Slashdot Mirror
Google Using Pre-Katrina Imagery on Google Maps
Thirdsin writes "CNN reports that images of lands devastated by Hurricane Katrina have been replaced on Google's map service with pre-Hurricane Katrina imagery. Now a subcommittee from The House Committee on Science and Technology has asked CEO Eric Schmidt for Google's motivation behind the
imagery switch. '[Congressional subcommittee chair Brad] Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery. "To use older, pre-Katrina imagery when more recent images are available without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest," Miller said.' It is worth pointing out that images from Google Earth have not been changed."
is going on.
Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, but I'd be willing to bet it was simply decided based on quality/resolution of images, and some underling working on it didn't really think about the fact that it the imagery in question is significantly different from how it looks now.
Are you kidding? Our Congress is investigating why google has made a change in its maps? And they're fishing for someone to start a political brawl with?
Don't we have... I don't know, something related to government services that they should be doing? Or, if it's going to be related to business, related to business that has a significant impact on consumers? Or poverty? Or taxes? Or services? Or the debt? We (as a nation) have a nine trillion dollar credit card debt, and we're worried about whether google's mapping decision was something we can get into a political scuffle about?
Who knows why they changed it? Who cares? I suspect Google management has better things to do than to sit around discussing whether to put up pre- or post-Katrina images.
Just use Google Earth if you're going to do anything GIS-related.
Someday Google will combine satellite, airplane and ground-level imagery to give limited 3-D flythrough maps.
Add add animation for changes over time and presto you've got a 4-D map!
Maybe this is the non-working mock-up prototype???
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The area looks like a green blob, and it's missing roads that have been constructed in the last couple of years. If Congress wants to stick their nose into it, why don't they tell the military to do a one-meter scan of the entire U.S., and just give the pictures to Google? Giving a company an unfunded mandate for your own political benefit doesn't sit very well with me.
Google can do whatever they want, but you have to admit, it seems odd to revert to an older set of imagery. As there was nothing obviously wrong with the existing post-Katrina imagery as far as end users could tell, there isn't any obvious explanation.
While Google can do whatever they want, *if* some government agency or official asked them to revert to older maps (not that anyone would *ever* try to whitewash their pathetic failures or anything), that would be something to investigate. (We have a long history of corruption in Louisiana, especially New Orleans, and FEMA... well, there are plenty of reasons people in Louisiana hate FEMA.)
Anyway, Google did nothing wrong by reverting to older imagery, but if they did so on the request of some pathetic loser of a politician (or agency), we would *really* like to know so we can show them in no uncertain terms that we find that unacceptable for any public official.
As a consumer of Google products, I would like the information they provide to be as accurate, up to date, and as high a quality as possible.
If I bought a 2007 Thomas Guide map book and found that the maps it contained were less up-to-date than a previous version, I'd be pretty cheesed off. If Google is going to provide maps, they should be responsible enough to keep those maps reasonably up-to-date. The hurricane substantially altered significant areas of not just New Orleans, but the coastline and delta. If they have reverted to a less accurate map, then they are providing a disservice to their customers. Error or otherwise, it should be resolved.
I see this as a good thing. Lets have massive reductions in the government mapping department. Fire some unnecessary employees and make whatever raw photos and GIS data the government collects easily available to google maps and potential competitors.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
As a resident of Phoenix, your water supply is imported from California. Why should the "coastal homeowners" of California feel obligated to provide you with water? After all, its your fault that you live in a fucking desert, and you should be punished for it.
I am not a number - I am a free man!
"Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in disaster-prone areas?"
You're failing to look at the big picture. The reason is because New Orleans is one of the busiest ports in the world. All of the goods we send down the Mississippi river enter the ocean through the port of New Orleans. Of course, the port is more than just long docks and loading cranes. Part of the infrastructure of the port are the human workers who actually make the thing go. All of the people who live in New Orleans provide the human infrastructure to keep the port running. That's the reason they live there -- the port needs human laborers to keep the cargo coming in. Those human laborers need places to sleep at night, places to eat, places to buy groceries from, etc. You get the idea.
The problem with ports is that they have to be on the water. We can't build ports in the middle of Montana so that they will be safe from hurricanes. Ports, which hopefully I don't need to explain are a vital part of our infrastructure, will periodically be threatened by flooding and hurricanes. As a society, we have to band together to create massive projects such as ports so we can import our morning coffee from South America and send our DVDs to Europe. You won't personally be conscripted to work on the port itself, like in the pyramid-building days of ancient Egypt, but you will have to pitch in some money in the form of taxes. Or, we could just let our ports be destroyed, one by one, after each flood or hurricane. We don't really *need* bananas from Brazil, or rice from China. But I don't think you'll find much to eat in the middle of your desert.
As a society, we did fuck up the New Orleans situation. We had a horrifically inadequate levy system. Politicians at all levels failed to bring them up to par for decades. As a society, we didn't plan ahead to protect our infrastructure, and now we are paying for it.
I do agree that if people are taking risks, such as building million-dollar beachfront homes in California or Florida, we don't need to subsidize them through taxes. However, we do need a port on the mouth of the Mississippi, and we need to make sure that that port will be manned no matter what natural disasters threaten it.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I don't guess but am pretty sure you missed the reason for concern in the original article.
Becoming dependent on a commercial entity for providing you with data important for the ability of your democraticaly chosen government to take decisions is extremely dangerous.
When you on occasion not like the actions of your elected officials you would take corrective action at the next election, something you can't do with a Google.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
By not taking the curvature of the earth into account with these directions, they have made your swim much longer than it needs to be
Indeed. Noting this, [Congressional subcommittee chair Brad] Miller was quoted as saying, "To use a straight line path across the map when greater circular paths are shorter without some explanation as to why appears to be fundamentally dishonest."
Why should my tax dollars go to support people?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The port by definition will be above the waterline. How did you go from "we need the port" to "we need to build and maintain levees to protect homes built 14 feet below sea level? If that port generates that much traffic, the commerce will pay for the building and maintenance of it. They can charge toll to the barges and build the port. Leave my taxes alone. Please.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Google Earth/Maps are geospatial tools for navigation, data visualization, aggregation, etc. It is NOT a political weapon, and it is not an ELT for interpreting imagery. If you have imagery of flooded streets or debris covered areas, you DON'T USE IT for navigation. You use imagery that shows the streets and matches your vector data.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
They do this in areas that are completely unrelated to Katrina as well.. This road now exists, and doesn't in fact go through those buildings or those fields. That construction project in that area took almost 2 years to complete and Google shows it as it was before it began. I doubt it's a conspiracy, but probably due to being a cloudy day during the last pass of the satellite.
(I apologize this has strayed so far off topic)6 6.html[/url] in 2004 Florida received $1.02 in federal spending for every $1.00 collected from it in 2004, putting it at #30, New York, California, and New Jersey are all near the bottom, below $0.80. The highest that year was New Mexico, at $2.00, so I'd say your conclusion that the coastal cities are leeching off the rest of the nation are dead wrong. I am not proposing we end government assistance, although I personally do not ask for no expect any, I merely propose we follow the adage "Charity begins at home", as in instead of the behemoth that is the Federal government collecting most of the tax money, and doling it out as political favors, the money is collected from the people of the community it will serve. If New York City wants a new bridge, they raise the money from their citizens, and build it, if California wants to do beach renovations, they collect the money from their citizens and do it. Instead of my money disappearing into a black hole that is the IRS and the Federal Government, I want to see where and how it is being spent with my own eyes, because as the person(s) paying for it, who better to judge if it is money well spent?
I won't even comment on your racist "non-white people who survive on government assistance", it's a bullshit argument that can not be supported by any real evidence. As far as Florida relying on income from the federal government, I'd point you here [url]http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/2
I don't get why you think I believe in extreme individualism, I happen to think Ayn Rand was a poor writer and a worse armchair philosopher. I am willing to accept the help of others, and I believe in our community, and out country we should help each other. But there is a difference between asking for and receiving help, and taking what you want by force.