ICG/SOU
HO & O (3-rail) trainman
I think after September 11th, a lot of people succumbed to the fear that anything and everything was on the table to be hit. Fear is often irrational.
Google Earth is cool, but I lean more towards Bing Maps. Not only do you have the feature of birdseye view, but in many places I've looked, the imagery is more complete, even over rural areas.
On Google Earth, they update the pictures every so often, so use the overlay feature to determine when the photos are taken. As you can see, most imagery is collected in the winter months, where foliage is minimal, and skies are clearer to combat the affects of haze and humidity. On Bing Maps, I have not found the feature, but a general knowledge of the area you are looking at will help you determine within a year or two of when the photos were taken.
While a useful too, for good guys like us, or bad guys, all the high-resolution, high quality imagery does not substitute boots on the ground. I've found many places look very different at eye level, and sometimes some neighborhoods don't appear as benign as they do from space. So, unless you are trained to observe certain things, most of what we see (and the general public) is just a pretty picture.
Oh, and to contribute here, I found the CSX hump yard in Nashville pretty neat.
Google Earth is cool, but I lean more towards Bing Maps. Not only do you have the feature of birdseye view, but in many places I've looked, the imagery is more complete, even over rural areas.
On Google Earth, they update the pictures every so often, so use the overlay feature to determine when the photos are taken. As you can see, most imagery is collected in the winter months, where foliage is minimal, and skies are clearer to combat the affects of haze and humidity. On Bing Maps, I have not found the feature, but a general knowledge of the area you are looking at will help you determine within a year or two of when the photos were taken.
While a useful too, for good guys like us, or bad guys, all the high-resolution, high quality imagery does not substitute boots on the ground. I've found many places look very different at eye level, and sometimes some neighborhoods don't appear as benign as they do from space. So, unless you are trained to observe certain things, most of what we see (and the general public) is just a pretty picture.
Oh, and to contribute here, I found the CSX hump yard in Nashville pretty neat.
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