EclectEcon

Nearly a year ago, I started playing around with Google Earth, a fascinating programme that allows one to view different portions of the earth from different perspectives (thanks to Duncan, who introduced me to geocaching and many programmes like Google Earth that are strong complements). One of the really neat things I could do was upload the route of one of my treks through the Yorkshire Dales (the route was saved on a hand-held GPS), and then show Ms. Eclectic where I'd been and what I'd seen. I could even show her the view from where I sat on a hillside and called her to exclaim about the beauty of the Dales.

A few months ago, Google Earth was expanded to include Google Sky, a programme designed for exploring the skies. And now Worldwide Telescope, in conjunction with Microsoft, has brought out WWT, an amazing programme for astronomical dabblings. From the NYTimes,

There may be no space war between Microsoft and Google, but their offerings reflect their different cultures. The WorldWide Telescope results from careful planning and lengthy development in a research division. It has the richer graphics and it created special software to present the images of spherical space objects with less polar distortion. WorldWide Telescope requires downloading a hefty piece of software, and it runs only on Microsoft Windows.

Google Sky started as a Google “20 percent” project, in which engineers can spend time on anything they choose. Google Earth, where Google Sky began, requires a software download, but its Web-based version, which came out in March, does not. The Google culture encourages engineers to put new things onto the Internet quickly and keep improving them, a philosophy geared to constant evolution instead of finished products.

Both programmes require some experience with them to understand how they work. As usual, Google pretty much says "do what you want" but has fewer features; and Microsoft says, "do it our way" with many more features; and the tradeoff between the two approaches makes the choice difficult. So I play with both