Posted by Florian Wardell | 2 comments
The best of Google Earth
I love Google Earth. In fact, I think it’s one of Google’s best products. The idea that the whole earth, our entire planet can be contained in a giant snapshot is really awe inspiring: The Earth in suspended animation. Google Earth can be used for so many things, it’s hard to give it just one purpose. You can measure distances, use street view to find places that would be photographically interesting, read reviews posted by other users, and even use the built in flight simulator to roam around the photorealistic scenery. I’m sure all of you have looked up your house, places you have visited, and looked at the world’s famous monuments and places. Google Earth, thanks its cross platform compatibility and its many derived services (Google maps, StreetView, Google Moon/Mars) has managed to grow a truly phenomenal user community. Entire blogs and forums are dedicated to finding beautiful, strange interesting things on Google Earth. Most of them can feature up 10,000 entries (some of which have by now been deleted by Google), which is why I decided to compile the most interesting and mindbogglingly awesome places I’ve stumbled upon in this post. The maps are directly embedded, which means you can zoom in/out freely and navigate. Enjoy!
Yes. I wrote this post on Firefox. And I dare anyone to find an IE cropmark.
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This is what happens when God mistakes airplanes for flies.
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This a Chinese military facility in northern China. Damn right you should be scared.
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I don’t know about you, but trying to understand the perspective in this picture makes me want to puke.
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We all love Oprah, but someone in Arizona has serious issues.
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I love coincidences.
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The UTA772 Memorial, in the Sahara, Niger. The DC-10 exploded while airborne on September 19th, 1989 because of a bomb, killing everyone on board.
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Thank God I didn’t have to drive here to pass my driving license test.
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Yup, it’s supposed to be art.
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A wildlife orgy. One of my favorites.
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How can you not love aircraft noise?
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Camels. Wait, do they have one or two bumps?
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Probably the most beautiful thing on Google Earth. I’m sorry, but this easily beats Mars’ face.
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Don’t worry, they weren’t really that close. Safety regulations impose a distance of 3 minutes between medium and 5 minutes between heavy airliners because of wake turbulence. Google just had some layer issues.
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Yes, we are planning on pursuing a similar marketing campaign with TechHaze.
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This makes me a little sad. But if you look carefully, you can see Adam Savage of Mythbusters cutting a 707 in half to test explosive decompression.
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Some big dude got buried alive.
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Chess, anyone?
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Finding airborne aircrafts on Google Earth is easy. Just go to any major airport. Finding aircrafts performing in-flight refueling, however, is awesome.
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Please tell me you see it too. Because if you don’t, there’s something seriously wrong with me.
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This is just a selction of weird stuff you can see on Google Earth. Have we missed something? Is there a cool location that you have discovered? Have you visited any of these places? Share it with us in the comments section!
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