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Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

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Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#111

Post by beaconstudios »

keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

that would seem to follow from a historical materialist perspective (which makes sense to me, if you consider cultures to optimise their ideals to fit their environment). Human history is a function with material conditions as an input.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#114

Post by hackflip »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #86
ditegashi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we REALLY understood it then maybe we would stop doing it. My bet is that we don't really get it.

I think “we” do, but we don’t quite care as much about future generations as we like to think we do. Especially not when others today are disproportionately benefiting.

If you tell me to deprive myself of some conveniences because some people in another part of the world in another decade/century will suffer as a consequence of my actions... I agree with the selfless option in theory, but in practice I will usually choose the selfish option.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#115

Post by ngokevin »

gpspake wrote: post #52
Impossible wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has bailed on VR apps (for the most part, Owlchemy is still there), so I imagine not. It'd be cool if Google Earth VR was opensource like Tiltbrush. Like Tiltbrush it was one of the foundational early VR apps that people demoed, it's fun to imagine a world where Google continued to put money into VR, but I'm actually not sure how that fits into their business outside of just another platform for Android.

It's a shame. Google Earth on VR is probably the most amazing and practical use for VR for normal people at the moment. I like to street-view in to other countries and stand in the middle of crowded places with people around me imagining that it's a thousand years from now and humanity is gone and it's the documentation of life on earth. I've had good times passing the headset around in a room full of people to share…

It's an absolutely amazing experience especially for first timers (once they figure out the controls). But like most things with VR, you use it a few times and forget it about (besides giving demos here and there).

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#116

Post by WhompingWindows »

Google Earth may be one of the most wondrous things ever created. When else in human history can you zoom in on the entire geography of the Earth, and now the timelapsed geography of the Earth? Can you imagine what someone like Socrates, Newton, Galileo, or Darwin would say using this tool?

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#117

Post by Black101 »

saurik wrote: post #83
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #40

I kinda wish that there was a timelapse for Google search. Search seems to be heavily biased towards stuff popular right now. It seems older things disappear fairly quickly. I've been in a position where I wanted to search for a website that was popular in 2012 without having the exact name, and having to find an old forum post that linked to it to find it.

Google Search does let you limit the results to old sites (though I realize this isn't quite equivalent).

A time-lapse of the search algorithm is what I would like to see

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#118

Post by ehsankia »

jdkee wrote: post #108
keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

I think the growth of humanity contains much more complexity than that of a slime mold to be honest. Uncountably so.

Right, obviously as scale goes up, much more complexity is needed to maintain the same level of behavior. A bit like how unicellular organisms can replicate simply, but humans need to go through a whole process to make an offspring.

This Game of Life video shows what I mean perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8

Yes, there's a ton of complexity in there, but when you zoom out enough, it looks and acts very similar to the lower level.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#119

Post by samstave »

keithwhor wrote: post #61

What's really striking to me about timelapse videos of the Earth is how, at a grand enough scale, the growth of human settlements on Earth really looks no different than the growth of bacterial and fungal colonies on Petri dishes. We think of ourself as special, as having conquered environments, technology and more - and when zoomed out you could explain everything we've built and accomplished as the achievements of…

Any sufficiently robust advanced species is indistinguishable from fungi.

Re: Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years

#120

Post by gipp »

Black101 wrote: post #117
saurik wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Search does let you limit the results to old sites (though I realize this isn't quite equivalent).

A time-lapse of the search algorithm is what I would like to see

Given that the set of possible searches is unbounded, first instinct is that the whole system would have had to be designed around that use case from the bottom up for the problem to be remotely tractable
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