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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."
Obviously google is going to say this is because of some little technical reason, and there's no real meaning to it. Is that true? Probably, but maybe not. We'll never know.
My guess is that one reason the senator cares is that his staff rely on Google to get their job done. It's interesting to see that throughout the federal government, workers are becoming dependent on various Google information services despite the fact that the govt. has put a lot of effort into building its own mapping services .
I wonder what other parts of government are dependent on Google's functionality, and what would happen if Google was interrupted.
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.
Why exactly is this the government being so heavy-handed with Google? Do critical government/health/military services depend on Google Maps? I can't think of any decent conspiracy theory, so I am not sure about this. There are certainly better things Uncle Sam can do with his time than worry about one company's map-charting policies.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
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.
I'm running the Linux version of googleearth, 4.0.2091 (beta) and the image from New Orleans are clearly pre-Katrina, and are in fact the same images used by maps.google.com (the cars are all in the same places on the roads, for instance.)
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Perhaps they were aiming to provide better visibility of streets and buidlings, so it would be easier to find your way around.
BTW, what about date tagging for each given area (whatever size would be best, I can't guess) you see in GoogleEarth? After all, the image data gets updated continuosly, but also irregularily. It would be nice to even have a history for comparison for each area.
I'm confused. You say Congress STFU and then mention fema which is under the executive branch.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Google is just showing FEMA and everyone else where everything goes. Judging by the results thus far, they have no idea.
Get directions from New York, ny to Paris, France using Google Maps -> Directions.
Interesting...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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.
"Wal-Mart has given $17 million in cash, the largest corporate cash contribution to date, in addition to $3 million in products.
{USA Today] reports there are advantages to donating products instead of cash. The Internal Revenue Service allows a tax deduction greater than the products' costs..." Corporate Katrina gifts could top $1B September 13, 2005
FEMA provided about $6 billion dollars in aid directly to Katrina victims Katrina fraud cases
"I have chosen to live in ... Arizona" ...
u re1.html
"Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in disaster-prone areas?"
Why should my tax dollars go to people who have chosen to live in areas that DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH WATER TO SUPPORT THE POPULATION except through federally funded water projects?
http://cals.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/janfeb07/feat
STFU, really.
--
BMO
Do out of use (ancient) prison's count? If so, yes.
Do I get half a point for being tortured at a turkish bath in Istanbul?
Hmm, I live in an area that's free of disasters, and gets enough rain.
You both need to GTFO and STFU. Give me money for not deciding to live somewhere people shouldn't be living.
And with that money, I will invest in plywood sales in Florida.. yesss..
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
If pre-Katrina aerial photographs are an inferior representation of the Gulf Coast geography, then isn't it also true that snow-free pictures of Montana and Minnesota are inferior? In other words, if you think post-Katrina photos would be more accurate, then you should also agree that snowed-over photos of the northern states would be more accurate. Reductio ad absurdum.
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
A few notes... New Orleans is one of the first and largest port cities in America. The French put it there due to its convenient location between the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ponchitrain and the Mississippi river. Moving any of those large bodies of water is fairly difficult so the original economic reasoning still stands. New Orleans is also the largest inlet for the importation of natural gas which is widely used to generate electricity (ie. for people in places like Arizona) and that's another multi-billion dollar industry. Speaking of multi-billion dollar industries... one of the main reasons that Katrina was so destructive is because changes to the Mississippi delta for things like natural gas service channels and deep shoal shipping have caused massive areas of the Lousiana swamps to die out and arode. Who cares right? Well, when the swamp dies off it takes huge stands of trees with it and those present a huge physical break that slows down a storm heading inland. Think of a hurricane as a giant bowling ball and imagine the difference between rolling it down a bowling alley or across a thick lawn. Kill off the swamps and you have a nice smooth alley heading right up into New Orleans. So before you go blaming the victim you might want to think about what things like shipping channels and energy imports have done to a community like New Orleans. Since places like Arizona would probably never support a massive inland population without energy to run air-conditioners and well pumps you could have some degree of culpability in the situation. Oh, and don't call us if you find yourself in the middle of a 100-year level drought don't come crying to us... its your stupid fault for living in the desert... dumb ass.
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."
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
There is something to be said for the plan of building the actual port where it is and moving the rest of the city (at least the parts below sea level) a little further away. In fact such a plan was suggested in the reconstruction. Given that everything is trashed and has to be rebuilt anyhow, it is a perfect time to fix some things like that. Well it was shot down as "racist" (not sure how that works) so no go.
While I agree that tax money is well spent rebuilding infrastructure I think it is reasonable to say that perhaps we should do what we can to move things so that this doesn't happen again. Also I don't think it is unreasonable to say that if you choose to live in an area that has floods, you should have to buy flood insurance to get coverage.
I agree with both of you. It's almost as if this country was segmented in semi-autonomous regions, who could collect taxes and pay for improvements for the people who live in them, without involving the rest of the country. Then, a larger government that helps them get along with each other and only deals with issues that affect the entire country. If only we lived in such a system. Oh that's right, we used to, but then we got tired of having to pay attention to more then 1 election every four years, so we just gave the federal government the authority to take a big chunk out of our paychecks before we even get it, and make it disappear into a giant bureaucracy to be occasionally doled out to us in wasteful pork projects so the various parties can get the swing votes on important issues like gay people getting married (Hey, stopping two dudes from getting married is totally worth footing the bill for a billion dollar road project in Boston, or a military base guarding a corn field in the middle of nowhere). Sure, the tax burden makes it so you can't afford a place to live, but if you can find a sleaziest sleazebag to put in congress then the other states, he can get you some "free" federal housing projects, and if you go degrade yourself in front of some government employee on a power trip, he will hook you up with some "free" food stamps, etc.
So if you ask me, lets get the Feds out of the business of handouts to the states, and let each state pays it's own way. Then if New Orleans needs to rebuild from a hurricane, it can do so without its residents having to worry about building that new water project in Arizona, and vice versa. If living in a certain disaster prone or lacking in resources area is not economically viable, then let them move, the country is a big place, with some of the most fit for human habitation environments on earth(There's a reason people came from countries across the world to settle it)
I live in South Florida, I like it here a lot. We have the occasional hurricane, but we also have great weather, a beautiful natural environment, and a culturally diverse population. I am willing to spend more to live here to compensate for the costs of hurricanes. If a hurricane comes and destroys my house tomorrow, I don't expect someone in Arizona or New Orleans to lift a finger for me. I'll be out the next day, clearing away the debris, salvaging what I can, and making plans for the future. If people, of their own free will, donate their money to help us, I'd gratefully accept. But I don't want a dime from a pack of bullies in the government, handing out a small portion of the taken from us (under penalty of jail time) back and expecting me to jump through their hoops to get it.
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.
"I don't understand..."
Judging by your lack of empathy, you are quite possibly Autistic. It's quite simple really, "no man is an island", however your post lends weight to the argument that you are "no man".
"Where's my government check for not being a burden on the rest of the country?"
On the contrary, the illogical, whinny, callous expressions of greed and selfishness so eloquently portrayed in your post is definitely a burden, not only for your fellow contrymen but for humanity as a whole.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
(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.
I'm not trying to be rude, but it's Google Earth, not Google Fragbait's Nostalgic Memories of his Childhood... it's marketed as the most accurate representation of Earth as Google can muster, so having them roll-back controversial, and indeed important, geographical changes without a word of explanation is clearly not ideal...