Dwarbi's Roof on Google Maps!

It appears I was wrong about the Sydney Google plane flyover fiasco. As a refresher: prior to our Australia Day party, I set up shop on the roof, along with another resident of my building, so that the Google plane scheduled to fly low over Sydney for detailed photos on their maps site would catch dwarbi's roof. Early reports indicated that the Google plane captured a very small percentage of the original area, and nowhere near my roof. I was disappointed. But they Sydney Morning Herald recently announced that the photos taken by the Google plane on Australia Day are now on their web site... and no mention of the fact that the plane caught less than 10% of the area it was supposed to! I was wrong - check out the photo of Château dwarbi there on the left.

Fellow Roof Dweller

Surfing around tonight I found the blog of a fellow resident of my building who was also on the roof waiting for The Australia Day Google plane flyover. Gordon was up there with an Irish flag and his girlfriend, hoping the three of them would be picked up by the Great Google Eye. We both missed out. Booooo!

Google Plane Grounded

Google, the company that provides this lovely blogging service to me for free, screwed up this past weekend. They did. They made a big hub-bub, a big to-do about a hired aircraft that would fly low over Sydney and its beaches, taking high-res photo-graphic metallic plates to add to their Internetified map service. It was big news! All over the papers there were articles with Google boasting about its first detailed photo of a city. People made plans and went out early with signs for a non-profit cause, an expression of love as a surprise for the lovee, a request for forgiveness or just for fun... and yeah some people were looking to take advantage of the free advertising.

So what happened? Nothing. Or next to nothing. Google posted this lame-ass update to the site. That space covers less than 10% of what they said they would and hardly any of the beaches and parks where people had started to prepare since early morning. Google, you are responsible for the [continued] failure of Aaron Schwebel's marriage. People will also be less inclined to Vote Climate, and, thanks to you, David Hicks will not be brought home. Possibly your biggest loss, Google, is that poverty will NOT be made history. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Yes, Google was providing a free service, but it also set expectations that it could not meet. It turned out that they did not have clearance to fly over the city and that Sydney airport would have had to have been closed to satisfy their demands. Google, c'mon, maybe if you're packing the right goods, but an aerial camera... {scuffaw}

We were out there with a big white sheet ($9) on which I spray-painted ($8) "DWARBI'S ROOF". Google, kindly send a refund of $17. And thanks for this free blogging service.

Australia Day 2007

This past Friday was Australia Day, Australia's celebration of the landing of Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet at Sydney Cove on 26 January, 1788. Another name for this day is Invasion Day. Depends on the way you look at it. Similarly, Dana and I arrived on Australian soil on 26 January, but in 2005. We call this day Australian Anniversary Day. Another name for this day has recently surfaced: Dana and Denis Sepo Invasion Day. Depends on the way you look at it. Somehow people came out to celebrate with the Sepos Dana & Denis on Australia Day!

In an attempt to reduce gang violence we did ban the Australian flag, but both Sams brazenly ignored the ban and waved the flag to and fro. Thankfully everyone played nice. Except Glenn Hinton. If you look at the photos it's pretty clear he doesn't know how to play nice. The party started nice and early with set-up beginning at 1, and friends coming and going into the night. We must of left a window open because there were kiwis in our apartment until after 3AM. Who knew kiwis could fly into an eighth story apartment!

Also, Google was scheduled to fly a plane low over the Sydney to add high-resolution images to their Google maps service. I was ready with a giant "DWARBI'S ROOF" sign but the Google plane didn't come very close us. In a few weeks we'll be able to check!

View all photos here.