Aug 27 2008
3 Captains and a Major
Playing a game of golf. Guess who’s going to win?
Anyway, in my last post, I said I was emailing the authors of the recent PNAS article about resolving the directions of cows from space.
They sent me to this location. You can resolve a human. I’m pretty sure this is from an airplane and not a satellite though.
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Location: Golf course at Moffett Field.
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7 Responses to “3 Captains and a Major”
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The resolution of the google satellite images is very good in the SF Bay Area. Observe people on Union Square in SF or on on Ocean Beach.
I haven’t found cows yet - the images apparently been taken in summer when there are fewer cows grazing, because the grass is too dry. I guess.
I think it depends what you mean by “resolve”.
For example, there are very simple image processing techniques that can determine dimensions of blobs in images.
It might be possible to pick out a cow based only on the ratio of its longest to shortest dimension for example. or maybe based on area. or a combination of those.
Also, you could presumably discriminate between cows and sheep (not that i am suggesting one discriminate against anyone, of course) based not only on size, but also on a combination of size and color of a blob (black sheep notwithstanding)
In other words, one need not necessarily see all (or even anything more than the gross) features of a blob to say with some confidence that it is a cow, especially if you are looking at a location known to be a farm.
I don’t know whether the authors of that paper used such techniques but i would be surprised if they had not. Especially given that they determined the angle of orientation of cows so precisely. That’s easy to do with image analysis software but hard to do by eye.
Let us not allow this sharing of opinion turn into what happens over at Chrous, Amen or other amateur Galileo sites.
I doubt that this is a satellite pic, but that detracts little from the photograph or analysis.
Certainly you can tell by the shadows cast by our intrepid cows that it is late afternoon. I’ve done work with tree shadows & can tell you what time of day it was if I had the picture metadata and the lat-long of the site, & Atmoz can calculate the probability of these cows turning to the sun to get warm, to negate the magnetic field hypothesis. Next step: starting a blog and trashing the reputation of the authors! :o)
Best,
D
I have consulted with colleagues and the authors of the paper, and have concluded that (some of) the images were taken from aircraft, not satellite. That was my only question regarding this paper.
And Dano, I already have a blog. No need to start a new one.
“And Dano, I already have a blog. No need to start a new one. ”
And it’s a rather good blog. But I think those are Venusians in the photo. I can tell from the aspect ratio.
Venusians are cooked cow. Well done tho=;(
And it’s a rather good blog. But I think those are Venusians in the photo. I can tell from the aspect ratio.
Can someone explain to me what’s up lately with the female-name bot spam using clever non-sequiturs to make some vague point? Is this phenomenon leftovers from the Hollywood writer’s strike where screenwriters went on line with parody character sock puppets to keep their chops during negotiations?
Nonetheless, at resolutions easily obtainable, the shadow from the flag is usually viewable for these type pix. Of course, being on the green I guess the flag is down on the ground somewhere. Lt Colonels get the caddys these days, I guess.
Best,
D