, it looks like a spot in South Dakota is the place to be at 107 miles from the nearest Big Mac.

Remember “Rudy”?

We all loved the movie, based on the story of Daniel Ruettiger. If you’re a high school football fan, and know somebody who is Rudy-esque, nominate him (or her) for the Rudy Awards. Quoting the site:

The High School Football Rudy Awards honor high school football players who demonstrate the exemplary values of inspirational football legend Daniel ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger, the subject of the beloved and inspirational film RUDY. The award will not be won by the most talented players with the best stats, but rather the Rudy Awards measure the size of a player’s heart. We are searching for high school football players who demonstrate what Rudy calls “The Four C’s”: Character, Courage, Contribution and Commitment.

There a decent chunk of college scholarship change available for the winners as well as for the runners-up. Based on the contact info on the site, there are some locals behind it, which is why it’s being mentioned here (Jon can’t have all the fun stuff).

“Missing” Wired Magazine Author Found

In the last Wired Magazine, Evan Ratliff wrote a great article about disappearing in the digital age. Part of the article was a contest: Ratliff would attempt to disappear for a month — you find him, you get $5000. His credit card transactions and IP addresses and other such stuff would be posted to a blog, where you could then analyze them and try to track the guy down (with $3000 going to Evan if he wasn’t found).

Just a few days before the 30 days were up, Ratliff was caught. Some folks at Newscloud managed to track down what city he was heading to, and notified some folks at New Orleans that he was going to be in town who subsequently, with a little competition with some other folks in town, managed to track the guy down, take his picture, give the codeword, and win the contest.

The whole blog and all its past entries are an entertaining read, especially the big clue that everybody missed that gave his itinerary pretty clearly.

Mapping The Seven Deadly Sins

It appears that folks the Dakotas, Iowa, and Nebraska are saints, with the sinners living in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Georgia, and that area of the U.S. in general (though lets not forget about California, which has its fair share of evildoers) . Full story.

Somebody Might Find This Useful

I’m not a drinker, but you have to be impressed with the amount of work it takes to make a kegerator. If you really feel like pimping it out, you can give it some flames.