Our House, In The Middle Of Their Satellite

Friday, December 23, 2005 | 2:40 pm

I managed to grab a copy of the beat for Google Earth that runs on Mac OSX that bobbed around a few weeks ago, so I spent one night trying to find satellite shots of the houses I grew up in back in the suburbs of Sydney. Because street mapping isn't integrated into the Australian maps, I literally had to find a landmark (Parramatta Jail) and follow the streets to my neighbourhood. Since both houses of my youth were seperated by a small distance as the crow flies, I managed to to get them on the same zoom level. Finding Northmead (my later years) was easy, but I haven't quite levelled down the exact rooftop for my North Rocks residence, where I grew up. When I work it all out, I'll post it, cause I am sure you can't wait to see blurry shots of my childhood stomping grounds.

Enter Microsoft's new Live service, with satellite "bird's eye" imagery so clear it makes you think twice about sitting near the window. Below is our Norfolk abode where you can quite literally see our the three south-facing windows of our apartment. Wow. Microsoft have trumped Google on this one. Compare the image below to Google's Norfolk shot I posted months ago for example. Imagine South Korea's reaction to this level of detail.

Click to enlarge.

3 Comments:

At 24/12/05 1:02 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is pretty damned amazing. The bird's eye view pictures are at least 2-3 years old, but it just blows my mind to see my house in that level of sharp detail, and from all four major compass points, to boot.

And how do I know the pix are that old? Easy. They're so close-up I can tell that the four-foot high fence has not been replaced with the 6-foot high one I put in over a year ago, and the holly by the garage that I ripped out a while back is also visible.

But here's the spooky part: I looked up the address I lived at my first year here, and I'm virtually certain that the cars in the driveway are my PT Cruiser and my old blue Colt Vista wagon which I hadn't gotten rid of yet. Which means the photos were taken between August and December of 2002.

 
At 27/12/05 5:28 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can confirm Major Rakal's comments from similar observations.
And I live in the same block as Mr. Askew.

 
At 12/1/06 12:29 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does anyone know the address of the Playboy Mansion?

 

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