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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

#371

Post by therealdrag0 »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #306
splonk wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two biggest "wow" reactions I ever heard at Google's company wide meetings were from the Keyhole/Google Earth demo right after they were acquired, and the first Google Maps demo with scrollable maps. IIRC the Keyhole demo started with the full planet view from space and then did a smooth continuous scroll into the Grand Canyon. Pretty mindblowing back in 2005 or thereabouts.

Interesting to think: What demos are happening now that elicit a similar response?

Boston Dynamics maybe.

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

#372

Post by Slitted »

splonk wrote: post #243
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?

The two biggest "wow" reactions I ever heard at Google's company wide meetings were from the Keyhole/Google Earth demo right after they were acquired, and the first Google Maps demo with scrollable maps. IIRC the Keyhole demo started with the full planet view from space and then did a smooth continuous scroll into the Grand Canyon. Pretty mindblowing back in 2005 or thereabouts.

It’s amusing how quickly Maps overtook Earth and then absorbed it.

The practicality of having a total guide to location via search/address/direction far outweighed the appeal of a visual location you can find.

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

#373

Post by joycian »

tediousdemise wrote: post #331
D-Coder wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agent Smith is wrong. Every organism does this — that's how life works. Population crashes are common among many species, rabbits to rats. Trees produce a million seeds. Grasses expand into areas that juuuust barely support them. The "natural equilibrium" is not at all steady. And let's remember that Agent Smith is itself attempting to take over the world.

I don’t think other organisms have the capacity to destroy the planet and make it uninhabitable. That attribute is uniquely human.

There's some evidence that around 2B years ago microbes decreased the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere so much by overpopulation that 99% of the biosphere died.

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

#374

Post by jiofih »

Grimm1 wrote: post #347
jiofih wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first link says we can learn to adapt to the massive changes brought about by global warming . The second link says we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) which has severe consequences for the environment. I think you’re reading into their optimistic language a bit too much. Do you watch the news? Have you seen a completely ice-free North Pole earlier in Januar…

"It’s true that without dramatic action in the next couple of decades..." You missed the first part of their sentence. On the flipside perhaps you're a little too much into doomsday scenarios? We've quite literally transformed the entire planet and way of living inside of 30 years since personal computation technology took off. I really don't see it as particularly farfetched that we can correct for our negative cons…

How about these lines then:

> Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global warming would continue to happen for at least several more decades, if not centuries

or

> In the absence of major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by an average of 6 °C

There is not much major action going on (except for the electrification of vehicles which is being driven by commercial venture) so your hopes are just that, hope. Hope is not a strategy. It is quite far fetched to expect a correction when literally all data points are going the other way.

Your view does not reflect the common scientific consensus. We’re at a stage where changes are irreversible and all we can do is minimize and prepare for them, as seen in the article.

This is not fatalism, much to the contrary: I’m saying corrective action is much, much more urgent than you seem to believe and has to be started immediately. We don’t have another 30 years to sit on it.

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

#375

Post by franga2000 »

exporectomy wrote: post #321
gbrown wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick an area of science which intersects with human development and I'll find you something - the underlying truth is that we can't hope to disrupt such a huge percentage of our biosphere without nasty consequences, and we can't hope to have remediation efforts compete with the global engine of human development. We've essentially organized an entire global society around the injection of carbon into the atmosphere,…

How bad are "nasty consequences" and "the world burns"? Maybe it doesn't matter if those things happen.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not. Where do we start?

Do you think running out of oil will go smoothly? We already can't stand still for 5 minutes without blowing someone up in a resource war and basically all of our resources are plentiful for now.

Rising sea levels decreasing usable land. Rising temperatures destroying key organisms in the food chain. Mass deforestation is destroying the very things that allow us to breathe.

How much climate change affects you is a function of your wealth and your country's wealth (cost of basic resources as well as required countermeasures are growing). Anyone who's been on the low side of one or both of those variables will tell you that it's already miserable. Imagine, if you even can, what being in a poor country will be like when all the oil is gone, food can't grow the usual way (you need either hydroponics or serious genetic modification), increasingly unstable weather destroys everything you build and everyone else is out to get you to squeeze out every last drop of resources you might have?

What people with no such experience don't realize is that unlike our economic system, which funnels resources upwards, ecosystem collapse doesn't funnel them anywhere. It's just an endless pit and eventually, everyone is poor.

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

#376

Post by 127 »

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…

Would be really nice if this "bacterial and fungal growth" also spread to Mars and Venus.

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

#377

Post by hota_mazi »

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…

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2adrUaiyI

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

#378

Post by why_Mr_Anderson »

franga2000 wrote: post #375
exporectomy wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad are "nasty consequences" and "the world burns"? Maybe it doesn't matter if those things happen.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not. Where do we start? Do you think running out of oil will go smoothly? We already can't stand still for 5 minutes without blowing someone up in a resource war and basically all of our resources are plentiful for now. Rising sea levels decreasing usable land. Rising temperatures destroying key organisms in the food chain. Mass deforestation is destroying the very things that allow…

One of the greatest features of mankind is the response to disasters. When situation gets really bad, we are capable of achieving incredible things that would normally be impossible.

Example: Second world war. You might argue that it was not disaster comparable to climate change, but it did turn entire world upside down, disrupting everything aspect of life of vast majority of world's population. But it also led to incredible advancements in many areas, new discoveries in all sciences, new technologies, massive changes in societies as well.

So I don't see the situation as gloomy, we will survive, because we always do.

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

#379

Post by globular-toast »

scubbo wrote: post #214
globular-toast wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't grow our food. The chloroplast inside plants that we live around grow it. Fungi can do the same thing. See lichen, for example.

Did you honestly believe that the person you are replying to was under the mistaken impression that humans photosynthesize, or were you instead choosing to willfully misinterpret their shorthand phrase standing in for "engaging in agriculture"?

Do you honestly believe I did?

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

#380

Post by rlpb »

Grimm1 wrote: post #255
gbrown wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal? In a word, sustainable. An advanced civilization should be able to develop in a coordinated and self sustaining way, rather than as a grand experiment in tragedy of the commons. Microbes don’t coordinate their growth, and therefore fall into boom-bust cycles that dominate and exhaust their local environment. Hu…

But we're moving towards sustainability. Whether it's fast enough is up to interpretation but the push for green tech, sustainable farming etc etc it's not like this is an unknown, it's just always been the case that it must be sufficiently cheap and easy for the average person to latch onto it. Unfortunately in a lot of areas we're getting there but not there yet.

> But we're moving towards sustainability.

I don't think we are. As long as we accept unbounded population growth, nothing is sustainable.

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