One of the best things about the web is how someone will come up with some app, and then it evolves into a million little cool things.
Google maps is the killerest of killer apps. It has a million uses (I have a friend who uses it to map out arcologies for Shadowrun, for example, and if you don’t know what that means you are terminally uncool– wait, no, it’s an RPG so you probably are cool if you don’t know what all that means). One use has been exploited by Frappr, where you can create your own map and let people sign up with their location. A nifty use for it is for a blog, where readers can stick in their own locations.
So I had to do this for the Bad Astro Blog.
BABloggers, sign up! Show me where you are (you can add a picture too). You can keep up with the map by clicking this icon on the sidebar of my blog:
Amazingly, before I had even posted this blog entry, I had four people sign up, one of whom is in Spain. Pretty nifty. And it would be soooo cool to find that someone at Outpost 31 reads this blog…
November 9th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
If you like Google Maps, you’ll LOVE Google Earth. It’s everything the regular map program is and more, including 3d flyovers!
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/google-earth.htm
November 10th, 2005 at 1:45 am
Hey! I’m cool! I got me one of those leather coats and sunglasses from Matrix, so I’m cool!
Well…. not really, eh… it’s more like a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and the sunglasses I found in a dumpster behind Elton Johns residence.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:16 am
Wouldn’t let me add a site on the moon. that’s not fair.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:23 am
I tried to add myself but, sadly, it seems that you have to live in a “city”. Given that I don’t live in or that near a city I can’t create an entry.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:56 am
Thomas:
You’ve got a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches too?! Rock on! At one point, I had three, in various states of disrepair and suitable for different temperature ranges. Now I’m down to one, but it’s in pretty good shape. My friends (amazing I have any, isn’t it?) have gotten them too; we call them our “eigenjackets”.
I also picked up some mirrorshades from the pharmacy so I could be cyberpunk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
November 10th, 2005 at 3:53 am
Blake:
I just need a tobacco pipe and an armchair to sit in while I’m puffing away in my tweed jacket.
I should go buy a warm jacket. London is getting colder by the day and my wardrobe is for mostly for a mediterranean climate.
November 10th, 2005 at 7:08 am
That “Outpost 31″ made Norton’s grawl and lock me up. Hum!
November 10th, 2005 at 7:32 am
Hey coolness! Another BAer lives only a few blocks away from me in saskatoon:).
November 10th, 2005 at 7:46 am
can’t believe how fast the numbers are going up. must be a lot of ba’ers out there.
November 10th, 2005 at 8:22 am
I’m surprised how few Canadian BA’ers there seems to be.
November 10th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Evolving Squid:
I only know of Bryan Adams.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:10 am
This appplication is really cool! I’ve been a regular reader of BA since some years ago… I got here through the NASA page… though this is the first time I’ve ever wrote. It’s nice to see there is another BAfan near me
November 10th, 2005 at 11:15 am
Evolving Squid Says:
I’m surprised how few Canadian BA’ers there seems to be.
Would those be Bad Canadians?
November 10th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
This is so cool….I think its funny that ERI is, like, the only person in montana to be a BA….don’t they have great skies out there and a university in Missoula?
I have to get a picture of me with my telescope and post it….
November 10th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Evolving Squid: Here’s another Canadian for you!
November 10th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
I love “the thing” I want one for a pet.
November 10th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
I am in Denton, texas. Was a lurker till now, but why not get on the map.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:19 am
Another long-time lurker, while I was filling in the form, I thought of a cool
name to use – inspired by my 3 year old neighbor and an argument I had
in college that “lightyears” were just as sensible a unit of measurement as
“parsecs” i.e. they are both completely geocentric.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:59 am
My country is not on their map, since ot keeps telling me “invalid city”
. Anyway, I’m in Bucharest, Romania… Guess I’m really out of the way…
November 11th, 2005 at 3:32 am
Dana, Bucharest does appear on the map, of course. When prompted to enter the city, type “Bucha”, and a list of cities beginning with those letters, Bucharest among them, will appear. But it may take a while to load the list so be patient. I was having problems with my city too (Bilbao in Spain), but it’s only a matter of time and bandwidth, not geography
November 11th, 2005 at 3:36 am
Thanks, Wedge
. Didn’t seem logic to me to say Bucharest, Bucharest (as it appears now) but I guess it made sense to them 
.
November 11th, 2005 at 4:40 am
It appears that if two people register from the same city, only the last one will be visible on the map! B.T.W., Wedge, I loved the Guggenheim in your city this summer.
November 11th, 2005 at 5:27 am
Yeah, Diederick, the building is cool… and the stuff inside if you like that kind of art, I suppose. Not my case though.
We already have people from every continent registered… almost. Nobody from Antarctica? Hello? Outpost 31? Anybody alive there?
November 11th, 2005 at 9:27 am
I’m Canadian, I just don’t live in Canada (Yes I’m one of the “brain drain”).
Shadowrun is great! Played it for years, mostly as a GM though so I never had built up many characters of my own. One word for anyone making a character: SmartGun
November 11th, 2005 at 10:57 am
TriangleMan: I’ve got one word for you: Nerd!
I mean that as a compliment of course. I’m a member of NA myself.
Your comment did give me an idea. I live in the UK but I am from Denmark (NOT a brain drain, have you tried the food here?).
Maybe in the “Shoutout” it would be a good idea to include our “real” nationality and how we got to know about BA in the first place.
In fact I’m going to do this right now.
P.S. NA=Nerds Anonymous
November 11th, 2005 at 11:09 am
Diederick if you zoom in on the map it will show muiltiple people in the same city.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
Hmmm … lots and lots of people in North America and Western Europe, not much representation from the rest of the world.
Thomas and Blake – I DO have a leather coat a la Matrix
November 11th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Does it have tweed patches on the elbows?
November 11th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Thomas, I’ll go and check, but I doubt it. I bought it in Florence (Firenze) and the Italians are not really into tweed…
Nope, no tweed patches, sorry.
November 11th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Good day Phil. I have been a fan of the site for well, since the whole Nibiru crap thing that flooded the Coast to Coast airwaves. Now I live up in the Wine Country and saw that you teach at Sonoma State (Maybe I can take just to take one of your classes.) Well, I hope that killer cloud doesn’t come my way, I am just not ready for it right now. LMFAO! Cheers and Regards, and keep up the great site.
November 11th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Proud to be member #305, thanks for the map BA love the idea….gotta go….watching Albiero & M57….waiting for the Hunter to come over the horizon….anyway….Clear Skies
November 11th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Hey- no fair
its centered on the US
November 12th, 2005 at 3:49 am
Another amazing GoogleMaps use is to show from where your web visitors come from. You can show an example here:
http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/mapa-de-accesos/
It´s possible to download the code and add to your web (open source).
All texts in Spanish.
November 12th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
This is so funny!! Here I am, following BA’s site for at least a year, and I really
like the site.. and here I read that BA knows ShadowRun!!!
whoohoo!! anyone else here that knows it and care’s to hear, there’s a 4th
edition coming up, unfortunately where I live, we have no company that imports
it…
(ps: Triangleman: Smartguns are little use if you don’t have a smart links, and
they’re only fun if you can spare the essence cost.. doesn’t really matter if you
don’t use magic though… my advice: Shapeshifters, although I don’t allow them
in my campaign anymore.. and I’m still reviewing hougans and loa spirits… )
November 13th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Nigel Depledge – Since you bought your coat in Italy FSM will forgive you, as Italiens (and Chinese) is thought to have a special place in his hearty meatballs.
November 13th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
@Evolving Squid:
Here is yet another Canadian BA’er! Lurker mostly.
November 14th, 2005 at 6:38 am
Oscar: Spare the essense cost? Smartgun should either be the first or second (after reflex boosters) enhancement to get. Even about a third of mages I’ve seen played in Shadowrun eventually get SmartGun!
Anyway, back to the topic. Given that most English speakers are in North America, UK/Ireland, New Zealand and Australia it is not surprising that most people on the map would be from there. I expected more South Africans though.
November 14th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Hey Squid! Greetings from Trawna!
-aiabx
November 15th, 2005 at 8:45 am
Shadowrun??? Wow, there’s a blast from the past.
That location tracker is pretty slick ^_^
November 15th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Triangleman: Well technically speaking, Magic rating is lowered for every fraction
of a full point you lose in essence… so even if you only have a datajack (0.2 essence if I remember correctly) your Magic goes down to 5…
Every spell you learn with a rating above your Magic deals physical damage instead of stun damage for the purposes of drain… then again, taking a geas or initation level raises your Magic again…