Google Archives

Did Google Streetview capture a ghost on camera?

February 14, 2016 by Andrew 1 Comment

A man browsing Google’s Streetview has found a demonic face appearing out of a window in the Walton area of Liverpool.

I was looking on Google Street View to find a fish and chip shop in Walton, and I came across The Stuart Hotel.

Something in the top left hand window caught my eye. It looks like a ghostly image of an evil-looking face.

While In Pure Spirit can’t find the original tweet pictures of the ghost-like face are available.

Tom Slemen, a paranormal researcher with experience of Liverpool, confirmed to the paper that The Stuart Hotel is believed to be haunted but wouldn’t vouch for the authenticity of the faces.

According to Slemen one paranormal occurrence in the hotel dates back to 1897 when a scratching noise was heard in the cellar. To begin with the sound was dismissed as being a rat or mice but it became louder and louder. Eventually the neighbours could hear it as well.

Three days later the whole building was shaking to such a degree that the pub windows were left open in case the vibrations shattered the class. After that the noise stopped but a regular drinker knocked three times on the cellar wall and received three knocks back in response. That was enough for the noise to start again. Eventually a priest from St Mary’s Church left a Bible in the cellar and the noise stopped for good.

IPS is unable to confirm whether the Bible is still in The Stuart Hotel.

Do you think this is a picture of a ghost

In Pure Spirit

Are you from Liverpool? Are there any haunted pubs or hotels that you know about?

How to summon up the formula for romance in Google

February 15, 2013 by Andrew Leave a Comment

If your web browser is capable of drawing 3G objects then it is possible to summon up a lovely romantic heart from Google.

This isn’t really a heart. It’s a graph that looks like a heart. If you’re curious the formula to make this graph is this;

5+?(-sqrt(?1-?x^?2-?(y-?abs(?x))^?2))*?cos(?30*?(1-?x^?2-?(y-?abs(?x))^?2))

Look like hard work? You can just skip to the end with this search here.

In Pure Spirit

Have you shown this romantic heart to anyone? What was their reaction?

Is the internet dirty or green?

July 13, 2011 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Patrick Clair as produced a fantastic video which asks; “How Green is your internet?” and in it people may discover the web is browner than they thought.

Apple and Facebook are two villians in the piece. Google and Yahoo are two of the best. In particular, Google is trying to be carbon neutral, has set up Google Energy to invest millions in green energy – including $20m on high altitute kites that harvest wind power.

In Pure Spirit

Are you surprised by the video? Do you doubt it?

Where can you see tonight’s blood moon?

June 15, 2011 by Andrew 2 Comments

There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight. The eclipse – which is expected to produce a blood moon – starts at about 6.24pm BST or 11:20am PDT – will be one of the longest since 2000. It’s expected to last for 100 minutes.

There’s more than one catch. There might be clouds. The event starts before moonrise for most of Europe. In other parts of the world it will not be visible at all.

However, an unlikely partnership has stepped forward that will let you witness the total lunar eclipse, blood moon and all, from anywhere in the world. Google has partnered with the brains behind the Slooh Space camera. This means you can watch the Google’s blood moon from a live stream on YouTube, from Google Earth (if you’re happy to download and apply this kml file) and even from your Android phone if you install the Sloosh Space Camera app.

This video shows what a blood moon looks like and how it’s formed. It’s a real incentive to try and watch one form in real time.

In Pure Spirit

Are you doing anything to mark the blood moon and total lunar eclipse? What does a total lunar eclipse mean to you?

Green Google: The Hamina data centre in Finland

May 26, 2011 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Google tries to be green. The company is certainly investing a lot in green energy – although part of this is commerical wisdom; Google consumes a lot of energy and traditional prices will only rise.

Data centres are big factory like buildings which house all the computer servers companies like Google, Yahoo and AOL use. It’s big business. After the video from Google about their Hamina efforts there’s a data centre infographic that might help put some of this into perspective.

Samsung Green Memory

October 6, 2010 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Samsung are keen to keep the focus on their green efforts. In fact, they’ve a whole sub-brand called Samsung Green Memory.

How is memory green? Samsung’s point is that memory which uses less power is greener. Of course, this isn’t really a big number for people off the street but when you’re talking about companies buying thousands of PCs for staff or really big, chunky, hot running servers then it starts to add up. Did you know that Google tends to build their server farms next to power supplies these days because their servers at up that much energy? That’s why the search engine has been signing green power purchasing agreements.

Samsung even have a site that shows businesses with lots of systems how much money they can save by going green/saving power.

I rather like their PC wallpapers too, which you can find here, this like this.

Google signs green Power Purchase Agreement

July 20, 2010 by Andrew Leave a Comment

: Image by Conor Dupre-Neary via Flickr

Today has some good news for Mother Earth. Google, the search and ads site, has been trying to be carbon neutral since 2007. Today they’ve signed a big deal – a 20-year deal, in fact – on green Power Purchasing.

Come July 30th they’ll be buying clean energy from the wind farm at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility. That’s 114 megawatts of clean energy. What Google has wisely done is agreed a 20 year price for that energy.

That long purchase means the developer has financial security. They’ll be getting cash from Google for 20 years. That’ll allow the developer to build more clean energy projects.

I’m sure Google won’t mind having to wonder what the energy price will be like in 20 years either – although, I very much doubt this windfarm deal covers anything even close to the energy Google consumes all around the world. Google says it’s enough energy to supply several of its data centres.

It’s worth noting that Google still buys carbon offsets, trying to account for those emissions they can’t find away to avoid. Carbon offsetting has become far less popular in recent years with companies like Responsible Travel suggesting it doesn’t work.

In Pure Spirit

Is this a good, green and clean move from Google? Or do you think there’s a small of PR about this? Can it be both at the same time? Let us know what you think.