It’s time travelling time at GSS, and today we’re travelling back to the Jurassic, Late Jurassic and the Pleistocene periods, all at the same time!
Yes you heard me right, as here in the Plänterwald leisure area, Berlin, we can see what appears to be a Diplodocus (from around 200 million years ago), a Stegosaurus (146 million years ago), and a Mammoth (from a relatively tiny 1.6 million years ago) all enjoying a nice day out.
Honestly, I bet they’re not even anatomically correct…
More about the unfathomable enormities that are Geologic time periods at Wikipedia.
Thanks to dda.
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Nearby to the previously posted Machu Picchu, Peru, is a very unusual archaeological site - the strangely beautiful Inca ruins of Moray.
The concentric rings clearly visible were farming terraces with a sophisticated irrigation system, constructed inside enormous natural depressions in the landscape. Supposedly the Incas built them here to experiment with the different farming conditions the landscape accommodates, as the annual temperature difference between the top and bottom can be up to 15°C (59°F).
Which is fairly impressive given that even this largest depression is only 30 metres (100 feet) deep.
Here’s the very brief Wikipedia page.
Thanks to Josh E.
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First it got Dugg, and then it got Slashdotted - but the fact remains that the enormous KFC logo recently constructed in Nevada is not the first logo (or brand) visible from space. In fact, it’s debatable whether or not it’s even really visible from space at all (See the introduction to our book for a more complete examination of this argument). Either way, KFC’s big logo isn’t actually that big.1
Now this Readymix logo in the Australian desert is big. Really big.2 It’s 3.2km across, and 1.6km high - and come to think of it, it’s been there since 1965, so probably qualifies as the first logo visible from space, and it’s possible that this was the first logo constructed specifically for that purpose too.
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1) It is however an excellent example of big business beginning to try to cash in on the online satellite imagery phenomenon. However I seriously doubt that the image will ever appear on Google Earth or Maps, as to the best of my knowledge, Google don’t currently buy any imagery from GeoEye, the only company who have definitely captured a photo of the giant KFC logo.
2) However, even the Readymix writing is nowhere near the world’s largest text.
Thanks to the (ever awesome) Keyhole users.
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Check out this incredible image of a helicopter skimming the surface of the pacific, several miles off the coast of Baja California Norte, Mexico. How cool is the disturbance in the water from the helicopter’s downwash!
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To add to our collection of dolphin-shaped things from last week, here’s the Ile du Golfe off the south coast of Tasmania which looks astonishingly like (you guessed it), an absolutely gigantic dolphin.
More on the Maatsuyker Islands, of which the Ile du Golfe is part.
Thanks to Murphy.
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Oh dear, it seems the workers at Southwest Office Systems in Fort Worth have been attacked by Zombies, and in their desperation have painted “SOS” on the rooftop. Maybe someone should go and rescue them?
If you do valiantly go to slay some undead then I’d watch out for Spanish nerd zombies - the trapped also wrote “Vaya Con Dios”, meaning “Go With God” and “Sharp”, a well-known calculator manufacturer.
Thanks: Whiskerjinks
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In the hills over Afghanistan a man named Omar has very kindly chosen to let the whole world know exactly where he is standing. Just to the left of the arrow under the giant word “ME“.
Omar is probably also responsible for the nearby large type stating “NO DRUGS“; a worthwhile message as (since the Taliban were toppled in 2001), worldwide drug use has soared, and Afganhistan is on its way back to once again becoming the world’s largest heroin producer.
Thanks: Terrafax
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Take your pick from either a pool of dolphins or a dolphin-shaped pool.
The image of dolphins in a pool was captured from Google Earth, where you can also clearly make out a crowd gathered round a dolphin at the side of the pool, possibly being fed by a keeper.
If you prefer your dolphin in the wild, then perhaps Australia would be a better bet?
Thanks to Chris Thompson, Noel Ballantyne and woowoowoo.
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Despite looking like one of M.C. Escher’s impossible creations, Kubuswoning is actually just a very unusual housing block in the Netherlands. Meaning “Cube houses” in English, this Rotterdam landmark was designed by Piet Blom in the early 80s, and is contructed around the tradional cube shape that usually forms a house, but titled through 45 degrees and rested upon a hexagon-shaped pylon.
There’s 32 cubes altogether, and the whole thing looks completely bizarre from above. If you’re still confused, you get a much better idea of what you’re looking at from ground and roof level photos.
For more info in your language, see the English or Dutch Wikipedia pages.
Thanks to Alexander Apostolovski and Niels M. Buiter.
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A poster over at the keyhole forums has discovered what does look remarkably like a kilometre-wide pair of rather luscious-looking female lips. If this were the face of Mother Earth, I wonder where the rest of her features are?
The “lips” are actually in the Sudanese region of West Darfur, site of much of the ongoing Darfur conflict, and although at first they appear to be formed by some sort of small rocky canyon, the terrain data on Google Earth claims otherwise. At over 40 metres high, you could argue these lips were actually pouting.
Thanks to atlas1970 and via Gearthblog.
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