There have been quite a few sites spring up that are dedicated to the most interesting finds from Google Maps' satellite images.

This image in Dallas shows where two different perspectives meet and overlap. One building leans right and one leans left.

Here is a huge triangle with circles inside. I think it's some kind of bombing target for an air force base.

Who knew that Arizona farmers liked Oprah so much?

The Space Needle in Seattle, WA.

Mount Rushmore.

Area 51. Though everyone knows that the interesting stuff there is underground.

There are several instances of large words spelled out in fields, but none are as large as this one.

And now some sites where you can do more Google sightseeing:

shreddies.org/gmaps
gmaps.nicj.net
returnofdesign.com
del.icio.us/knodi/google_maps
perljam.net

DSL speed before upgrade:

DSL speed after upgrade:

I ran the speed test here. I was led to believe that my upload speed would increase more dramatically than that. But, before the upgrade I was only supposed to be able to upload at 128 kbps.

If you like the GIMP, the open source replacement for Photoshop, then you should try Inkscape. It's a vector drawing tool, like Adobe Illustrator. I've been playing with it, and it's pretty fun. Here's a drawring I made:

I've already talked about how much I like Ubuntu Linux. Last week was the release of the new version, code-named Hoary Hedgehog. I had been using Warty Warthog, the version that came out last fall. Upgrading was easy. I didn't have to download a new cd. Shoot, I didn't even have to reboot. I just told it to pull software from the new repositories and then typed "sudo dist-upgrade" on the command line. It took a few hours, but it worked great. When that was done I switched to the KDE desktop, which is a new addition in this version of Ubuntu. It's so pretty. If you want a little taste of KDE, then you can use this theme for Firefox, which is based on a KDE theme. Shiny.

Sorry if the site hasn't been working too well recently. We're getting close to having the site migration done.

I called SBC today to ask a question about my bill. After answering my question the guy told me that I could upgrade my speed for only $3 dollars more a month. After grilling him with some questions I agreed to do the upgrade. My upload speeds will triple, which will great for my webserver. I may start hosting some more sites there. My download speeds increase by as much as 10 times. Not too shabby. Once it takes effect I'll do some benchmarking and post my actual before and after upload and download speeds. On a somewhat related note, if anyone wants to add a wireless router to their SBC DSL, I have a 2Wire Homeportal to sell. Someone cancelled their DSL and gave the equipment to me. SBC sells them for $50, but I'll give you a better deal than that.

Google Maps was already a very nice website, but Google just can't leave a good product alone. They've always got to go improving it (thanks for the second GB of email space, by the way). Now they've added satellite images to their map service. The integration is seamless. The image quality is striking. For example, want to stalk my brother? This should get you started. Or take a tour of our nation's capitol. If you try to zoom all the way into the capitol building you'll find it blurred out (I assume to thwart terrorists who are too lazy to acquire their own areal photos). The White house is fair game, however. If you find anything cool, copy the link from "Link to this page" and post it as a comment.

Recently I've been having fun customizing the look of computer stuff I use. I downloaded some new themes for my Pocket PC and the mp3 player on my Pocket PC. Firefox has some nice themes. I downloaded a bunch of them, but this is the one that I'm using now. You may also want to check out Pimpzilla. Here is a guide on how to skin Gmail. I didn't like the stylesheet I downloaded for it, so I think I'll leave it how Google designed it. I would like to customize the look of Windows XP, but there's no good way to do it without buying third party software. So, I downloaded a live cd for Kubuntu, which uses KDE for the desktop environment. KDE has tons of skins and themes. Good times.

Update: Now I'm using this Firefox theme. I think it's pretty slick, and it's related to the KDE project.

20Q.net - I know I've talked about this before, but it deserves an update. This computer is getting better. I thought of 'car tire' and it guessed it in 19 tries. And now they've put the game into a handheld device and they're selling it for $14.87.

I've always liked listening to cassettes, but I hate that you have to place the cassette in a player. I just want to plug my headphones directly into the cassette. Now I can buy the Mobiblue DAH-220 and do that very thing. It's a portable mp3 player shaped like a cassette tape. Listen to it with headphones, or pop it in your tape deck and control it with the stereo controls. Ok, I don't think I would ever want one of these, but it is a cool idea.

(Via Accordian Guy)