veni, vidi, venti

I went back to Providence this weekend. It's comforting to know some important places haven't changed. Others places, of course, have been adorned with a giant donkey painting. Time marches on.

Glorfindel's grateful for the nostalgic goodness of www.starbuckseverywhere.net site (it's where I got the link to the Thayer Street Starbucks, above). It reminds me of the Degree Confluence Project, the goal of which is to collect photos of every land-based round-number intersection of latitude and longitude. Desert, jungle, mountain, suburb -- they're making undeniable progress.

Virtual tours of popular locations have been around for a while. On the other extreme, the TerraServer's been around for years, as well, giving a satellite's eye view of every place in the world.

But the warm fuzzies of a special memory don't come from a bird's eye view or a virtual college tour. Through the concerted action of smart mobs, we're getting closer to the day when we'll have an indexed, street-level view of every block, every store, every dorm. Even later, perhaps, a chronological view -- so we can fondly remember Thayer Street before the donkey.