SearchResearchers!
You're doing great! But I'm going to let this Challenge run over the weekend so you'll have a bit more time to do the analysis. (There's a lot more that can be done with this data.)
Once imported, it should look something like this:
As you quickly noticed, this is a KML file, which is the native file format for Google Earth, but which can be used by other products as well. A query like:
[ KML apps ]
quickly shows a bunch of applications that can be used to inspect or view the contents of the file.
Here's the KML file for you: http://dmrussell.net/data/history-11-22-2014.kml
I want to recommend one in particular to you: Google Maps Engine.
With Google Maps Engine (now called "My Maps")
Just this week, the Maps Engine/My Maps tool got a serious upgrade. You can now have up to 10 layers in your maps, import spreadsheets or CSV files with up to 2,000 addresses per layer. You can then share publicly and embed on your site and easily support up to 25,000 times per day.
Most importantly, for this Challenge, you can import a KML file.
In this case, I "Create a new map" and then import the KML file...
Once imported, it should look something like this:
Here, I've zoomed way in, and changed the style of the trace to be thinner and red...
And now, given this big hint... What else can you figure out?
As Fred asked in the comments, yes, this person (well, me) went to the Costanoa Lodge (just south of Half Moon Bay), and as Mihai discovered, this person also went to the Carolina Inn.
Now, HOW did you find that out? What properties of the KML file led you to that conclusion?
What ELSE can you find out?
(And, just to rest your worries, I always turn off the phone on the plane....)
Search on!
I have had some ideas I’m not familiar with my new laptop so I’m struggling to find my way around. However I wanted to share my ideas. We have a huge file and to isolate locations, events, or activities is drudgery from the data file. So I think we need to break the data file into smaller files perhaps by date or perhaps by the amount of movement occurring. That means recreating smaller kml files but can it be done simply? Hmmm? Perhaps we keep the beginning code for the kml file and the ending (or copy & paste) then just select dates or portions of dates & coordinates we want for each file. Hmmm? If possible, then in “My Maps” save each file on a separate layer up to maximum 10 layers which I believe is the limit. I may have another go at this idea. Just not sure it’s possible or is there a simple way?
ReplyDeleteHave a look at this shared page which has two images from Google Earth.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XgcUlZr2qeEeP91NeeFjw-aDIUHiTqNERFFElmBz7H4/edit?usp=sharing
The first image shows the time line for the kml file for Nov 22 to Nov 29th. I’ve just uploaded the kml file and the “Navigator” button is on for this file on in Google Earth. If you look at the second image you’ll see that the phone/person is on Nov 26th at 5:43 pm on the trail near Costonoa Lodge and I believe he’s running because the trail is just under 4 kms in length. With patience it is possible to follow the tracking throughout the time period. I may do some more tracking but it’s what I’ve done so far.
Another bit of tracking. I am puzzled by your activity from the night of the 25th around 9:00 pm until the 27th at about 7:00 a.m. Most tracking was easy enough, Ramona Street to Googleplex, stop by Home Depot, visit Peet’s Coffee Shop or possibly Al’s Barber Shop or Cravery and I think a trip to the dentist (Dr. Jones perhaps). But when you arrived near Santa Cruz on the night of 25th on the Cabrillo Highway or nearby, you seem to be on the go throughout the night, back and forth many times (or at least your phone was). Were you in some sort of all-night event?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the "strange activity" mentioned by Rosemary, this resumes to a point in the middle of nowhere to where the track comes back often. You can see that point on this Fred Delventhal's document.
ReplyDeleteI've checked it on the San Mateo County GIS. All I get is that it is on the margins of the Yankee Jim Gulch creek, on a vacant land. Assuming a GPS maximum error of 10 meters, its access is not impossible but it's surely extravagant.
County GIS (checked the most recent aerial, from 2005): http://maps.smcgov.org/planning
Assessor map and property details: http://bit.ly/YJGprop
Since the point is exactly the same a lot of times, it must be some kind of glitch on Location History instead of some fishing refuge.
My next step was searching [ google latitude | "location history" errors ]. The first result is a question answered on Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange, "Google Maps Location History is showing an incorrect location". Among the very informative answers, there's a quote of Google's Location Source and Accuracy page claiming that the location data sources which may be used to derive location are GPS, WiFi and Cell Towers.
Turns out that the quoted page has been updated. Data sources now include also your smartphone's accelerometer, compass, gyroscope and barometer. Plus, Apple Location Services if you have iOS (Dan uses Android probably).
WiFi is unlikely to be the cause of that point showing up (in such a remote area) so I decided to look for cell towers there. After trying a dozen websites, the best one I found was undoubtedly Antenna Search. No luck there though. The nearest antenna seems to be on the lighthouse 4,800 ft (1.5 km) to the South.
Q&A on Android Enthusiasts
Google Help on accuracy
Antenna Search
According to this three year old Don Barker's blog post, "many of [Google's] cell ID records may be not only inaccurate, but totally bogus."
It makes sense that this particular point might be a case of Location History turning to tower ID for lack of better info and this particular tower (the lighthouse's?) having deficient data on Google's records.
Unfortunately I don't know of any way to check on other user's accuracy circle (mine are available just for me and not exported in the kml). That could possibly help to figure this out.
More stuff to find out: The thin red line is much easier to follow than the fat blue GE line which shows all the same details plus altitude and speed.
ReplyDeleteStrava and My Map show a nice red line at Costanoa Wednesday November 26 4.23 pm you finished a 4,9 km run
Nov 27 Afternoon ride pre Thanksgiving posted at 1.51 to Strava, 13,9 km Pinewood Derby: Fremont from Concepcion to Weston PR
4:23 PM on Friday, November 28, 2014
Afternoon Run late afternoon. Around home
4:24 PM on Sunday, November 30, 2014
Afternoon Run short
3:45 PM on Sunday, November 23, 2014
Afternoon Ride slow, LAH
Slowish ride thru the hills. Late afternoon
Latitude adds more details
There is a lot of redline activity around a certain home on Ramona St.
Lots of activity around the plex
And the end on Grove Ln.
Change to Satellite view.
And Streetview where I see that of all the license plates in the world that are blurred out one in the Ramona street property driveway [yours?] is not fuzzed. LMWL594 on white car. SearchQuarry has it listed but needs $2.95 to spit it out.
Santa Clara city data associates you with this house at 3419 Ramona
There is a black Honda in the drive and a white one outfront that shows up in streetview and MAps satellite view.
Your phone puts on a lot of miles in your backyard, If this is your house. Did you ducktape your phonw to your dog ?
That's it for me for now
jon tU
I am still focused on the back & forth timestamps of your phone in the Año Nuevo/Monterey Bay area Nov 25-27th. Could it be just a fluke with a nearby celltower? Possible. I checked the moon phases to see how much light you would have had and it wasn't a full moon. Checking tides didn't enlighten me either. Were you actually out on the water during the night? I did find that in the month of November the whale & dolphin sightings are amazing but in the dark, I don't think so. I did find that there is a parade of boats decorated with lights & that they have occurred during that time period. I also thought about a 24/72 hour eco-adventure race which could involve kayaking as well as on land activities. That didn't seem likely since you went for a run in the late afternoon of the 27th. Nope no definitive answer & not even sure this is where my focus should have been.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know how you used Latitude since it no longer is available as Fred pointed out. How did you save a week's worth of data? Did you just leave navigation tracking on? Phones usually would use up a lot of battery power if tracking left on. Where did you download the file to? Perhaps you'll have already compiled your part two with these topics but just in case.
ReplyDeleteI got some help from Ramón regarding Google Maps Location History. I had forgotten some things in Google Maps in part because Chromebook didn’t handle Google Maps that well & didn’t even run Google Earth. So I have some catching up to do because I skimmed over map related challenges. Anyway I see now how the data file was obtained. I tested it by running a 7 day tracking of my routes. See my shared document for results.
Deletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1PV5l7dZjHEl0JIftiP53o-agymIO_XKNNhJP6KEBuxs/edit?usp=sharing
Most of the locations are incorrect. You can see the most southern point is a hub of signals but that is Google showing my home 40 kms south of where actually is (I advised them a few months ago). So I now realize how this tool doesn’t necessarily give accurate readings. All those signals bouncing off in Dr. Dan’s data file in Costonoa Lodge area are likely the same thing.
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DeleteThanks to you, Rosemary for sharing with us. My location history mostly is correct. Only a few time make a shortcut connecting dots and that is fine, because it is just a guidance. I think that location is very useful.
DeleteJohn tU, thanks for sharing another way to look the file.
I tried to add the file on my tracks and figure out how app works. Once a friend shared something in the other file type that app runs (kmz) and looks amazing.
Good week everyone
ReplyDeleteI sent this in already but It seems to be lost or left off
More stuff to find out: The thin red line is much easier to follow than the fat blue GE line which shows all the same details plus altitude and speed.
Strava and My Map show a nice red line at Costanoa Wednesday November 26 4.23 pm you finished a 4,9 km run
Nov 27 Afternoon ride pre Thanksgiving posted at 1.51 to Strava, 13,9 km Pinewood Derby: Fremont from Concepcion to Weston PR
4:23 PM on Friday, November 28, 2014
Afternoon Run late afternoon. Around home
4:24 PM on Sunday, November 30, 2014
Afternoon Run short
3:45 PM on Sunday, November 23, 2014
Afternoon Ride slow, LAH
Slowish ride thru the hills. Late afternoon
Latitude adds more details
There is a lot of redline activity around a certain home on Ramona St.
Lots of activity around the plex
And the end on Grove Ln.
Change to Satellite view.
And Streetview where I see that of all the license plates in the world that are blurred out one in the Ramona street property driveway [yours?] is not fuzzed. LMWL594 on white car. SearchQuarry has it listed but needs $2.95 to spit it out.
Santa Clara city data associates you with this house at 3419 Ramona
There is a black Honda in the drive and a white one outfront that shows up in streetview and MAps satellite view.
Your phone puts on a lot of miles in your backyard, If this is your house. Did you ducktape your phonw to your dog ?
That's it for me for now
jon tU
Jon, My Map is another app? The street view was also on strava? Finding all that detail is wonderful.
DeleteI tried searching another information but don't have an idea about what can be found. Looking forward for answer part 2.
ReplyDeleteI sent this in already but It seems to be lost or left off
More stuff to find out: The thin red line is much easier to follow than the fat blue GE line which shows all the same details plus altitude and speed.
Strava and My Map show a nice red line at Costanoa Wednesday November 26 4.23 pm you finished a 4,9 km run
Nov 27 Afternoon ride pre Thanksgiving posted at 1.51 to Strava, 13,9 km Pinewood Derby: Fremont from Concepcion to Weston PR
4:23 PM on Friday, November 28, 2014
Afternoon Run late afternoon. Around home
4:24 PM on Sunday, November 30, 2014
Afternoon Run short
3:45 PM on Sunday, November 23, 2014
Afternoon Ride slow, LAH
Slowish ride thru the hills. Late afternoon
Latitude adds more details
There is a lot of redline activity around a certain home on Ramona St.
Lots of activity around the plex
And the end on Grove Ln.
Change to Satellite view.
And Streetview where I see that of all the license plates in the world that are blurred out one in the Ramona street property driveway [yours?] is not fuzzed. LMWL594 on white car. SearchQuarry has it listed but needs $2.95 to spit it out.
Santa Clara city data associates you with this house at 3419 Ramona
There is a black Honda in the drive and a white one outfront that shows up in streetview and MAps satellite view.
Your phone puts on a lot of miles in your backyard, If this is your house. Did you ducktape your phonw to your dog ?
That's it for me for now
jon tU
ReplyDeleteI sent this in already but It seems to be lost or left off
More stuff to find out: The thin red line is much easier to follow than the fat blue GE line which shows all the same details plus altitude and speed.
Strava and My Map show a nice red line at Costanoa Wednesday November 26 4.23 pm you finished a 4,9 km run
Nov 27 Afternoon ride pre Thanksgiving posted at 1.51 to Strava, 13,9 km Pinewood Derby: Fremont from Concepcion to Weston PR
4:23 PM on Friday, November 28, 2014
Afternoon Run late afternoon. Around home
4:24 PM on Sunday, November 30, 2014
Afternoon Run short
3:45 PM on Sunday, November 23, 2014
Afternoon Ride slow, LAH
Slowish ride thru the hills. Late afternoon
Latitude adds more details
There is a lot of redline activity around a certain home on Ramona St.
Lots of activity around the plex
And the end on Grove Ln.
Change to Satellite view.
And Streetview where I see that of all the license plates in the world that are blurred out one in the Ramona street property driveway [yours?] is not fuzzed. LMWL594 on white car. SearchQuarry has it listed but needs $2.95 to spit it out.
Santa Clara city data associates you with this house at 3419 Ramona
There is a black Honda in the drive and a white one outfront that shows up in streetview and MAps satellite view.
Your phone puts on a lot of miles in your backyard, If this is your house. Did you ducktape your phonw to your dog ?
That's it for me for now
jon tU
s
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