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Earth Oddities Seen In Google Maps / Earth / Street View

I'd rather live in a green smudge than an urban high-rise with a Google satellite staring through my window
 
crunchy5 said:
Peripart said:
liveinabin1 said:
Here is where I stayed on holiday last year.
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I must be a bit slow - what are we looking for there?
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Zoom out, it's Japan. Ta for the facility liveinbin1.
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Sorry for not being clear - I can see it's Japan, and it's a great facility, up there with Google Earth itself (although when I panned around the world to where I live, the pictures are at least 5 years old).

No, what I meant was that, since this was posted in General Forteana under "Weirdness caught on Google Earth", I was straining my eyes for something, well, weird. Never mind - it's just that I wouldn't normally post my holiday snaps under General Forteana. Apart from that nasty incident with the Chupacabras and the breakfast buffet, of course, and the time the Loch Ness Monster stole my trainers, but those photos are a bit too blurry to stick here.
 
Sorry. I realise now that an aerial shot of the Ryokan I stayed in doesn't really come under weirdness.

I was just a bit please with myself for managing to find it and wanted to share.
 
liveinabin1 said:
Sorry. I realise now that an aerial shot of the Ryokan I stayed in doesn't really come under weirdness.

I was just a bit please with myself for managing to find it and wanted to share.
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No probs at all - I was just feeling a little silly looking for something that wasn't there, wondering if everyone else could see it and not me!

Anyway, why does Japan have the world's second largest Buddha? How big is Buddhism there?
 
Peripart said:
liveinabin1 said:
Sorry. I realise now that an aerial shot of the Ryokan I stayed in doesn't really come under weirdness.

I was just a bit please with myself for managing to find it and wanted to share.
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No probs at all - I was just feeling a little silly looking for something that wasn't there, wondering if everyone else could see it and not me!

Anyway, why does Japan have the world's second largest Buddha? How big is Buddhism there?
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It's the national religion.
 
liveinabin1 said:
Peripart said:
Anyway, why does Japan have the world's second largest Buddha? How big is Buddhism there?
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It's the national religion.
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Yes, my mistake - I was thinking Japan was mainly Shinto, but on further reading, it seems that a lot of Japanese consider themselves to be followers of Shinto and Buddhism.
 
Well, Japan is weird in the way that each person might be the follower of three or more different religions. Which seems to be to ensure that people don´t stop believing in the divinity of the emperor, when they become christian or so.
And I think quite a lot of places lay claim to having the largest or second largest Buddha statues.
 
IamSundog said:
Eh?

Zoom out!
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One of the CIA's high-resolution shots got mixed in here by accident.

How did you find this????
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There's a trick you can do with the Google Map's 'Z' coordinate in the URL. You can change it's value to 'zoom closer' by changing it from a maximum of 20 to 21/22 or 23 and get closer than you are supposed to.

(sorry for the big URLs but I'm using them as examples)

e.g...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=15.298683+19.429651 ... &om=1&z=20&ll=15.298684,19.429651 ...
z=20 (can't zoom closer in - max zoom)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=15.298683+19.429651 ... &om=1&z=23&ll=15.298684,19.429651 ...
z=23 (is zoomed closer in - beyond max zoom)

How did I find the image? Now THAT would be telling. Let's just say - I'm watching you.

[Emp edit: Messing with URLs]
 
Oh, I love the photo of the blokes in the village looking up as the plane passes over head! "Hellooooo! I can see yoooooooooou!"
 
Why are they going to delete the article?
 
Shine on!

shine.jpg
 
I thought that i'd seen the world's second largest Buddha - in Hong Kong!
edit: it was this chap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Tan_Buddha - i must be confused about his status.

Anyway, this is a bit old now but have you all seen the google maps directions to get from New York to London?

Drive: 3,938 mi (about 29 days 10 hours)

1.
Head southeast on Chambers St toward Broadway 0.2 mi
1 min
2.
Turn right at Centre St 0.1 mi
3.
Slight left at Park Row 210 ft
4.
Sharp left at Frankfort St 0.3 mi
1 min
5.
Turn left at Pearl St 56 ft
6.
Turn right onto the F.D.R. Dr N ramp 0.4 mi
1 min
7.
Merge onto FDR Dr N 7.7 mi
12 mins
8.
Take exit 17 on the left for Triboro Bridge/Grand Central Pkwy toward I-278/Bruckner Expy 0.4 mi
2 mins
9.
Merge onto Triborough Bridge
Partial toll road
0.4 mi
1 min
10.
Merge onto I-278 E via the ramp to I-87 N/Bronx/Upstate N Y/New England 0.6 mi
1 min
11.
Take exit 47 to merge onto Bruckner Expy/I-278 E toward New Haven 1.9 mi
2 mins
12.
Take the I-278 E exit toward New Haven 0.3 mi
13.
Merge onto Bruckner Expy 5.0 mi
6 mins
14.
Continue on I-95 N
Partial toll road
Entering Connecticut
62.1 mi
1 hour 12 mins

...
15.
Take exit 48 on the left to merge onto I-91 N toward Hartford 36.8 mi
37 mins

...
16.
Take exit 29 for US-5 N/CT-15 toward I-84/E Hartford/Boston 0.4 mi
17.
Merge onto CT-15 N 1.7 mi
2 mins
18.
Merge onto I-84 E
Partial toll road
Entering Massachusetts
40.7 mi
38 mins

...
19.
Take the exit onto I-90 E/Mass Pike/Massachusetts Turnpike toward N.H.-Maine/Boston
Partial toll road
56.0 mi
56 mins

...
20.
Take exit 24 A-B-C on the left toward I-93 N/Concord NH/S Station/I-93 S/Quincy 0.4 mi
1 min
21.
Merge onto Atlantic Ave 0.8 mi
3 mins
22.
Turn right at Central St 0.1 mi
23.
Turn right at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
24.
Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi
29 days 0 hours

...
25.
Slight right at E05 0.5 mi

Etc. Etc.
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Evidence HERE
 
Oooh, that's a good suggestion.

SWIM??? Someone must've stuck that in for a joke!
 
elvissa said:
Oooh, that's a good suggestion.
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i really wanted to say it is the tardis arriving, but that would have been flippant... lol
 
As much a whinge as an observation - I hadn't browsed Google Earth for a while, but I just took the chance to update the software, so I now have the newer, slightly whizzier interface. So far, so shiny. I then had a virtual mooch around the area where I live (I suspect that's what the vast majority of us do when we first use this fun piece of software - look for our own house/office/car/uncle etc), and what do I find? Well, I'll tell you!

The aerial photos I'm now accessing are not only way out of date, but they're actually older than the ones that were up a year or two back. I'm guessing that certain images are 6-8 years old. I know that it's not "live", obviously, and I'm aware that these things can only be updated so often. I'm also aware that the fact I have the latest interface has got nothing to do with the data itself being any more up-to-date, but I wouldn't have expected things to get worse than they already were.

For instance, I've been waiting, just out of curiosity, to see when Geogle would show the M6 Toll as something more than a giant building site (it's been open to traffic since 2003), but not only is it still a 20-mile long strip of mud, buildings nearby that were shown before have disappeared again!

Are there any similar websites or applications which consistently show more up-to-date maps? What do you lot consider to be the best all-round programme? I'd like something with a good balance of clarity, speed of access and up-to-datedness.
 
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