Human Footprint: Satellite pictures as Art.

[Statistikhengst]

My daughter and I recently visited a really wonderful natural history museum, called:

MUSEUM KOENIG.


Most of it is natural history and zoological research, but right now, on the top level, they have a special exhibition (Ausstellung) called "Human Footprint: Menschliches Handeln im Satellitenbild" (Human Footprint: human activities in (through) satellite photos.

When you walk into the exhibition, you think you are looking at some really interesting impressionistic paintings, until you get up close and see that those are thousands of satellite pictures of major (and minor) cities that have some very special characteristics about them (structures, colors, etc).

In order to help keep this organized, I shot a photo of the plaque next to each city and then shot a photo of the city itself. Since this is an open exhibit, photographing this stuff is legal. I also asked beforehand.

There are just thousands and thousands more of these pictures here:

http://www.eovision.at/bildarchiv.html

So, without any further ado, here are some awesome pictures!

The opening satellite picture:

Bashang, China:

Mezairaa, UAE:

Al-Kufrah, Libya:

Al-Kufrah has got to be one of the absolutely coolest images out there:

Mecca, Saudi Arabia:

Belek, Turkey:

Seville, Spain:

All those aqua-colored squares? Solar panels.

Zarya Oktabryia, Khazakhstan:

(an oil mining city)

Los Angeles, California, USA:

Weston, Florida, USA:

Prieska, South Africa:

Detoie, Botswana:

Calama (Atacama Desert), Chile:

 

[Statistikhengst]

BTW, I've been to the Atacama Desert and flew through Calama, stayed at a small town called San Pedro. The Atacama is not the hottest desert in the world, but it is the driest. There are some salt lakes there that have the highest concentration of salt in the whole world. It is impossible to sink in one of those lakes.

Here are a couple of pics of me with some colleagues, taking a time out at the Atacama desert, in December, 2009:

In front of a salt lake:

And in the salt lake:

 

[Statistikhengst]

A friendly shout out to some folks who may really enjoy the information in the OP: [MENTION=42916]Derideo_Te[/MENTION] [MENTION=40495]AngelsNDemons[/MENTION] [MENTION=41527]Pogo[/MENTION] [MENTION=26011]Ernie S.[/MENTION] [MENTION=9429]AVG-JOE[/MENTION] [MENTION=45886]Mad_Cabbie[/MENTION] [MENTION=42649]Gracie[/MENTION] [MENTION=20412]JakeStarkey[/MENTION] [MENTION=25505]Jroc[/MENTION] [MENTION=38281]Wolfsister77[/MENTION] [MENTION=21679]william the wie[/MENTION] [MENTION=23424]syrenn[/MENTION] [MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION] [MENTION=37250]aaronleland[/MENTION] [MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION] [MENTION=36528]cereal_killer[/MENTION] [MENTION=40540]Connery[/MENTION] [MENTION=30999]daws101[/MENTION] [MENTION=46449]Delta4Embassy[/MENTION] [MENTION=33449]BreezeWood[/MENTION] [MENTION=31362]gallantwarrior[/MENTION] [MENTION=24610]iamwhatiseem[/MENTION] [MENTION=46750]Knightfall[/MENTION] [MENTION=46690]Libertarianman[/MENTION] [MENTION=20450]MarcATL[/MENTION] [MENTION=20594]Mr Clean[/MENTION] [MENTION=20704]Nosmo King[/MENTION] [MENTION=43268]TemplarKormac[/MENTION] [MENTION=20321]rightwinger[/MENTION] [MENTION=41494]RandallFlagg[/MENTION] [MENTION=25283]Sallow[/MENTION] [MENTION=21357]SFC Ollie[/MENTION] [MENTION=18905]Sherry[/MENTION] [MENTION=43491]TooTall[/MENTION] [MENTION=25451]tinydancer[/MENTION] [MENTION=31918]Unkotare[/MENTION] [MENTION=45104]WelfareQueen[/MENTION] [MENTION=21524]oldfart[/MENTION] [MENTION=42498]Esmeralda[/MENTION] [MENTION=43888]AyeCantSeeYou[/MENTION] [MENTION=19302]Montrovant[/MENTION] [MENTION=11703]strollingbones[/MENTION] [MENTION=18988]PixieStix[/MENTION] [MENTION=23262]peach174[/MENTION] [MENTION=13805]Againsheila[/MENTION] [MENTION=38085]Noomi[/MENTION] [MENTION=18905]Sherry[/MENTION] [MENTION=29697]freedombecki[/MENTION] [MENTION=38146]Dajjal[/MENTION] [MENTION=18645]Sarah G[/MENTION] [MENTION=46193]Thx[/MENTION] [MENTION=20614]candycorn[/MENTION] [MENTION=24452]Seawytch[/MENTION] [MENTION=29614]C_Clayton_Jones[/MENTION] [MENTION=18990]Barb[/MENTION] [MENTION=19867]G.T.[/MENTION] [MENTION=31057]JoeB131[/MENTION] [MENTION=11278]editec[/MENTION] [MENTION=22983]Flopper[/MENTION] [MENTION=22889]Matthew[/MENTION] [MENTION=46136]dreolin[/MENTION] [MENTION=19867]G.T.[/MENTION] [MENTION=19302]Montrovant[/MENTION] [MENTION=24208]Spoonman[/MENTION] [MENTION=24122]racewright[/MENTION] [MENTION=5176]RetiredGySgt[/MENTION] [MENTION=44536]BobPlumb[/MENTION] [MENTION=46351]Shrimpbox[/MENTION] [MENTION=39072]mamooth[/MENTION] [MENTION=45320]Nyvin[/MENTION]


Anyone who doesn't want to be on this occasional mention list: just let me know, I will drop the name immediately. None of these members have ever indicated that I am somehow on their ignore list.

Thanks,

-Stat

 

[Sallow]

Nice

 

[Nosmo King]

Human engineering giveth and human engineering taketh away.

 

[Wolfsister77]

Wow, very interesting.

 

[Ernie S.]

I'm familiar with Weston. I did a lot of work there. I guess it's a neat idea, but seem pretty cookie cutter to me. One street looks just like the last.

 

[Barb]

Your pictures remind me of a recurring thought regarding a chicken and egg question I posed in a learning journal of Allen, T. and Hoekstra, T. (1992) Toward A Unified Ecology Columbia University Press, NY:

The text specifies irritation as the signal that organisms respond to, and I wondered why pleasure was not included as a trigger to response, as pleasure is not exclusive to humans. Plants seek light, fullness produces pleasure in pets, and animals in the wild play with and protect their young, displaying affection. Allen and Hoekstra caution against objectifying organisms so as not to miss important information about the perceptions of their own reality in favor of applying human criteria to them. That caution is appreciable, but it does seem that some similarities do apply. From the beginning of the text I have noticed how the hierarchy of levels, scales, and natural constraints of different criteria, and even landscape corridors match in some way arrangements of human government, civil engineering, competition, family structure (more cohesive within than without), and social activity. Humans, no matter how one sees them emerging, got here last. Does it not seem more reasonable that the similarities we see are evolutionary, and we copying other organisms rather than ascribing our own attributes in reverse?

“The Population Criterion”
(Allen and Hoekstra, pgs. 201-237)
In human society, at least at first glance, there does not seem to be the separation of populations and communities that the Allen and Hoekstra text considers there to be in consideration of ecological science. However, demographical statistics consider homogeneity in groups within human communities, as political actors count them, do mirror the text’s methods of classification. Communities are the context for demographic considerations just as they are for populations in ecological studies (201, 237).
The classifications that set populations apart from communities are in association, size, shared genetics and history. Usually members of a population are of the same species, or in the case of some plant species, they mix and produce a hybrid species, and occupy the landscape at the same scale, unlike community members that are diverse in size and placement within the landscape (203-204). Since populations can occupy communities, there are interactions between populations. Those interactions can be competitive, predatory, or cooperative. Predation produces negative feedback, and is usually a mutually stabilizing oscillating constraint, but the delays in response loops coupled with other factors that cause extinction of either prey or predator can produce the types of overcorrection seen in “The Ecosystem Criterion,” and a destabilized system (177-122, and 215-222).

 

[Statistikhengst]

Nice

Thanks!

Wow, very interesting.

Thanks!

Human engineering giveth and human engineering taketh away.

Indeed.

I'm familiar with Weston. I did a lot of work there. I guess it's a neat idea, but seem pretty cookie cutter to me. One street looks just like the last.

Indeed.

 

[Statistikhengst]

Your pictures remind me of a recurring thought regarding a chicken and egg question I posed in a learning journal of Allen, T. and Hoekstra, T. (1992) Toward A Unified Ecology Columbia University Press, NY:

The text specifies irritation as the signal that organisms respond to, and I wondered why pleasure was not included as a trigger to response, as pleasure is not exclusive to humans. Plants seek light, fullness produces pleasure in pets, and animals in the wild play with and protect their young, displaying affection. Allen and Hoekstra caution against objectifying organisms so as not to miss important information about the perceptions of their own reality in favor of applying human criteria to them. That caution is appreciable, but it does seem that some similarities do apply. From the beginning of the text I have noticed how the hierarchy of levels, scales, and natural constraints of different criteria, and even landscape corridors match in some way arrangements of human government, civil engineering, competition, family structure (more cohesive within than without), and social activity. Humans, no matter how one sees them emerging, got here last. Does it not seem more reasonable that the similarities we see are evolutionary, and we copying other organisms rather than ascribing our own attributes in reverse?

“The Population Criterion”
(Allen and Hoekstra, pgs. 201-237)
In human society, at least at first glance, there does not seem to be the separation of populations and communities that the Allen and Hoekstra text considers there to be in consideration of ecological science. However, demographical statistics consider homogeneity in groups within human communities, as political actors count them, do mirror the text’s methods of classification. Communities are the context for demographic considerations just as they are for populations in ecological studies (201, 237).
The classifications that set populations apart from communities are in association, size, shared genetics and history. Usually members of a population are of the same species, or in the case of some plant species, they mix and produce a hybrid species, and occupy the landscape at the same scale, unlike community members that are diverse in size and placement within the landscape (203-204). Since populations can occupy communities, there are interactions between populations. Those interactions can be competitive, predatory, or cooperative. Predation produces negative feedback, and is usually a mutually stabilizing oscillating constraint, but the delays in response loops coupled with other factors that cause extinction of either prey or predator can produce the types of overcorrection seen in “The Ecosystem Criterion,” and a destabilized system (177-122, and 215-222).

Bolded (in red): fascinating.

 

[PixieStix]

I like this pic...pretty cool

 

[syrenn]

i cant resist....

Teenager draws penis on parents' roof to lure Google Earth | UK news | theguardian.com

 

[Statistikhengst]

I like this pic...pretty cool

Hey, [MENTION=18988]PixieStix[/MENTION] - thanks!!!

 

[Barb]

Your pictures remind me of a recurring thought regarding a chicken and egg question I posed in a learning journal of Allen, T. and Hoekstra, T. (1992) Toward A Unified Ecology Columbia University Press, NY:

The text specifies irritation as the signal that organisms respond to, and I wondered why pleasure was not included as a trigger to response, as pleasure is not exclusive to humans. Plants seek light, fullness produces pleasure in pets, and animals in the wild play with and protect their young, displaying affection. Allen and Hoekstra caution against objectifying organisms so as not to miss important information about the perceptions of their own reality in favor of applying human criteria to them. That caution is appreciable, but it does seem that some similarities do apply. From the beginning of the text I have noticed how the hierarchy of levels, scales, and natural constraints of different criteria, and even landscape corridors match in some way arrangements of human government, civil engineering, competition, family structure (more cohesive within than without), and social activity. Humans, no matter how one sees them emerging, got here last. Does it not seem more reasonable that the similarities we see are evolutionary, and we copying other organisms rather than ascribing our own attributes in reverse?

“The Population Criterion”
(Allen and Hoekstra, pgs. 201-237)
In human society, at least at first glance, there does not seem to be the separation of populations and communities that the Allen and Hoekstra text considers there to be in consideration of ecological science. However, demographical statistics consider homogeneity in groups within human communities, as political actors count them, do mirror the text’s methods of classification. Communities are the context for demographic considerations just as they are for populations in ecological studies (201, 237).
The classifications that set populations apart from communities are in association, size, shared genetics and history. Usually members of a population are of the same species, or in the case of some plant species, they mix and produce a hybrid species, and occupy the landscape at the same scale, unlike community members that are diverse in size and placement within the landscape (203-204). Since populations can occupy communities, there are interactions between populations. Those interactions can be competitive, predatory, or cooperative. Predation produces negative feedback, and is usually a mutually stabilizing oscillating constraint, but the delays in response loops coupled with other factors that cause extinction of either prey or predator can produce the types of overcorrection seen in “The Ecosystem Criterion,” and a destabilized system (177-122, and 215-222).

Bolded (in red): fascinating.

Thank you I did well in my science classes, but I had to approach the texts as a science as a second language student. Still, the crossover connections that can be made between organisms and human societies are pretty remarkable, I thought.

For example, compare this picture to the satellite images:

 

[Statistikhengst]

Your pictures remind me of a recurring thought regarding a chicken and egg question I posed in a learning journal of Allen, T. and Hoekstra, T. (1992) Toward A Unified Ecology Columbia University Press, NY:

Bolded (in red): fascinating.

Thank you I did well in my science classes, but I had to approach the texts as a science as a second language student. Still, the crossover connections that can be made between organisms and human societies are pretty remarkable, I thought.

For example, compare this picture to the satellite images:

Wow!