April 17, 2005
Too bad it's not live...
There are quite a number of things viewable through GoogleMaps that make one wonder if this is really such a good idea...
First, we have a mothballed aircraft carrier docked on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, PA. The ship is probably the USS America, which was decomissioned in 1996, and is to be scrapped whenever the Navy gets around to it. The USS Forrestal and USS Saratoga are both docked in Newport, RI, at the Naval Academy.
These on the other hand, are active Nimitz-class carriers based in Norfolk, VA. Looking at the ships from satellite lets you know just how damned big the things are. For comparison, here's a shot of the Empire State building at the same zoom level. They're two city blocks long.
Then we've got the FBI building (it's the marked one), with some bonus shots of a few of the Smithsonian museums (from L to R, American History, Natural History, and the west tip of the National Gallery). You will notice, however, the the roofs of the White House and its adjoining office buildings have been conveniently blanked out.
Elsewhere, there's US Air Force Academy with its distinctive chapel to the left of the image. And the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech, the research facility at Oak Ridge, TN, the entrance to NORAD, and a row of C5-A cargo planes at Dover AFB.
All of this is freaking cool, but one wonders if having this kind of information available to the general public is an entirely wise thing.
hehe....I see that you've been having as much fun as I have been with the satelite images! Yesterday I spent at least an hour, if not more just surfing around the maps (I really like how you can just click and drag the map as you browse!) I was looking at Philly and I noticed the carriers too, and was surprised! I certainly didn't look at all at all those cool sites though that you did. If you find anymore, make sure to post them, because they're freaking cool! As for me, well, the best thing that I found that made me excited was the fact that the corn maze along 743 at Adventure Sports, is actually made to resemble two race cars: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=hershey,pa&ll=40.237405,-76.623051&spn=0.005053,0.007918&t=k&hl=en Quite good race cars, I might add too. Very talented! At first I thought I was seeing things when I browsed by it. Hehe. But not as cool as the blanked out White House, the laboratory, the planes, and the entrance to NORAD.
Do you have any idea why random areas are fairly blurry, as well as different colors (ie much greener)? Do you think it's just because they haven't archived zoomed pictures of those areas yet? Any idea when these images were taken? I also wonder how they went about taking them....some places, particularly the cities, there are mad shadows casted. Sometimes, it's hard even to see objects because of the shadows. And where did Google get these images? Do they have their own satellite up there?
Also, it'd be really freaking interesting if they eventually archived the entire globe (again, of course, maybe not the SMARTEST thing...but really cool nonetheless!) I zoomed out from the US and then browsed my way over to Europe as well as South America. I could zoom in close enough that I couldn't tell where I specifically was anymore, but I was still miles away and not close enough to able to see any sign of civilizations. But that'd be amazing to be able to view anywhere in the world!
Well, meanwhile, how about we browse through the entire western half of the US, and see what kind of sketchy buildings and sites we find. =) what do you say!?
Posted by: Ryan Musser at April 18, 2005 12:15 AMOh yea, this also adds an entire new spin on "exploring". Now Dave, Ben, Colby and I can view an area of woods, fields, etc, until we find something that looks cool and promising, and then go check it out! Wahoo!
Posted by: Ryan Musser at April 18, 2005 12:17 AMIt actually has to do with the fact that these are composite images, and they've used data from dozens of different passes at varying times of year, and possibly even different satellites. To get an idea of how this works, check out this. Witness the unbearable bleakness that is New Jersey, aka "the parking lot". As they don't have high-res images for every area (your house, for instance), you can't zoom in all the way everywhere.
Google works with a company called Keyhole to get their images. You can read more about the technical side of things there.
I'm thinking that one reason they don't have hardly any resolution overseas is that dealing with your own government is bad enough; dealing with foreign governments is just a nightmare.
Posted by: ryan at April 18, 2005 12:59 AMIf you go to the FBI building and pan to the east a few blocks you'll notice that the Capitol building & surrounding congressional office buildings are blurred, but then the Pentagon (a bit to the west) is faithfully represented. Interesting.
Posted by: justin at April 18, 2005 11:01 AM