All sights in Texas

Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

9 (Possible) Traffic Accidents

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Tuesday, 25th July 2006

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Please note that some or all of the objects mentioned in this post are no longer visible on Google Earth or Google Maps.

This feels a little like ambulance chasing, so in no particular order, here are 9 (possible) traffic accidents.

1. Highway A13 just north of Rotterdam (there’s a couple of vehicles on the hard shoulder, and traffic is backed up for a long way):

2. Belfast Spillage (first pointed out in a different thread, there seems to be some sort of spillage and water vehicles cleaning it up):

3. Traffic backed up in Moscow (definitely something holding up traffic, but it’s unclear that this is an accident):

4. Blue vs. red car in the UK (my vote is for parked cars in this case actually):

5. Central reservation crossed in Australia (there seems to be a lorry in between the carriages and a couple of emergency vehicles to one side):

6. Road rage in Las Vegas (impossible to say how these cars came to rest like this, but there’s definitely people having words in the street!):

7. Dallas Motorway accident (there’s a car on the hard shoulder, traffic creeping past, a truck on the hard shoulder facing the wrong direction, and a couple of unidentified black marks on the road):

8. Burning car, Germany (Car is still on fire and is surrounded by firemen, there’s water staining the motorway, a fire engine and hundreds of backed up vehicles to the north):

9. Jackknifed lorry, Dallas (Dallas again? Lorry appears to have jackknifed across the highway, but it seems traffic is getting past):

We sincerely hope that nobody was seriously injured in any of these incidents.

Thanks to Dirk Thiel, WRA, Wilfred van Breda, gIMpSTa, Matthew Flynn, Ant, Stephan Segraves and Dan.

Double Shadow

Posted by , Monday, 10th April 2006

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No, it’s not the name of a ninja. In this shot of the bell tower at the University of Dallas, Google have obviously combined two images taken at different times. This had led to two shadows being cast from the tower. It almost looks like the hands on a clock face.

The one to the east is longer so it’s just about 10:15.

:-)

two shadows

Thanks: notmrjohn

SXSW 2006

Posted by , Friday, 10th March 2006

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Today sees the start of the very fashionable South by SouthWest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. Unfortunately none of us at GGSS Towers are going along to give a talk or see a band or anything. But we can of course post photos of the Austin Conference Center where some of the events happen. There are other nice sites in Austin, the capitol building is pretty impressive and was puposely built to be 14 feet taller than the Nation’s Capital in DC. The Congress Avenue Bridge is apparently home to the world’s largest urban bat population. You can’t see any bats of course in the daytime photo so you’ll just imagine them all, lurking under there…

We hope everyone who is attending the conference has a great time.

austin conference centre austin capitol building

Thanks: Cos, notmrjohn & Bryan Grudowski

Houston Zoo Elephant

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Monday, 20th February 2006

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No prizes for identifing this animal in Houston zoo, Texas – it’s an elephant!

Elephant Shadow

Thanks to Artemis and Dave Garcia.

Celeb Spotting

Posted by James Turnbull, Saturday, 24th December 2005

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Possibly the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan’s 29,000-square-foot estate near Chicago features a basketball court (of course) as well as a tennis court and putting green. Loads more info and pictures here.

Bill Gates’ 40,000-square-foot mansion in Washington is a constantly requested sight, but is in fact quite boring to look at from above (apparently it’s mostly underground). Loads more info and pictures here.

Bill Gates\' House

George Foreman’s Texas home is still being constructed in the satellite photo, but he’s so proud of the finished building that he’s put his name on it. The large building on the East side is the 64 car garage.

Muhammad Ali’s Michigan home is currently for sale but for your $3,200,000 you only get a measly 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. However, the 81 acre plot does feature a gymnasium, steam room, tennis & basketball courts and full size boxing ring. More pictures on the Real Estate listing.

The Californian coastline mansion with a tear shaped swimming pool is home to Barbara Streisand who famously tried to sue an aerial photography website which featured her house in the middle of 12,000 photos of coastline (she lost the case). Loads more information and the offending photo here.

Thanks: MisterKen, randy phillips, Dennis, Pete, IvyMike, Matt, Ivan, Lois, Mile, Andrew, Heath, greg, Chris Blackwell, Andrey, mark, MC, Thomas van Longerich, Nelson, Slugs On Toast & Wifey!