Google Earth

----- Forwarded message from Ben Stringer <ben@> -----

From: Ben Stringer <ben@>
To: LUV list <luv-main@luv.asn.au>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:03:17 +1000
X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 (2.2.3-4.fc4) 
Subject: GoogleEarth for linux

http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Finally!

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick@> -----

Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:22:52 -0700
To: luv-main@luv.asn.au
From: Rick Moen <rick@>
Subject: Re: GoogleEarth for linux

Quoting Ben Stringer (ben@):

> http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

1. USE OF SOFTWARE The Software is made available to
you for your personal, non-commercial use only. You
may not use the Software or the geographical
information made available for display using the
Software, or any prints or screen outputs generated
with the Software in any commercial or business
environment or for any commercial or business purposes
for yourself or any third parties.  You may not use
the Google Software in any manner that could damage,
disable, overburden, or impair Google's services
(e.g., you may not use the Google Software in an
automated manner), nor may you use Software in any
manner that could interfere with any other party's use
and enjoyment of Google's services. 

2.  [...]  As a condition of downloading and
using the Software, you agree to the terms of the
Google Privacy Policy at
http://www.google.com/privacy.html[1], which may be
updated from time to time and without notice.  [...]
You acknowledge and agree that Google may access,
preserve, and disclose your account information if
required to do so by law or in a good faith belief
that such access preservation or disclosure is
reasonably necessary to: (a) satisfy any applicable
law, regulation, legal process or governmental
request, (b) enforce these Terms and Conditions,
including investigation of potential violations
hereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address
fraud, security or technical issues (including,
without limitation, the filtering of spam), (d)
respond to user support requests, or (e) protect the
rights, property or safety of Google, its users,  and
the public. [...]

3. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS You acknowledge that (a) the
Software contains proprietary and confidential
information [....]  You agree
that you will not, and will not allow any third party
to, (i) copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer,
modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works
from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or
otherwise attempt to derive source code from the
Software, unless otherwise permitted, (ii) take any
action to circumvent or defeat the security or content
usage rules provided, deployed or enforced by any
functionality (including without limitation digital
rights management functionality) contained in the
Software 

4. AUTOMATIC UPDATES The Software may communicate with
Google servers from time to time to check for
available updates to the Software, such as bug fixes,
patches, enhanced functions, missing plug-ins and new
versions (collectively, "Updates"). By installing the
Software, you agree to automatically request and
receive Updates. [...]

7.  [...]  You agree to comply with any applicable
policies or guidelines that Google may make available
from time to time in its sole discretion. [...]

10. INDEMNITY You agree to hold harmless and indemnify
Google and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers,
agents, and employees from and against any claim, suit
or action arising from or in any way related to your
use of the Software [....]

16. [...] You and Google agree to submit to the personal and
exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within
the county of Santa Clara, California.

[Rick] So, it's basically DRM-corrupted binary-only proprietary software that may be altered on your system at the whim of its copyright holder, which you receive under an agreement that the copyright holder may also alter on a whim, software that you are forbidden to try to understand or modify.

If you object to any harm it causes to you or your system, you're required to foreswear any legal recourse. If you insist on trying to pursue recourse anyway, you're required to do so in a foreign court. [2]

Thank you, Google, Inc., for reminding us of what open-source coders worked so hard to get away from. ;->

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Andrew Chalmers <achalmers@> -----

From: Andrew Chalmers <achalmers@>
To: Rick Moen <rick@>
Cc: luv-main@luv.asn.au
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:01:11 +1000
X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.1 
Subject: Re: GoogleEarth for linux

Further to Rick's comments, good luck UN-INSTALLING this hideous piece
of crap, and it truly IS crap ... the uninstall script is very broken,
and there is no way to help them fix it.

So ...
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/google-earth

Well done google.

ALC

----- End forwarded message -----

[Kapil] Also note that http://maps.google.com/ viewed in a graphical browser like firefox, followed by a switch to satellite mode is not a bad alternative to Google Earth.

In particular, it uses the same images.

The main difference is the lack of the GL interface.

[Rick] A good point. I had a good time touring around my home town (Victoria, Hong Kong Island) via Google Maps's satellite view.

[Kapil] For those who may be interested here is a satellite image of where I live (maps.google.com url shortened using tinyurl.com). It's the third house from the top in the row of houses in the centre of the picture.

http://tinyurl.com/o5pfl

[Rick] Ah, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. <sigh> For now, all I can do is look from the air, and visit Andhra-style restaurants for lunch.

[Kapil] Andhra-style in Chennai is often an excuse for red-chilli overdose. However, there are also many good Andhra and Chettinadu style places here. Other semi-local/local styles include Kerala (including but not limited to Appams with Chicken Stew) and specifically Moplah (they have their own version of biriyani--according to some people the Moplahs invented biriyani).

[Kapil] (Giving this information may consitute a security risk but I hope that either my enemies do not have access to GPS guided missiles or if one of them reads LG, then they are so intrigued by the articles that they forget to bomb me. :-))

[Rick] Well, just to be thoughtful, I've furnished ICBM coordinates on http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/ for anyone who cares enough to send the very best. (The elevation figure is just my guesstimate, so please send corrections if any of you are moved to send ranging shots.)

[Kapil] Not knowing enough about this I didn't think of elevation as part of the co-ordinates at all---still thinking of 2-d instead of 3-d! Proves that I have much to learn about projectiles.

[Jimmy] On the subject of maps...

A few months ago, I was telling Beata about something I'd read in a book called "Why Men Don't Listen and Why Women Can't Read Maps". She immediately pounced on the title: "When I came to Ireland, my friend drove, and I navigated. Am I in Ireland or not?"

Much discussion about the title ensued (including her challenging me to draw a map... hers was better, but mine took into account that the street we were drawing is curved, not straight), until I managed to explain that the title referred to the fact(?) that men are generally better able to visualise maps, and can read maps without needing to turn them.

A while later, I felt honour bound to tell her when two friends, Mariusz and Tomasz, while driving to Tomasz's job site, managed to follow correct directions, using the wrong map...

Of course, it was a little worse than that... I knew Tomasz is a land surveyor, but didn't really think about what that entails, until I heard him describe what he does in Polish: "Robię mapy" -- "I make maps" :)

(Yes, I told her that too :)

We've all had fun with Tomasz's equipment: he uses a two-piece, extremely accurate GPS system (accurate to 5cm) that's been used to map open WAPs; laser measuring devices that we've used to check if the hoop at our regular basketball court is the correct height (it isn't), and that Beata used to measure her height; and a company van in which I received my first driving lessons -- which are automatically more fun when the "instructor" has to spend the first five minutes making sure of the English names of the pedals :)

[1]	Which basically says your private information is Google, Inc.'s commercial property that it can sell or give away to its business partners so they can spy on your and advertise-blitz you more effectively.

[2]	Foreign to you, anyway; for me, just those Bloody Right Bastards in the next county south of me. <grin>