My "Screen Time" Lately...

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
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mnaz
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My "Screen Time" Lately...

Post by mnaz » June 30th, 2016, 5:26 pm

No-- this isn't any sort of "smart-phone" repentance (don't have one yet, but that's coming pretty soon)...

In the last year especially, I've been fascinated with Google Earth. The resolution, while far from "sharp," has improved to the point where one can zoom down and travel not just on "street scenes," but on any lonely trail in the back-country. I've taken virtual trips up and down a lot of the (mostly desert) trails that I'm curious about-- where does that path go? In my wandering days I turned around on some of the dirt trails I took before I made it the full distance, and I've "extended" some of those trips on G.E. to get a sense of what the rest of those trails look like. I've also "gone up" trails I meant to take, but never got around to taking. In one such virtual roam I even stumbled onto Manson's last desert hideout! (Interesting photos posted.)

One of these pixel-powered trips up a powerline trail above Lake Mohave even inspired a paragraph added to my collection of "Nevada Roundscape" observations...
"My eyes can't read the desert; they underestimate its span, and the great arcs increase the illusion. You climb gradually, many miles up a slope, and when you finally look back, a way-out low ridge you passed lower on the arc appears to be almost the same distance away as a dark hill you went toward for miles after passing the butte, and a pale ridge far beyond where you started to climb seems but a short stroll from both, and somehow you've climbed two thousand feet, and the view makes no sense. "
Here's the image:
Image
You can see a small ridge and a small hill that appear just to the right of the ridge at the center of the snapshot (the ones noted above), and they appear to be pretty close to each other. And you can see the "pale ridge" beyond. There are fairly major spans between these landmarks, yet the open space "compresses" the view.

This all seems fundamentally "wrong" somehow-- you know, our assimilation into the screen and all that-- but it has been interesting.

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sasha
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Re: My "Screen Time" Lately...

Post by sasha » July 12th, 2016, 3:55 pm

I've taken virtual trips, too - sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes to prepare for an actual journey. Several years ago I visited the grave of H.P. Lovecraft in Providence RI, and used GE to get screen shots of critical nodes along the way. Likewise when I flew to San Francisco recently for my daughter's Masters graduation, I already had an idea of what her neighborhood looked like.

One of my favoritest sites, though, is http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ . For one thing, it still offers topographical maps as a view option; but primarily, I can plan (or recreate) hikes to calculate mileage, calories burned, and track elevation changes. The latter is helpful on some of our rail trails - I can plan to set out at the lowest point, hike uphill on the way out, and downhill all the way back.

Neither good nor bad, I guess - just another tool.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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mnaz
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Re: My "Screen Time" Lately...

Post by mnaz » July 19th, 2016, 9:08 pm

Probably. Though it does seem like I spend an awfully large percentage of my time staring into a screen in recent years . . .

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