Slashdot Mirror
Russian Town Puts Giant Smiley On Google Maps
Toramir writes "Citizens of the Russian town Chelyabinsk calculated when the satellite, QuickBird, which takes images for Google Earth and Google Maps, would cross above their city and used people to make a giant smiley face. A rock concert on the main square attracted many people and everyone got a yellow cape. It looks like someone at Google was quicker than usual to put up the new data. Maybe Google likes the idea of an entire town working hard to get its 15 minutes of fame. The article has a screenshot of Google Maps and images taken directly at the event."
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=55.166667,61.4&ie=UTF8&ll=55.159688,61.402395&spn=0.005522,0.013089&t=h&z=17&iwloc=addr Not there now?
ÐÑо? ÐÑ Ð½Ð ÐонÐмÐÐÑÐ Ðо-ÑÑfÑÑÐÐ? ÑмоÑÑÐ Ð google ÐÐÑÐÐоÐ! ÐоРWow, seriously no cyrillic on slashdot? What is this the 90's?
Compare these two:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IeJHb-2CVGM/SNUFiyTlEHI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/shQMNh5h89o/s1600-h/smiley-1000.jpg
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=tscheljabinsk+russland&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=iceweasel-a&t=h&ll=55.160037,61.403425&spn=0.004793,0.011179&z=17
The cars on all the side streets and all the shadows are exactly the same. Someone just photoshoped out the cars on the main street and put in the smily. Nothing to see here.
Furthermore the fake screenshot depicts the very exact same thing as the rooftop picture. What's more pathetic, that they actually did it but not for when Google would actually shoot (is there even any way to actually know that?) or that the Slashdot "editors" didn't even see that coming.
I guess that's Journalism 2.0, in which it's the user who does the editor's job of spotting the bullshit.
You just got troll'd!
If a town or a street got renamed during the Soviet period, after 1992 its name was in most cases restored to the pre-revolutionary version. However, if the street was built during the Soviet period, of course it would not get renamed, since it never had a pre-Soviet name in the first place. Renaming a street just because its name is no longer politically fashionable is akin to rewriting history, no better than what the Soviets were doing.
Yeah this is fake. It's not actually on google maps... Take a look: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Tscheljabinsk+Russland&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=55.16035,61.402127&spn=0.004952,0.007499&t=h&z=17