There’s some odd sightings on the ocean floor, thanks to the much-improved ocean surface depth images that were added to Google Earth and Maps last week!

Reader aliosha was browsing the atlantic and discovered a bizarre grid pattern in the deep.

About 150 km square, it presumably isn’t a natural occurrence, but what else could create such a pattern it what must be extremely-deep water?

Even more bizarre, off the coast of Indonesia is what would easily be the largest writing on the planet. At around 130 km wide, it would dwarf second place by a factor of about 30x.

Unfortunately, it is only the largest writing on Google Earth, as this message doesn’t actually exist.

It says “DTS/SIO”, and was added by David T. Sandwell (DTS), a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO).

The sea bed imagery comes from a variety of bathymetry sources, including the SIO, and Mr Sandwell added the false underwater canyons so that they could see where the SIO’s data was being used.

Thanks to aliosha and GEarth Blog (who also have news of a special event Google are hosting next week in relation to oceans on Google Earth).

U.S Route 64 is a mostly-unexciting 2,326 mile-long highway that we join as it travels from Taos to Farmington in New Mexico.

As we drive through the barren desert, with nothing for miles around, the monotony is broken by the sight of a hitchhiker, who optimistically sticks his thumb out for the passing camera car.

But our cruel driver cruises on past, while heartlessly documenting this man’s plight from all angles.

As we drive off into the distance, with no other cars to be seen for miles, the man doubtless vows that he’ll only ever use Live Search from now on…

Thanks to Rob.

Here in Rome, scooters are an extremely popular way of getting around the city, and Italian drivers are generally considered to be a bit crazy.

This combination inevitably results in the occasional accident, and as the Google car approaches this corner a man can be seen getting out his car, although we can’t yet tell why.

As the Google car draws nearer we see that the inevitable has occurred – a scooter rider has been struck from behind and thrown from his bike! It seems that this is such a frequent occurrence however, that the passers-by barely care that a man has been run over.

Our Google driver is equally considerate, and drives around the fallen scooter driver like he was a misplaced traffic cone.

As the car drives on, we can rubberneck back around to see that there appears to be some disagreement taking place! Is another street fight about to kick off perhaps?

Oh dear, it seems that our unfortunate car driver may have a dent in the bumper of his Mercedes.

This is it, it’s all going to kick off now! Get ready for a pounding!

Suddenly however, things seem to have cooled off. Perhaps our scooter rider saw sense and decided it wasn’t worth it. He returns to his bike and tries to get it back up on its wheels. He doesn’t appear to be doing very well however!

Fortunately our car driver decides to put their disagreement aside, and just before the imagery changes to a different day, we can see the two men working together to get the toppled scooter back on the road.

Oh, it gives you a kind of fuzzy feeling huh?

Thanks to Edward Betts.

Update: Post corrected to say he was driving a scooter, rather than a moped, which would usually have pedals.

While driving along Telephone Road in Waikato, New Zealand, you may notice that someone appears to have tried to park their car on top of a large tree stump.

This doesn’t seem to be an officially sanctioned public artwork, but rather the work of either a kindly local patron of the arts (or possibly just the result of incredibly bad driving).

This mysterious artwork reminded me of Spindle in Illinois, a sculpture consisting of 8 actual cars impaled on a 15m spike, which we looked at from above way back in 2006, but which has since received an inspection by the Street View camera.

Back in 2006, locals informed us that this work of utter genius was under threat from those who, incredibly, felt it was an “eyesore”! The debate raged on until May 2008, when Spindle was sadly dismantled and scrapped.

All may not be lost however, as the top two cars (a 1967 Beetle and a BMW donated by the man who commissioned the artwork) were actually saved from being scrapped – in the hope they might one day be re-used as part of “Spindle 2″!

Is there a petition we can sign somewhere?

Thanks to John Burns

Over the years we’ve featured hundreds of sights claiming to be the “World’s Largest Something“, and when we featured the World’s Largest Dump Truck last week, I wondered if we were finally running out. However our loyal readers came through with some classic “World’s Largest” material – replete with the usual controversy of course!

Yes, we’re truly scraping the bottom of the “World’s Largest” barrel – because it’s time for the World’s Largest Barrel!

Bad Dürkheim in Germany is home to the World’s largest wine festival – the sausagey-sounding “Wurstmarkt” – and it’s also the location of this absolutely giant barrel, which has a claimed capacity of 1,700,000 litres. Unfortunately they decided to fill it with a restaurant instead of booze.

But does this barrel-restaurant really count, or is it just a building that looks like a barrel?

If we exclude it, then the title may fall to the 220,000 litre Heidelberg Tun: the World’s largest barrel which is actually used as a barrel. Also in Germany, it’s sadly kept in the basement of Heidelberg Castle.

Wikipedia’s article on the World’s largest roadside attractions claims that the world’s largest barrel is neither of these, but is instead found at McWilliams Wines, in Hanwood, NSW, Australia. However I don’t believe the Big Hanwood Barrel was constructed using traditional barrel-making techniques, and anyway doesn’t look nearly big enough…

You’ll be glad to know that the “World’s largest roadside attractions” Wikipedia article has enough silly “World’s Largest” sights to keep us going for another few years at least!

Thanks to Izzy and Flümo.