A fascinating couple of days exploring the world of social networking and blogging. Thanks Marvin.

Just added the widgets for Where’s John – and check out the one at the top: Platial

Currently trying to understand the in and outs of Net News Wire and Vienna - and about to eat its lunch…

Mozilla Labs have recently announced Ubiquity, a kind of geotagging aggregation system. What fascinates me as a writer is the idea that Ubiquity uses verbs not nouns to search and compile the aggregations.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Do you remember when everyone talked about words being dead. Icons and pictures were the thing. That’s so nineties. On holiday a couple of years ago I met someone from Google’s HR Department. She said they were targetting English graduates from Oxbridge with the best degrees because of their language skills and because searches (so far) are very word driven. 

And I love what this guy has to say about verbs…

Astronaut John B. Hetherington has recently finished his cross-country bike ride across the States. As he highlights on his site, he used Google Earth to help people follow his progress. I’m not sure if that qualifies as geotagging, so a simple explanation follows.

But before that check out this link discovered by one of the people on the course - The Miracle Beer Diet. Definitely the diet for me…

Hope you enjoyed that – now check out the explanations of geotagging. (Shouldn’t that be geo-tagging?)

Geotagging on Wikipedia 

Geotagging on Flickr

Geotagging trails and tribulations

Geotagging in journalism

Geotagged audio

Geotagging for Aperture

Geotagging – simple solution

And while we’re at it – what’s GPS?

Wikipedia GPS

Recent events have shown what exceptional people pilots can be. Great people to have around in a crisis. I’ve tried my hand at gliding and being a fairly hot-blooded character I’ve always been impressed by the calmness of pilots. Like Chelsey “Sulley” Sullenberger, whose coolness saved the passengers on Flight 1549, John B. Hetherington is a pilot, having flown US Navy jets and the Space Shuttle. In fact, as he notes on his website, he was the the first Native American astronaut. He’s recently finished a 4,000-mile bicycle ride , dubbed Rocketrek, ‘to promote and encourage student participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).’ You can read about it on his blog. He cycled through  Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On his stops he discussed ‘his journey to the space program, the wonders of flying in space and the need for students to realize their potential that lies within.’

Let’s find out who else is looking for John…

Where’s John?

a.k.a. “Semiliterate Bum.” Providing thoughts of dubious quality in an untimely fashion. (Sounds like Shedman…)

Where’s John Wayne?

Where’s John? 

This last ‘Where’s John?’ is about former Shuttle pilot John B. Hetherington and his bicycle tour around the USA.

He’s using Google earth to track his tour and this gets me thinking about geo-tagging again.

Ravensbourne College from the air