News

Denizens of the Steep short film – Bighorn sheep and backcountry skiing in the Tetons

Here’s an 8 minute film about bighorn sheep and backcountry skiing in the Tetons. It shows the bighorn sheep there are an isolated population since their range has shrunk drastically all over North America. It looks like they are really avoiding people. They’ve lost some of their lower elevation wintering grounds and now stay at […]

Article: Groups Want Florida To Purchase Big Cypress National Preserve Mineral Rights

My first thoughts when seeing this headline were: How can Florida, or anyone, purchase mineral rights on/below National Preserve land owned by the people of the United States? No. Leave it with the federal government and the people. But it turns out the mineral rights are currently owned by a family that is pursuing oil […]

BS Yellowstone Supervolcano News Headlines

I recently went on a kick reading up on Yellowstone news and information that was triggered by the story of possibly using the Yellowstone supervolcano as an energy source. After reading from various sources, I discovered something mildly disturbing and rather annoying. Volcanoes are so cool (and Yellowstone is basically the biggest, so super cool), that […]

Yellowstone Supervolcano as an Energy Source?

I came across the National Geographic article linked below not long ago and quickly learned there was a LOT of buzz around this idea. Some of the buzz came with BS headlines from less reputable news outlets, which I’ll write about in another post. NatGeo: Yellowstone Supervolcano Could Be an Energy Source. But Should It? The […]

Google Working Through Problems in Migration of Photos from Panoramio to Maps

A very welcome and informative post from a Google employee just popped up in the Google Maps & Earth Help Forum yesterday. “We are still working to migrate the photos of those Panoramio users who linked to their Google+ profiles. We are detangling some oversights in the transfer toolís original design and need to take […]

Photos Layer of Google Earth and Google Maps Transition with Panoramio Closure

I wrote about Panoramio switching to read-only mode in preparation for its closure, and then recently about Google’s announcement of its imminent shutdown. What is the newest development? Panoramio is completely shut down. Other users and I have noticed the Panoramio photos layer in Google Earth still shows geolocated photo icons. But clicking on them […]

Expand Cellular Coverage in National Parks and other Public Lands?

A friend recently sent a link to an article – As Cell Service Expands, National Parks Become Digital Battlegrounds. He was leaning in favor of wider cell service in National Parks because of the improved safety aspect and people wanting to use mobile apps for things like checking weather or altitude, and recording GPS info. […]