trails

Bikehugger has a cool video showing the basics of Google’s new bicycling directions for Google Maps. Biggest thing to keep in mind is that, with it being a beta, be sure to sanity-check the directions before sallying forth.

Taking a more local example to me, going from downtown Redlands to downtown Riverside:

View Larger Map

It’s cool to start with, heading out Barton Road, and it’s making for the Santa Ana River Trail like it should, but it makes a right turn on Waterman and heads north to the cycling path trailhead off Hospitality Lane in San Bernardino. What it should do in this case is just keep going west and get onto the SART in the Cooley Ranch/Colton area.

Still, it’s exciting to see Cycling get its (preliminary) due on Google Maps, along with “Walking” and “Public Transit.”

Now we just need “Hiking.” :D

While my gray matter continues to flow out my nose (a cold has slammed me not unlike the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, which is said to be like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick), enjoy these fine links:

Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox - Image from Wikipedia

The Open Sourcerer: “How to remove Mono from Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala”

Anyhow, my personal opinion of Mono hasn’t changed much. There are no Mono applications in Ubuntu that make me go weak at the knees and get all excited[…]

In the latest, shiniest, bestest, release of Ubuntu to date, and it really is a cracking release, the desktop version of Karmic Koala (version 9.10) contains two Mono dependent applications in the default install along with the Mono VM and associated libraries etc.

Now, this time, we have 3 ways to go Mono free[…]

BLAFS: “Tomboy to Zim notes conversion” (Via Zim extras page.)

The script provided here is useful if you for some reason would like to convert your Tomboy notes to a set of notes for the similar Zim application. Both are desktop wiki style note taking applications. While Tomboy uses the Mono framework, Zim uses Perl and is in general considered to be leaner on resources than Tomboy.

This small python script converts notes written by the Tomboy application to notes for the Zim application. It does most of the work of conversion but some Tomboy formatting does not exists in Zim and is hence stripped of the notes (different text sizes, fixed width). Nested bullet lists in Tomboy is converted to a flat bullet list in Zim. Besides this the script does a descent conversion job, I think.

NY Times: “Hiking History: England’s Ancient Ridgeway Trail”

The Ridgeway is the oldest continuously used road in Europe, dating back to the Stone Age. Situated in southern England, built by our Neolithic ancestors, it’s at least 5,000 years old, and may even have existed when England was still connected to continental Europe, and the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine.

LA Times: “Physician convicted in cycling case”

A physician accused of deliberately injuring two cyclists by slamming on his car’s brakes on a narrow Brentwood road last year was convicted Monday of assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem and other serious criminal charges.

The three-week trial of Dr. Christopher Thompson drew close attention from cyclists, many of whom viewed the case as a test of the justice system’s commitment to protecting cyclists.

They’re calling it a “Hiking Wiki,” but there’s a lot more to the Sierra Club’s new sierraclubtrails.org website. In addition to the wiki enabling you to find and report on cool local hikes, you’ll find:

Tips for hikers, a birding blog, photo contests, and Nature Notes, a series of audio features based on interviews with naturalists and Sierra Club Outings leaders. Sierra Club Trails is also an online community where users can create profiles and meet other hikers and nature-lovers, as well as join discussion forums with topics like the best trail mix recipe or whether guns should be allowed in national parks. Community members can form groups around a particular outdoor interest or place.

Sounds pretty spiffy to me, and the site looks cool as well. The wiki concept seems to be a natural fit for grassroots outdoor reporting, and with the prevalence of iPhones and other handheld computers, that communication can often take place while you’re out and about — I can foresee a quick check while in the car or at the trailhead. Assuming of course you’re not looking to get away from technology while you’re on the trail. ;)

Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club had this to say:

“Over a hundred years ago, Sierra Club founder John Muir understood that once people experience the beauty of these places, they will be motivated to preserve our natural heritage for future generations. We’re taking that idea into the 21st century with this new technology.”

I should point out it’s also meant for cyclists and kayakers, so feel free to visit if you’re in one or all of those groups. :) Check it out!

The ever-awesome Internet Archive is hosting a collection of 50,000 USGS maps! How cool is that? And they’re nice resolution TIFF files that you could crop or print for your hikes as desired.

• Collections index of the 50 states
• California index
• All California items, sorted by date added (2,800+ items, 50 items per page)

One tip — use the string “collection:usgs_ca” (minus the quotes) in the search form, and then add any other terms, like say san gorgonio to look for individual maps.

Via the IA collections team’s post “Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me a Map”.

LAist has the story on a missing 22-mile trail in Los Angeles:

It was back in 1992 when the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan went into effect, setting course for the city of Los Angeles to preserve the historic 1924 drive through a set of land use regulations and improvements. Among those was the Core Trail, some 22 miles in length, roughly from near the Hollywood Bowl to Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Approaching 20 years since it became law, some are wondering why nothing has been done.

Continue at “What Happened to Los Angeles’ 22-Mile Hiking Trail?”