Volume 28 · Number 2 · Winter 2011
End Notes
Putting UC Davis on the map
A little guy named “Pegman” pedaled his grown-up tricycle all over the Davis campus recently, taking pictures. Lots of pictures.
Pegman is the nickname that Google has given its icon for Street View on Google maps. Within a few months, you should be able to drag Pegman to various points on the Google map of the campus — and see a 360-degree panoramic view, as provided by the Google trike’s nine directional cameras.
Street View already includes some of the roads around the central campus — right up to the gates. On Nov. 5, with the university’s permission, a Google trike crew came inside to cover much of the rest of the campus — all around the Quad, for example, plus bike and pedestrian paths, the arboretum and Aggie Stadium (around the concourse and up and down the field).
“I’m glad I was able to help Google put
UC Davis on the map,” joked Doane Nguyen, an operations lead for Google, who was in charge of logistics for the trike crew’s visit. In fact, he doesn’t need any help finding his way around UC Davis — he went to school here (graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history in 2008), and worked as a Unitrans driver and route supervisor.
Google launched Street View in 2007, and only recently set about visiting college campuses — and had not been to a UC campus before coming to Davis. “It’s a great way for future students to see the campus, if they can’t visit before applying,” Nguyen said.
Google made another intersection with UC Davis this fall when it marked its 12th anniversary with a special logo — a birthday cake painted by artist and Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud.
By the numbers
What did it take for UC Davis to host a debate between Democrat Gov.-Elect Jerry Brown and Republican opponent Meg Whitman this fall — the first-ever gubernatorial debate on the campus? The answer can be found in the numbers:
- 608 million estimated combined audience for debate coverage in media outlets around the world
- 2 million estimated viewers who watched the debate on television
- 952 seats available in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center where the debate took place
- 240 feet of heavy rubber covers to protect TV cables
- 105 workspaces in the media “spin” room
- 22 radio stations broadcasting the debate across the state
- 18 TV production trucks
- 11 outdoor TV location set-ups for live reports
- 8 UC Davis experts available to the media to comment on the 2010 elections
- 3 COWs: cellular-on-wheels trucks and trailers with portable antennas, to provide enhanced phone coverage
- 1 bomb sweep of the Mondavi Center with the use of bomb-sniffing dogs
(Wayne Tilcock photo)
A little football between friends
OK, so UC Davis lost that historic rematch with UC Berkeley, 52–3, this past fall — their first football game in 71 years. But at least Gunrock won over some Cal fans at Memorial Stadium. The Aggie fans in the stands included 92-year-old Les Heringer ’40, “disappointed” by the loss but still happy to see the Aggies play again where he played in 1939.