In its few years of existence, the virtual globe program Google Earth — which allows anyone with Internet access and a personal computer to zoom in on recent satellite images of almost any point on the earth's surface — has attracted millions of enthusiastic users. Among them, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, are commercial roofers, real estate agents, landscapers, and insurance companies, who use the program to make rough estimates and scout for new business.
But Google Earth is also just plain fun to explore, as evidenced by the number of related Web sites where enthusiasts post the coordinates of favorite discoveries. Some devotees spend hours each day searching satellite images for airplanes captured in midflight. Others are captivated by crop circles or overhead views of celebrity homes. There's even a community of determined users who scan the world's nude beaches for tiny but recognizable human figures — quite possibly the hardest way to find naked people in all of cyberspace.
And then there are building-related images like the ones shown here, which don't necessarily fit neatly into any particular category but are worth looking at because they make us smile, raise unanswered questions, or call forth the sense of relief we all feel, on gazing at someone else's gigantic mistake, that it wasn't ours.
