Goodbye, Michael Jones, the man who gave the power of maps in our hands

[Colin Parkinson]

I can remember the first time I used Google Earth, I was utterly blown away, the ability to see anywhere on earth in detail. Free to use. There had never been anything like it before, it revolutionized my work, the way I get around, it affects everyone on the planet whether they know or not. All I can say is, Thank you. Apparently he had many other talents, I got notification of his passing from a yachting forum, where he was known to be very knowledgeable on diesels as well.

An example of how it changed my work; An engineer from BC Highways and myself conducted a "site inspection" on a remote bridge site that was covered by Google Earth and Street View, based on what we could see, we determined the permitting level and appropriate mitigations, saved both of our departments about $1500 in travel costs and 3 days of travel to get there and back.

Goodbye, Michael Jones, the man who gave the power of maps in our hands

Michael Jones, founder of Google Earth, passed away on January 18. This a tribute to the man who gave the power of maps in our hands.

www.geospatialworld.net

 

[FJAG]

I'm with you on this. Wherever I go travelling I first take a tour on Google Earth to check out the neighbourhood. In my writing I always use locales, whether domestic or foreign, and whatever street my characters walk down I've walked down first on Google Earth. I've got literally hundreds of placemarks saved into my .kmz file pinpointing all the venues from my novels for future reference. And the historical imagery rollback functions has saved me dozens of times from having my characters visit or stay at a place that didn't exist a decade or a decade and a half ago in the timeframe when the novel is set. An outstanding tool.