June 28, 2005

• This looks fab. Soon as I get home this is going on my machine. ))))
• Earth™ A Google® property. ©2005 Google
• It's always fun to type in coordinates for imaginary missile strikes, and then watch as the neat-o flyby zoom effect gives you a bird's eye view of the trajectory. *madly laughing, rubbing hands methodically, crouching in corner*
• Can anyone report on how the pictures look for non-touristy areas? Especially outside the US? I'm loathe to download that Keyhole app... did that a couple of years ago and it consumed memory at such a rate that I had to restore control by shutting off the computer. Hope it's better.
• I had a professional version earlier this year, and was rather disappointed with the coverage outside of U.S. areas. Seemed like every spot I wanted to check out had the dreaded "imagery not available" stamped across it. Although, still quite a cool app worth checking out. Surely it performs better than it did two years ago.
• Reminds me of Snow Crash. I'll gladly pay for it when I can get the most up to the minute updates from all the satellites.
• Does this mean cops are going to stop harassing people taking pictures of sensitive sites? I just tried it out, it was really cool. Recommended. Thanks, Koant!
• I last used Keyhole 1 year ago and there were *way* more hi-res photos than there are now. Seriously, WTF - why can I get better looking images of Baghdad vs. Milwaukee??
• Looks pretty cool. googlemaps had already been updated earlier in the month to include non-US and Canada at very good resolution for a large number of places. (For example, my husband put together a sightseeing page (yes, that's a pseudo-self-link). This seems to have more options though, like tilting and rotation, and possibly better street maps? Just using google maps worldwide doesn't have country/street maps and so going sightseeing is a lot of experimentation and having an atlas open to try to decide exactly where along the Nile Giza is, for example.
• I last used Keyhole 1 year ago and there were *way* more hi-res photos than there are now. Seriously, WTF - why can I get better looking images of Baghdad vs. Milwaukee??
• why can I get better looking images of Baghdad vs. Milwaukee?? I think that one needs no explaining.
• Apple Macintosh computers are not supported at this time :-(
• Is the imagery better than google maps's? Also, if you knew the names of the imaging satellites, you might be able to figure out when they were taking your picture here. So you could be sure not to blink, I mean. How long before realtime digitized (and automated) surviellance of the entire world is possible? At least it might be hard to identify people from the tops of their heads.
• I downloaded Nasa's WorldView about a month ago. Those freaking Nasa scientists. I still can't figure out how it works. *sigh*
• Google maps fails to include most of Hawai'i. It only has a small part of Waikiki and a smalller part of Honolulu. Google maps has close ups of rocks in the frickin' desert, yet excludes most the population and land mass of a US state. After they expand their coverage to outside the US, maybe they could expand their coverage to the US. Does GoogleEarth include Hawai'i? I doubt it.
• I'm sure they'd cover those additional areas if you ask them. Oh, and give them some money too.
• How much do they need? Maybe I can skip eating out tomorrow night.
• Israel is missing too. Link goes to LGF.
• Does this mean they can peek in my garden and see how well, my, uhm, parley is growing?
• hey....nice parley.
• This is good.
• Link goes to LGF. Some people have depressingly short memories.
• hmmmm...so many complaints about the ABSOLUTELY FREE miracle of visualization... 1) the increased coverage of the usa is probably higher due to the higher number of web users there... 2) they are probably still loading in the higher rez images...the earth is BIG, remember? 3) satellites pass over different parts of the earth with a wide variety of different schedules (most earth imaging satellites fly at high inclinations...which means they fly across or near the poles as opposed to flying over the equator...so that as the earth turns beneath it, it traces out a track on the surface very similar to the windings of a ball of string) it can take anywhere from days to YEARS for a satellite to pass over an area 2 miles from where it just took a picture. 4) some satellites fly so that the area below is always at the same time of day...say 10am or 12 noon. and some don't. (this can make some images unusable) 5) some satellites are higher than others or are in elliptical orbits that take them higher above the earth at times, lowering the resolution... 6) access to recent satellite imagery is undoubtly draconian and/or expensive (and, hello, there's a war on...) 7) Google could give a rat's ass about you county mice who live in podunk. Move to the city and you too can see the tree in your front yard... so you see...the coverage itself is quite patchy...but, hey, you try taking photos from outer fucking space of 196,940,400 square miles (~509,600,000 square kilometers) with your logitech webcam and see how well you do....
• Sexyrobot, you're just upset because they cut off your head and blurred your friends outta the picture. Oh, and sorry about the powerlines looking like they're running up your rump.
• I'm not upset with google...(although others appear to be...it's amazing to me, modern man's capacity for complaint, truly it is) oh...and the powerlines are running up my rump.
• ...you county mice who live in podunk. Move to the city... sexyrobot, I'm talking about the city. One that is larger than Miami. The island has 800,000 people. The majority of all cities here are left off Google Maps. They have close ups of desert rocks, and you can't get much more podunk than here. Yet half a million city dwellers in a US state are left off. No, they aren't getting around to us, they've moved on. They're done with the US. But hey, it's free! Who cares that it can't perform! I could pretend I live in a smaller city where it does work! That's almost the same. I do think your implication that Hawai'i is a warzone is pretty funny. Where do you live? 1941?
• Shutup, complainers.
• interesting, but it did not let me download it. is it limited by invite only, like gmail was? i want it, darn it.
• What is this NASA WorldView thing? And how would I even find out which satellite is capable of viewing Louisville, KY, let alone use it to set up a missile strike on my house?
• Mr. Knickerbocker, that Google thing is way outdated: it doesn't show the new UofL baseball stadium, for one thing.
• Oh, and going Google's photos, one couldn't use their coordinates for calling in an air strike on my sister's house -- it'd hit her next-door neighbors' instead. Thus Google is not a very reliable targeting resource. Who's got a decent security clearance? [Note to Homeland Security: look up the word "joke". (And yes, fellow Monkeys, I have looked up "paranoia".)]
• Link goes to LGF WTF? Feel like changing your user name again jerry?
• Images from Google Earth are being enrolled in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett. In a bid to help searchers focus their efforts, Google released up-to-date images of Nevada for the search giant's Google Earth software.
• Also, if you knew the names of the imaging satellites, you might be able to figure out when they were taking your picture here. So you could be sure not to blink, I mean. Stripe: I did my calculations, and stood outside with my pants hanging, but I never did see the moon. Or should I have done that on Google Universe?