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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

#141

Post by pfarrell »

FredPret wrote: post #135
Grimm1 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about ant colonies. I think it's probably just what anything that groups and branches around resource deposits looks like. If I recall slime molds are optimal planners regarding surrounding resources so it just sounds like a natural optimality to me. I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? Looking at it is disparagingly is we…

I couldn’t agree more regarding misanthropy. I would like to note though that if we start mining and settling space, our growth would in fact be essentially unbounded. Combined with the fact that some types of stars are expected to continue radiating energy for trillions of years...

This discussion reminds me of Isaac Asimov's favorite story, The Last Question

https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

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

#142

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

"X reminds me of Y" often says more about the speaker than about X or Y.

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

#143

Post by zamadatix »

judge2020 wrote: post #29
simias wrote: post #20

This is really cool. However I'm going to bring you the Traditional HN Nitpick: it's very odd to see Google use these horribly over-compressed gifs over proper videos: https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/ori...

Ya, it seems like someone really wanted a gif and threw it in a free video -> gif converter. Gifs can have over 256 colors (with some tricks) or they could have used `video autoplay loop muted` and achieved the same effect.

I don't think the surprise is they made a bad gif as much as they used gif at all considering this is the company that literally made vp9 and webm for this exact use case.

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

#144

Post by DeusExMachina »

beachy wrote: post #121
Grimm1 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about ant colonies. I think it's probably just what anything that groups and branches around resource deposits looks like. If I recall slime molds are optimal planners regarding surrounding resources so it just sounds like a natural optimality to me. I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? Looking at it is disparagingly is we…

> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? An advanced species would recognize the uniqueness and importance of the natural world, and would fence off huge sections of it to protect it for future generations.

Would it? How do you know?

You are just projecting what you think on this hypothetical advanced species. They might find, instead, that they don't need or care for any of that and just wipe it out faster.

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

#145

Post by tppiotrowski »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #116

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?

Visualising the Earth at planet scale is incredible. I was blown away when the first wind map [1] made it's way onto HN almost a decade ago. I always thought of wind being localised but to see all the currents flow across the USA was soooo cool. It's inspired me to work on my own map of live mountain shadows across the Earth (link in my user profile if you're interested)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3767889

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

#146

Post by Terr_ »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #116

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?

Many years ago I visited the International Spy Museum in DC, and one of the last exhibits was a terminal with this brand new amazing thing by a little company called Keyhole, and somehow it was more amazing than any number of hidden bugs or weapons.

Later, seeing Google Earth, I was like "Wait I've used this before."

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

#147

Post by enchiridion »

ehsankia wrote: post #124
Grimm1 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about ant colonies. I think it's probably just what anything that groups and branches around resource deposits looks like. If I recall slime molds are optimal planners regarding surrounding resources so it just sounds like a natural optimality to me. I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? Looking at it is disparagingly is we…

Speaking of ant and slime simulation, this recent video Coding Adventures video was pretty mind blowing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-iSQQgOd1A (Especially part 2 starting around 10m in).

Thanks for sharing! Great channel!

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

#148

Post by ThalesX »

OrbitRock wrote: post #127
beachy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? An advanced species would recognize the uniqueness and importance of the natural world, and would fence off huge sections of it to protect it for future generations.

There’s a conservation goal that’s going around. 30 by 30. Or, 30% of the planet’s surface as protected areas by 2030. The Biden administration adopted it, but it’d be cool to see it as a global goal as well.

Wouldn't some weird interpretation of the Pareto Principle [0] mean that we should be using 20% of the available resources for 80% of our production goals?

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

#149

Post by beachy »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #144
beachy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? An advanced species would recognize the uniqueness and importance of the natural world, and would fence off huge sections of it to protect it for future generations.

Would it? How do you know? You are just projecting what you think on this hypothetical advanced species. They might find, instead, that they don't need or care for any of that and just wipe it out faster.

Yep, that's my interpretation of "advanced".

Yours could be one that retreats into hermetic shelters and plays Call of Duty between themselves all day long.

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

#150

Post by Engineering-MD »

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…

My question is what would not look like microorganisms colonising? There is a range of manners that they expand from growing from a core, spores, milliary, fronds. I imagine most simple growth patterns possible are taken advantage of by microorganisms.
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