Private Satellite Images Used to Investigate War Crimes

Something on the PBS Newshour last Thursday caught my attention. A private company, Digital Globe, has obtained satellite images that document the destruction of a village in an area of Sudan where no journalists are allowed. The images were made public online by the Satellite Sentinel Project. The celebrity George Clooney actively supports both the Satellite Sentinel and Digital Globe. The story points out that commercial satellite imaging entities can make information available that until recently was the sole province of governments. Unfortunately it does not explore the ethical implications. They imply that digital globe is just giving the information away for the good of humanity. Commercial (and government) satellite images are very expensive to produce, and a discussion of what the Satellite Sentinel Project paid for the images, or what Digital Globe typically charges their clients, would have been interesting. The piece could have brought up the issues of personal privacy (there seems to be no place on the globe now that is not being photographed), and the privileged status of the information: who is obtaining it and for whom? But maybe I ask too much. The report was particularly interesting to me because I am taking a remote-sensing class, wherein we are learning how to interpret satellite data, and a class in ethics and philosophy in geography, where we recently discussed celebrity activists.

My Google Earth Street View Experiment

I was very impressed with Jon Rafman's collection of Google Earth street view image captures (here). My first response was "Oh man I have got to try that." Up late for two nights, the house is a wreck and I am way behind on school work. But this project has a geographical and artistic component, so I justify (rationalize?) it as being part of my status as a lifetime learner. But really I am just a Google Street View addict trying to one-up an established artist.

By no means do I think my images are as riveting and interesting as Rafman's. In two days since I started I have explored Tallahassee, the Florida Panhandle, the Atchafalaya River corridor in southern Louisiana, Stuttgart, San Luis Potosi Mexico, Northwestern Canada and Lisbon. I get a kind of rush when exploring, looking at all the cameras on the screen lined up like beads: so much to find! So many unexplored niches, so many places no one has ever seen...world here I come!

I do in fact believe that most of Street View is unseen. The images are fed into the system and processed in batches. Among the viewers, there are probably very few like Rafman and myself, that is, trolling for images to capture and re-present as art.

What is the point? I try to stay away from slum-tourism. Rafman presents a lot of prostitutes and people with guns. I am collecting my images with the knowledge that Rafman has already done it. I am trying to capture something a little different, but really just trolling for anything that can be viewed as an interesting composition. And if I happen upon somebody with a gun, it is definitely going in the collection.

Rafman has some interesting commentary on his website, I encourage you to poke around over there.

And without further ado, here is my two days worth of Google Street View (click inside any image for a larger format version):




A house for a car. Humans enter in rear.






Yin and yang.








Notice parrot in cage on counter.




Man with camera looking directly at camera. In Stuttgart, the GE camera person takes the unit off the car and walks around. And they don't blur faces.

Architectural animations from Cornell

Multiple animated approaches to a cave-like entrance to a building on the Cornell campus. I am not sure, but I think this must be some Autodesk software. When I was in Landscape Architecture school, we used Sketch Up for animations. This looks really nice. I don't know how I feel about the cantilevered floor, it looks spooky. The automobile approach has a distinctly airport-like feel. The architectural "surprises" that are revealed inside the "cave" in the pedestrian approach are pretty neat. Watch it here.

Food Deserts in Mississippi

The PBS Newshour had a good piece about food deserts in the rural south that began with a visit to a small town in Quitman County, Mississippi. One small grocery store with no fresh vegetables, no other food for twenty miles in any direction (except fast food). The local McDonald's doesn't offer salads, only burgers, nuggets and fries. Watch it here.

Seen Around Town

Here is a collection of photos I have taken while driving and walking around Starkville, Mississippi. Click in the image for a larger version.


The really interesting thing about this intersection is that, the ambiguous directional signals aside, straight on through is a legal move if you are in the right hand lane. At least I think it is.



2009 Subdivision of the year, compared to WHAT? This place has an 8-foot wall around the entire neighborhood, plus a gate and a guardhouse.



Cool inverted pentagrams on a downtown building, perhaps a Masonic symbol.


Inverted pentagrams in context. Sadly, this building on Main Street is now empty.



A concrete wall in front of Cadence Bank bears the ghostly inscription "BANK OF COMMERCE"


The Entrance to Cadence Bank.


Cadance Bank.I like modernism, and I love this building. Bauhaus anyone?



The Regions Bank building is directly across from Cadence Bank, and the two are having some kind of twentieth-century conversation. "Let's take the classical motif of the arcade and stretch it vertically four stories. Now we have post-modernism!"


Majestic lions guard the entrance to a residence from their juniper nests.


Oak leaf and laurel motif in the Oddfellows Cemetary



Blue foamy water flows from the a car wash into Hollis Creek at Acadamy Road.



The architect who built this office cluster put his name and number on a little sign right next to the broad flume that delivers the parking lot surface runoff directly into Hollis Creek.

Follow-up on the Asian Carp in Lake Michigan

Things aren't looking good for Lake Michigan. According to this story the US Supreme Court rejected an injunction from all the Great Lake states (except Illinois) and the province of Ontario to close the locks in Chicago, the likely avenue by which the Asian Carp will gain access to the lake system. The US President, having close ties to Chicago, has sided with Illinois, citing economic disruption and flooding. The US Army corps of engineers is betting on their electric fence to keep the voracious feeders out. Biologists have recently found Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan. It constitutes a terrible example of myopic planning. In order to protect one important economic aspect of one city, the US is willing to put the entire fishery of Lake Michigan at risk. This post is a follow up to my Jan 9 post entitled "Another Great Story."

Another great story

Heard another great story on NPR here.

This story has some of my favorite elements: a great engineering feat, an invasive species, history, and planning issues.

About a hundred years ago the city of Chicago dug a series of canals that caused the Chicago river to run backwards. This allowed them to send wastewater away from their drinking water source of Lake Michigan, and created an important transportation link between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes. Other states on the Lakes sued in 1922, fearing the level of Lake Michigan would drop. Decades later the US supreme court ruled that Chicago could continue to drain the lake, but left open the possibility that the canal locks could be closed if the neighboring states could prove that they are causing harm. Enter the Asian carp.

The Asian carp has been detected seven miles below the locks. It is a voracious feeder, and if it gets into the lake system, the environmental impact would be disastrous. Recreational fishing alone provides billions of dollars to the regional economies. The state of Michigan is using the threat of the carp to try to get the locks closed. A lot of industry has grown up around the locks and thousands of jobs would be affected if they close.

NPR followed the Chicago story with a more positive Asian carp story. Turns out they aren't bad to eat. They interview a Louisiana chef who speaks of carp in terms of being similar to scallops and crab meat. Yum.