Spiral Jetty, American Landmarks and Technology

I was in a conversation the other day about Spiral Jetty, and how it was hard to find. The sculptor's instructions on how to get there, I was told, were difficult and possibly deliberately so.

Spiral Jetty re-appeared above the surface of Salt Lake a few years ago. Getting instructions on how to find it today took 40 seconds. Copying and pasting the picture into Photoshop, tidying it up and loading it on Photobucket* took over 3 minutes, however, which is a long time to use a sledgehammer on a nut. Need more technology!




(c) Google

I read an article the other day that catalogued the changes in video cameras from early B&W television cameras in which the cameraman sat and operated something the size and weight of the load-handling exoskeleton Ripley operated in Aliens, to something weighing less than three ounces the writer held in the palm of his hand. The writer took the new camera for a spin down the corridor and, on viewing the resulting video, failed to think "wow! imagine how amazingly clever and minaturized this thing is!" but instead thought, "argh! no image stabilization! wtf were they thinking!" Yep, needs more technology.

Of course I don't have the link to that article. I need more linking technology too.

Not all American landmarks are quite this well catalogued by Google. Carhenge comes off badly.


(c) Google

And so did the Georgia Guidestones, though I didn't capture a picture. Of course, there are third party photos associated with each that are viewable on Google.

Now off to look at my house on Google Street View and see if I can see myself in the window!

* Edit: Taking it off Photobucket when it decided to start charging us $400 a year to host pictures in 2017 and reposting it took another few minutes, too.