Scavengeroogle: A Google Maps Scavenger Hunt To Waste More Of Your Time On

Ah… coffee. So anyhow, how are you doing? I went through some of my email box and found a slew of clue submissions that had found their way into an older email folder of mine. Well, more like a few clues. But anyhow, you do remember the old Paul Hardcastle song from 80s called “Nineteen”, don’t you? Yeah, the one where he’s all: “N-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen”. Yeah, just play along here.

Well, this cool roman numeral nineteen was sent in by Brian G. and immediately reminded me of that song. The buildings that make up the numeral are pretty well defined, really nice actually. It is visible from pretty far out at 14/18.

I actually thought about Brian’s word clues and decided to change them slightly. Horrors all around! Well, now that we have an all day thing going, I think there’s a little more leeway in experimenting with the word clues. Because I can correct them later in the day if they are too difficult. If they’re too easy though, there’s no going back. =) Anyhow, let’s try this for size:

“The Indian’s Bed”

I want to see how hard that will be to find. Don’t panic if you don’t have any idea. I’ll drop more stuff soon.

What are you all doing for summer vacation by the way? Is anyone going (or have gone) on cool trips to neat places featured in Google Maps? I had to sort of cancel my usual week long summer trip this year. Budget cuts. You know how that goes…

[Edit: 9:42 am PDT - The clue seems to be doing well so far without other info, so I’ll hold off for now. Say, I hope everyone in the Southeast is doing OK from all the storms…]

[Edit: 3:44 pm PDT - Whew, it is truly hot today where I am. I think we got enough solutions so I don’t need to drop the region. I’ll check back in after dinner, have a good afternoon!]

Clue Name : “Nineteen”
Submitted by: Brian G.
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Monday 7/11/05

Solved By: Jonas M, David H, Mark L, Judy B, ShawnD, TheBeamer, Ken S, Don R, Andy K, Moose, Golux13, Katie N, Chris H

Word Clues : “The Indian’s Bed”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Nineteen”

I was clued into a really interesting site by ‘roogler Trecherus yesterday. The site is called Google Maps Transparencies and it provides an overlay functionality that will let you see the center portion of the “street map” google map” as a transparency over the “satellite map”. A great idea, and with Google officially releasing their API for Google Maps we should see a ton more really cool applications like this coming out soon. Keep you ear to the ground…

As you can imagine, transparency is a pretty neat idea and I predict it might be useful for Scavengeroogling as we know it. Because I don’t know about you but I am constantly switching back and forth between the two maps. The move of the Satellite and Map buttons by Google that we mentioned before was interesting but this site actually provides a significant improvement to the switching of maps.

What is very useful is that as you “drag” the map it drags BOTH the overlay and the background map the same “distance”. The overlay stays in the center of the map always. Like Google Maps, you can also zoom into the map (of course if you zoom too far in on a non high-res mapped location it will give the familiar grey screen with “We don’t have the imagery at this zoom level” message.

Also extremely useful is the option to “toggle” the map so that the overlay is using either the Satellite Map or the Street Level Map (and the background is using the opposite). They’ve also put a handy couple of dropdowns to “auto-jump” to various U.S., Canadian and UK cities as well as exact longitude and latitude coordinates.

Beyond it’s applications for Roogling, the transparency feature is interesting for looking at how the various satellite terrain features line up with the street map view. For the most part, Google Maps are pretty accurate on this, though I have seen things that didn’t exist simultaneously in the same map.

I haven’t used this yet in actual application (finding clues) but I figure it should be pretty useful, so you may want to bookmark it for later clue testing. A couple of suggestions I might have for the functionality: It would be cool to have the ability to turn on or off the transparency at will. (I just noticed that there is an “opacity slider” at the bottom that lets you make it completely solid or invisible…very cool). Also, the familiar magnification slider is missing here, although the plus / minus zoom buttons are there. And finally, for roogling it would be nice if the familiar “link to page” actually grabbed the real link instead of a link to this site itself.

Hello, what’s this? A clue on a THURSDAY?! You bet your Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans… Sorry, a Potter lapse.

Anyhow, we are back and in full experimentation mode. That is, this clue is open all day long today. You’ll note that it was auto-launched (at least it should have been) at midnight. So, if you suffer from insomnia, mosey on over once in awhile and you might find some Scavengerooglin’ awaitin’ you. Well, anyhow I will try and set it so it launches early from now on (especially for you east coasters). But there may be times I’ll just launch a clue up in the middle of the day too!

Also remember, if you’re solving a clue at 3 in the morning I’m most likely asleep so I won’t update the “Pending Solutions”. On that note, I’ll try check in every so often and update the Pending Solutions, but if you don’t see the number change after submitting don’t worry.

OK, as to the clue! This looks somewhat like an Exclamation Point lying on its side and was sent in by Dan M. awhile back. Hmm.. we do like our punctuation, don’t we. Interestingly, I just bought the Schoolhouse Rock DVD which contains the superfun jingle “Interjection!”. So you can say that exclamations were on my mind. Catchy buggers, those songs. (If you’re not over 25 you probably don’t remember them from Saturday morning cartoons).

The exclamation point is visible at about 15/18. I actually thought it was kinda funny that the reddish buildings sort of form the letters “H” and “I”, with the “I” lying on its side. So the clue is sort of a “HI!” Lots and lots of laughs…

Your word clues, should you choose to accept them, are:

“I wouldn’t. How about Glen?”

and are straight from Dan’s submission. OK, get to it. I am trying to decide exactly when a region will be dropped. I am thinking that it will be on a clue by clue basis to start with. That is, if there are no solutions at all, I’ll drop it right away whenever I get to the computer. But if there are some rolling in then we’ll wait, or not drop anything at all!

[Edit: 10:56 am PDT - Our first day long clue looks pretty good up to now, so I’ll hold off on region for now. Gosh, that is really tragic about the stuff in London. I hope if any of you are from the area you are all safe and sound.]

[Edit: 1:37 pm PDT - Whee! I am REALLY liking the all day clue thing so far. There’s no pressure to writeup the solution by a set time in the middle of the day, and it looks like some of you who don’t normally get to play are getting a chance to! I’ve been checking my email every 2-3 hours or so and that seems about right…]

Clue Name : “Exclamation Point”
Submitted by: Dan M.
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: Thursday 7/7/05

Solved By: Judy B, Mike B, Shawn D, Chris R, Katie N, Adam M, Trecherus, Mark L, Justin, Margie M, Moose, Peter R, Karl, Phil M, Hank

Word Clues : “I wouldn’t. How About Glen?”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Exclamation Point”

Urgh! Hey roogles, quickly: I actually had meant to put up a clue yesterday but as the day wore on I wasn’t able to sit down to make up a clue. Didn’t help that it was a long weekend. Too much wine. Shuckso! Wednesday would have been the first “all day” clue. Anyhow, hope you will keep checking back. Still figuring out the mailing list too. I should have a clue up on Friday if not sooner. And thank you to those who are sending in clues, it is very heartening to get them in the mail. =)

P.S: Awhile ago I got a whole load of people from Poland in my referrer stats. So if you are visiting Scavengeroogle and are from there, hello and welcome belatedly! And please don’t hesitate to send in clues from your neck of the woods…

Ah, fun and joyous Friday. Going into a longer weekend, hope you are all gearing up for fun times and fireworks. The emoticon guy in this photo sure doesn’t look ready for a fourth of july though. He looks surprised, and his mouth is giving us the old “meh” treatment. Someone cheer him up, please. Maybe by finding him in the googlemap and bringing him along to your BBQ!

So anyhow, remember this is our last “scheduled” clue. From now on (until I decide on the mailing list) you’ll have to come check the site to see if a new clue has been put up. I still think it will be better all around. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing some of you roogling here who otherwise would be at work or busy (or asleep) during the normal clue time.

Anyhow, for word clues… I made this one up myself. Checked it a few times, did a refind. I think it may be of average difficulty. We shall see. Mr. Googly Eyes is visible from quite far out, which should ease scavengeroogling a bit. You can see him at 14/18, barely. OK, here you go:

“MU football, foot only”

What? Yeah… now go out there and make me proud. Don’t do it for me, do it for the Gipper. A Scavengeroogle in the hand is worth two in the bush. And so forth. Look for a region drop if there is difficulty… Happy 4th!

[Edit: 9:45 PDT - My email was down so I thought that when it became available there would be solutions waiting. Instead, not a one! You must all be on vacay by now. In any case, region drop: England]

[Edit: 10:30 PDT - I just discovered my farking email was backed up until now… which is why I didn’t get any solutions. Remember, I have to update by hand.]

Clue Name : “Googly Eyes”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Don R, Richard J, Chris K, Justin, Andy K, Jason C, Jon G, Ken S, Adam M, Moose, Mike M,J P, Mike B, Judy B, Golux13

Word Clues : “MU football, foot only”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Googly Eyes”

I noticed another minor change to the googlemap look today. They’ve moved the “Map” and “Satellite” buttons, which used to be plain old links on the right hand side of the page, into the actual googlemap itself. They are positioned so they float on top of the image like the magnification slider does.

This actually seems pretty helpful for Scavengeroogling because I don’t know about you but I am constantly switching back and forth between the satellite and map views. Before you had to go to the right side to get it to switch, but now it’s right there within the picture which is sort of nice. Although… it is not TOO far in distance from where it originally was. Hm.. maybe the whole idea was to just get the actual buttons into the map.

But I can’t imagine that this is anything but a usability change. I don’t think it is a pre-cursor to a new feature introduction. In any case, lots of changes in the past two days. I think I read some news the other day that Yahoo is looking to upgrade their online mapping technologies someday, so maybe Google is changing things in anticipation of competition? Who knows…

I dunno how many of you know of the band Grandaddy who are one of my all time favorites. But anyhow, they sing a lot about robots at least on one album called The Sophtware Slump. I don’t think they are one-eyed robots, but anyway this clue is of what looks to me like a one-eyed robot. Named “Willy”, of course, by Mike M. who has submitted quite a few useable and well-thought out clues and word clues. Apparently, he has a pseudo “roogle” game going at his office.

This is highly, highly encouraged… er, but not because it will decrease work productivity! But I mean it’s fun to start up your own office “roogle” because you can probably get to go through more clues than you’ll get here. And the good ones you can send in as submissions!

Hmm…neat. Whenever I see “Roogle” it reminds me of “Roog”, a short story by Philip K Dick. Yes, you DO know him: Minority Report, Blade Runner, Paycheck, Total Recall…

Anyhow, tilt your head to the right when looking at the picture to make Willy look better. I especially like how the dark patch in the eye on the right looks like an eyeball. He is visible at 15/18, but you probably want to use 16/18 just to be sure. For word clues, you are going to get Mike’s original word hints which are:

“Mr. Burns heads west on a ferry”

I think this might actually be quite challenging, depending on how you come at the word clues. The region clue will definitely be a help, at least most likely it will. Who knows, these are wild Scavengeroogle times we are living in anyhow. Ok, enough talk… send me those solutions!

[Edit: 10:30 PDT - Some people are getting the solution but I think I will still go ahead with a direct region drop: Alabama!]

Clue Name : “One Eyed Willy”
Submitted by: Mike M.
Status : Solved (7)
Duration: Wed 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Chris R, Peter R, Beamer, Jon G, Mike Z, Golux13, Adam M

Word Clues : “Mr. Burns heads west on a ferry”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “One Eyed Willy”

I guess the googlemap guys are figuring strike while the iron is hot, because they’ve just launched a free 3D mapping and search product called Google Earth. This is just days after they changed both the google map slider magnification as well as added high resolution google maps in other countries.

This new satellite based mapping product is actually a standalone program. It uses the same technology from Keyhole in order to let you sort of “fly” in from space into street level views. Interestingly, about half a year ago my brother showed me a similar program that let you do exactly that, except I believe you “flew” in from far outer space in order to visit Earth.

The software is free to download and has the following features (from the press release):

- 3D buildings in major cities across the United States
- 3D terrain showing mountains, valleys, and canyons around the world
- Integrated Google Local search to find local information such as hotels, restaurants, schools, parks, and transportation
- Fast, dynamic navigation
- Video playback of driving directions
- Tilt, rotate, and activate 3D terrain and buildings for a different perspective on a location
- Easy creation and sharing of annotations among users

They have two other “subscription” upgrades, Google Earth Plus ($20) and Google Earth Pro ($400) that include a number of extra features. With the “Plus” you can plug in a GPS device, print in high resolution, and generally interact in more ways with the software such as importing stuff into it. I think the “Pro” is for research and industry types.

I haven’t tried it yet, and I’m not sure if I will soon because for one thing the current version is PC only and I’m on a Mac a lot. Also, I think it requires a decent video card, something I’m not sure I have on my PC. So I guess if any of you get to try it out soon, if you could let me know how it goes. I’m not sure if this will affect Scavengeroogle at all; maybe it will just be another way to look for clues if it is using the exact same mapset as googlemaps. I wonder a bit about the resolution, which looks decent, as well as the “tilt” that gives everything more profile instead of the usual straight up and down satellite shot…