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Ogle Earth

A blog about virtual globes, with a special focus on Google Earth.

Kashgar panoramas and another apologySeptember 6

I'll be off the internet again for a week (this time traveling in Indonesia) so preëmptive apologies for the lack of updates, but before I'm off: I managed to get the first two panoramas done from Kashgar. Here's my favorite spot in Kashgar:

Tea house and evening market, Kashgar in Xinjiang

(It was used as a backdrop for The Kite Runner -- that movie was shot in Kashgar, BTW.)

And here's a panorama taken from inside another tea house. I've got more updates planned for as soon as I'm back.

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The last days of old KashgarSeptember 2

Kashgar, in China's remote far-west Xinjiang province, lies on a fertile crescent at the convergence of ancient caravan routes linking India, Central Asia and China. For over a millenium, this fabled city was a crucial link in the Silk Route economy, and its culture thrived.

I have long wanted to visit Kashgar. In May 2009, traveling there took on some urgency when it became apparent that the Chinese local government had begun implementing plans to demolish 85% of the remaining old town. The New York Times sounded the alarm; the news raised hackles from preservationists around the world, because Kashgar's old town was until then regarded as “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia.”

I finally managed to visit Kashgar in late July 2010, and stayed for over a week, walking through practically every alley I could find, documenting the the old town's transformation and photographing its people.

Click on Kashgar ph

links for 2010-09-02September 2

• Archaeology Magazine Blog - Beyond Stone and Bone » Google Earth and A New Generation of Archaeologists
  Heather Pringle blogs about her (paywalled) Science Magazine article which looks at how Google Earth is changing the field of archaeology.

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links for 2010-08-30August 30

• Australian family discovers squatters on their property in Croatia using Google Earth - Croatian Times Online News
  The upside to privacy erosion:-)
• MEGA Maps the Physical History of Jordan
  Made by the Getty Conservation Institute, MEGA stands for Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities - Jordan, and it will go live gradually in the coming months. It reminds of Sweden's RAA online database launched in 2006 (http://www.raa.se/cms/fornsok/start.html) but Jordan has a lot more stuff, and MEGA looks like it might be more sophisticated.
• BBC News - Dry weather reveals archaeological 'cropmarks' in fields
  "Hundreds of ancient sites have been discovered by aerial surveys, thanks to a dry start to the summer, English Heritage has said."

links for 2010-08-26August 26

• London Cycle Hire 3D Visualisation in Google Earth | Adrian Short
  Adrian Short uses his API for London's bike hire availability to build a live 3D view in Google Earth. Great example of neogeography in an urban context.

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