albo: look at the photo: notice how many of them have backyard pools

It gets too hot to have a house without a pool. For yard work in the summer, the routine is: Get in the pool. Work until you're hot. Repeat.

What's so strange about the Vegas pictures? Isn't most of America like that now?

FoxKelfonne: Shilldog: That Vegas pic made me itch to play sim city. Now I'm counting the seconds to get off work.

You have to register some free account to do it, and if you're on FireFox, you'll need to use IETab, but EA has Sim City up to play for free in your browser:

Sim City Classic (pops)

Oh, bloody hell. I've been trying to break myself of browsing at work... DAMN YOU TO HECK!

The Vegas picture demonstrates incredibly poor space management. If you're not going to have a lawn, just build damn apartments with big suites.

pics or it didn't happen

IXI Jim IXI: Can't we just take close up pics of the Earth from the Earth?

Ray: What's up there?
Ken: The view.
Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.

Gish21: What's so strange about the Vegas pictures? Isn't most of America like that now?

No, most of America's neighborhoods aren't a mass of stucco and concrete, and useless back yards.

And think, how friggin much it's got to cost to cool that second story, if it's built the same as a similar house in Houston. Likely the architect didn't do any sort of flow analysys to see how the cold air would move in the house, and there's a huge ac unit for the downstairs, with a tiny one for the upstairs that runs all the time.

I think you might be my hero. The more time I spent here, living in this state, watching construction, living in some of these homes- the more I realize that those who planned these homes don't know their ass from their head when it comes to the environment these homes are being built in.

No true air flow? Built high up so it costs more to cool? Use of construction materials that don't insulate well? Lots of water wasted on tiny spots of grass? *sigh*

People don't realize that water and electricity here in Arizona are very very tied together. Without good water flow, you don't have electricity. Without electricity, you don't have AC. And most people here couldn't and wouldn't 'stick it out' without AC.

I love my state. I hate business and government idiots who don't see it for what it is- a desert.

All suburbs are soul-less and populated by sheeple.

flashfry: No YOU'RE a Towel: That Vegas one is unnerving. Very "hive".

Do you and the subby realize that most of those homes--as scrunched up together as they are--contain a family with members who work or go to school or both and have friends and parties and favortie shows and books and hobbies and vacations and christmas trees in december and hot dogs in July and say hi to their neighbors and report suspicious activity and teach their kids how to ride a bike on those streets?

Don't be unnerved.

You're just making it worse.

wow...#6 looks like someone's been coloring with a space-based laser.

IXI Jim IXI:
I always viewed Vegas as being similar to Disneyland. Yes, it's a blast to go there for a while, but who the hell wants to move into Cindarella's castle?

Vegas is like New york, great place to visit...

Wow...I remember how built up I thought that section of Vegas looked just from seeing it from the plane and a helicopter...

It's like a human habitrail.

JeffKochosky: Unless you're taking the Deuce up to Fremont Street... good times.

Is that a euphemism for buttsecks?

Pair-o-Dice:
Vegas is like New york, great place to visit...

...but I wouldn't want to get forcibly sodomized there.

rppp01a: I love my state. I hate business and government idiots who don't see it for what it is- a desert.

They're just doing what the people want. The public wants cheap, two-story houses, so that's what business gives them. The public wants a lawn, so that's what business gives them.

The public doesn't want these things taken away from them, so government doesn't make an issue of it. Also, the public doesn't want "communities", because the things that lead to good communities (local businesses, public transportation, pedestrian-friendliness) also means you get poor people and even *gasp* vagrants in the area. Car culture is great for providing a barrier to entry.

I agree Pxtl, it is a shiat-hole. I used to work in the Hammer a lot. Dumped thousands of tons of industrial waste at Newalta.

/shudder

Ned the Wookie: I noticed a lot of the are of Iran and arab countries. I wonder how that happened?

The Masons and the Illuminati (lead by the Reptillians) ordered it so...of course.

/or less cloud cover in drier areas of the world

19, 21 and 23 were taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. They must have some cameras.

Communist Toaster: I agree Pxtl, it is a shiat-hole. I used to work in the Hammer a lot. Dumped thousands of tons of industrial waste at Newalta.

/shudder

Coming from where, North? Yeah, coming over the skyway you get a nice gander at the steel mills, and if you go into downtown from Centennial you get to see the run-down urban decay areas. Hamilton's actually really nice if you stick to the West end (McMaster, Dundas, Locke, Ancaster, etc), and there are pockets of non-scariness out in Stoney Creek(however, yeah, they're a lot closer to the industrial shiatholes).

rat_creature: flashfry
Do you and the subby realize that most of those homes--as scrunched up together as they are--contain a family with members who work or go to school or both and have friends and parties and favortie shows and books and hobbies and vacations and christmas trees in december and hot dogs in July and say hi to their neighbors and report suspicious activity and teach their kids how to ride a bike on those streets?
Don't be unnerved.

Well, when considering the inherent unsustainability of this type of community, plus the sheer number of subdivisions like these out there, particularly in a part of the world that doesn't have the resources (like water) to sustain what's already there... how is this not unnerving?

Oddly enough, Vegas does fairly well on the water front. They've got a big-ass dam in the neighborhood.

DslainteC: I find it interesting that the only photo in that set that primarily shows mankind's efforts is the ugliest of the bunch.


Take it up the agenda of the person who selected the photos.

I can show you aerial photos of nature that are ugly or plain as well. Similarly, I can show you man-made structures that are appealing from the air. I always found the nightlights photos of the earth to be pretty compelling as far as a "We are here" statement.

if this is all those @$$hats at NASA can come up with after all these years, we really need to cut their funding. those photos don't blow anything up.

LemSkroob: Go read Kevin Lynch. or Jane Jacobs. Communities like the one in that image is what prevents social interaction, public saftey, and a sense of place.

Yah yah yah, Lynch, Jacobs. Kostof, Bacon.

It may not be lack of information that gives me a dissimilar perspective from you.

Shilldog: That Vegas pic made me itch to play sim city. Now I'm counting the seconds to get off work.

Oh, damn you. DAMN YOU.
/Now wasting company time

rppp01a: I look at the pictures of the Sahara and Arabian peninsula, and wonder how life could have evolved- how human life could continue to exist in those places.

The cultures must have been pretty damn tough to survive those harsh conditions.

Hell, look at the places even primitive people have lived:

The Arctic Circle, Iceland, Tibet, Outer Mongolia/Gobi Desert, Arabian Peninsula, Sahara, Australia, etc.

For a bunch of bald chimps, we did pretty well for ourselves and managed to live damn near anywhere food could be found.

JeffKochosky: with the mortgage meltdown and other financial crises... most of those houses are probably empty

Media hyperbole is working on someone!

loonatic112358: I think if they stopped using traditional suburban architecture...

And you've hit on the reason they won't build homes that makes sense in their climate even if they knew how. Everyone who buys one of those homes in Arizona is moving there from Detroit or Buffalo or someplace with four seasons, and they want to move into a house that looks like the houses they had back home.

rppp01a:
I love my state. I hate business and government idiots who don't see it for what it is- a desert.

And all the damned mormons. Am I right?

Pxtl I worked 12 hour nightshift shut-downs at both Stelco and Dofasco. I worked in Industrial Services for a couple years.

rodeofrog: rppp01a:
I love my state. I hate business and government idiots who don't see it for what it is- a desert.

And all the damned mormons. Am I right?

:)

I've often wondered what the map would look like if Brigham Young would have lost that fight for supremacy over the largest sect of the mormons after Joe Smith died in that gun battle.

loonatic112358: rppp01a: And think, how friggin much it's got to cost to cool that second story, if it's built the same as a similar house in Houston. Likely the architect didn't do any sort of flow analysys to see how the cold air would move in the house, and there's a huge ac unit for the downstairs, with a tiny one for the upstairs that runs all the time.

I think you might be my hero. The more time I spent here, living in this state, watching construction, living in some of these homes- the more I realize that those who planned these homes don't know their ass from their head when it comes to the environment these homes are being built in.

No true air flow? Built high up so it costs more to cool? Use of construction materials that don't insulate well? Lots of water wasted on tiny spots of grass? *sigh*

People don't realize that water and electricity here in Arizona are very very tied together. Without good water flow, you don't have electricity. Without electricity, you don't have AC. And most people here couldn't and wouldn't 'stick it out' without AC.

I love my state. I hate business and government idiots who don't see it for what it is- a desert.

it's one of those things that just irritates me, and made me realize that if I were to move out of my 30 year old home I'd design the new place myself.

Steel structure, Conduit in the walls, AC supplemented by Geothermal, air flow analysis performed to make sure all my cold air didn't just flow to one spot. A solar array above (not on) the house to collect power, and provide shade to the main structure. and a well

what about hedges shaped like dollar signs?

Communist Toaster: Pxtl I worked 12 hour nightshift shut-downs at both Stelco and Dofasco. I worked in Industrial Services for a couple years.

You have my sympathy - I work for a steel warehousing company, but in software so I don't have to go into the big facilities and do crazy shiftwork.

Walker: For #22 I witnessed this scene from the ground when visiting Vegas a few years ago. Those developments just seem to go on forever. And every house had a big ugly metal A/C box on the roof. You don't see that here in Virginia. They are on the ground next to the houses here.

Them are swamp coolers which need to be up higher since they cool by evaporation and cold air settles downward...more humid climates don't benefit from swamp coolers as much since you are already moist. The dry heat makes a swamp cooler feel nice but oh the water wasting is serious business

Actually, while most of my hometown is cookie cutter, that picture just reminds me of the countless times I have flown into McCarran Airport and thought to myself "damn it feels good home."

This submission is terrible!

/someone's gotta be the downer

spiffitz: So who's going to wrap these up in an email and add some story about how their daughter works for NASA, these being the pics she took from space?

Don't forget that they were taken with her dead father's camera that he carried on D-day that she snuck on board and how that only the USA could make such things possible.

nicoffeine: Postal Penguin: What is disturbing is that LV is packing as many people as possible into these plots of land even as they face rising water shortages.

What's really scary is they aren't fitting as many people as possible. They just spreading out for spreading out's sake. All those lawns are the reason for water shortages.

Yes, I preach apartments. I feel it's my duty.

Most people dont have a law. Its either astro-turf look a like grass or crushed rock.

loonatic112358: rodeofrog:

what about hedges shaped like dollar signs?

?

assume i'm not caffienated enough to understand you at this point, because its true

It'd be expensve to build yes, but I'd imagine it'd be cheaper to own

I was attempting to reference a feature film called The Jerk. There is a delightful scene wherein our hero describes his dream house.

Leopold Stotch: urger: As an urban planner, the Las Vegas image made me cringe. That is a seriously messed up street system, there is no connectivity between the residential areas and commercial. This place is sterile, there is effectively no way that a sense of community can develop here.

It's sad how few of those houses have solar water heaters or PV cells on the roof. Vegas is perfect for that kind of thing.

Until it becomes less than about $25,000 to add sufficient pholtaic cells to cover electricity useage it won't become ready for joe consumer until the cost goes down.

Catch-22 need more orders to get prices down on raw materials, need lower prices to get more orders.

Some companies are getting better at creating solar cells that don't use silicon which is helping lower the cost and steal for scrap attraction.

Kenziewho: nicoffeine: Postal Penguin: What is disturbing is that LV is packing as many people as possible into these plots of land even as they face rising water shortages.

What's really scary is they aren't fitting as many people as possible. They just spreading out for spreading out's sake. All those lawns are the reason for water shortages.

Yes, I preach apartments. I feel it's my duty.

Most people dont have a LAWN. Its either astro-turf look a like grass or crushed rock.

/fixed

These are really cool. Would have been useful to see a scale to get a sense of how large some of the features are.

SomeBrunette: Amazing. It's too bad that the U.S. contribution to such gorgeous photos of our wondrous planet is.....Vegas.

Kenai is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and happens to be in the US. :)

/lives there every summer
//moving there permanently this year
///fish on!!