The more I know, the less I know

Each time I learn something I realise how many things I do not know and will never know, which makes me sad. I reckon it is the counterpart to the joy I feel when I learn new things...

Grand Theft Auto Cars and their real world couterparts (part 1)

Since I got my first copy of Grand Theft Auto in 1998 -yes, the original one, the one with the zenithal viewpoint- I’ve always tried to find resemblances between cars in the game and real world cars. Well, since now I’m hooked to the latest version of the series I’ve decided to find the resemblances between cars in the game and their real counterparts. So here goes the first lot of comparisons between them, with pictures showing them together to ease your opinion when deciding if Grand Theft Auto’s IV designers and programmers got inspired by my choices or not.

Since I’m European I don’t know much about American cars, so if anybody has suggestions please let me know and I’ll put it in one of my next posts.

Blista Compact

I had my doubts with this one, but I was sure it was a relatively old Volkswagen. I was dubious between the Corrado and the old Scirocco, but after seeing pictures of both of them I’ve finally decided that the most similar one is the Corrado.

Cavalcade

This one is a very obvious one, because Cavalcade sounds suspiciously similar to Cadillac’s pimp-mobile, the Escalade SUV. When you see the picture of both of them together the source of inspiration becomes clear.

Cavalvade FXT

And if anybody was still unconvinced about the Cavalcade-Escalade duo, here comes the irrefutable proof. The game has a pick-up version of the Cavalcade called FXT, and guess what, so does the Escalade and it is called EXT.

Patriot

And another very easy one, the monster-truckish Patriot is like a mirror image of Greenpeace’s nightmare the Hummer.

Curious Google Earth snapshots

Google Earth has supposed a revolution to how we see the world, and here you acan find a video where some strange aerial pictures displayed by the Google Earth interface. Hope you enjoy it! (it's in Spanish, but an immage is worth more than a thousand words :-) )

KML and KMZ Benchmarking

When displaying data over Google Maps using KML and KMZ files there is always the doubt of whether it is better to use one type of file or the other. KML is the standard XML type file used by Google to display data over their maps, while KMZ is a compressed KML file. Compressing a KML file dramatically reduces its size, for example in the example used to a 26.22% of the original size, helping to save the typically scarce server space. Even though, less space does not always mean faster loading times, because it is necessary to uncompress the files, which may take a long time.

In order to find out which kind of file has a better performance and is best to work with, a benchmark test was performed. Results stated that between the moment a link was clicked in Google Maps and it fully opened in Google Earth the time elapsed was a 58.19% faster when using KMZ. The technical details of the benchmark test and the shape used to do the test can be seen under these lines.

File	KML	KMZ
Number of polygons	2103
Size in KB	5.705	1.496
Relative size (%)	100	26.22
Loading time (sec)	28.94	12.1
Relative time (%)	100	41.81
Software used	Google Earth
Version	4.2.0205.5730
OS	Windows XP SP2
Processor	Intel Pentium M 1.73 MHz
RAM	1GB
Web Browser	Internet Explorer
Connection speed	2MB/sec Cable
Files hosted at	www.gisngeo.com

This is the file used to do the benchmarking: