Google hires camel for desert Street View 

Aside Markozen.com Geography

It’s given us robot cars and internet-enabled glasses — but when it came to creating a “Street View” of a desert, Google hit on a low-tech solution.It hired a camel.The beast has become the first animal to carry Google’s Trekker camera, which is typically hoisted by humans to capture 360-degree images of destinations inaccessible to its Street View cars.Google spokeswoman Monica Baz says the camel, reportedly named Raffia, was an apt way of documenting the beautiful shifting sands of Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Oasis.

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“With every environment and every location, we try to customize the capture and how we do it for that part of the environment,” she told The National newspaper.“In the case of Liwa we fashioned it in a way so that it goes on a camel so that it can capture imagery in the best, most authentic and least damaging way,” Baz said.The Liwa Oasis is a 100 kilometer-wide (62-mile) scenic desert, southeast of the city of Abu Dhabi that includes some of the world’s biggest sand dunes.

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Liwa Oasis

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Terrible Airplane Crash in Afghanistan

Aside Markozen.com Aviation, Catastrophes

National Airlines Flight 102 was a cargo flight operated by National Airlines between Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and Al Maktoum Airport in Dubai, with a refueling stop at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. On 29 April 2013, the Boeing 747-400 operating the flight crashed moments after taking off from Bagram, killing all seven people on board.

The subsequent investigation concluded that improperly secured cargo broke free during the take-off and rolled to the back of the cargo hold, crashing through the rear pressure bulkhead and disabling the rear flight control systems. This rendered the aircraft uncontrollable, making recovery from a stall brought on by a change of balance from the shifted cargo impossible.

‘Missing’ Turkish Man Unknowingly Joins Search Party Looking for Himself

Aside Markozen.com Offbeat

A Turkish man who had been reported missing by his family was understandably quite embarrassed when he stumbled upon a search party looking for him and joined in the effort for hours until he realized that they were trying to find him. According to a local media report, the odd misadventure occurred on Tuesday evening in the village of Cayyaka when Beyhan Mutlu went out for a few drinks with some friends. At the conclusion of the evening, the tipsy Turk wound up wandering off into a forest where he seemingly got lost. Concerned that Mutlu had not returned home, his family phoned the local police, who set about enlisting help from the community in searching for the man.

As the group of concerned cops and citizens combed the woods looking for Mutlu, the inebriated man spotted the peculiar gathering and wandered over to lend them a hand. For the next several hours, they continued looking for the ‘missing’ drinker with no idea that the search was moot. Finally, when Mutlu heard one of the people in the group shout his name, the confused man responded “I am here.” It was then that everyone realized that the person they were looking for had been with them the whole time. Upon being questioned by police, the red-faced Mutlu reportedly pleaded with police “don’t punish me too harshly, officer. My father will kill me.” Cops subsequently dropped him off at his home, where he presumably sobered up and then tried to live down any lingering embarrassment from the previous night.

Grand Canyon Skywalk

Aside Markozen.com Geography

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a horseshoe-shaped cantilever bridge with a glass walkway at Eagle Point in Arizona near the Colorado River on the edge of a side canyon in the Grand Canyon West area of the main canyon. USGS topographic maps show the elevation at the Skywalk’s location as 4,770 ft (1,450 m) and the elevation of the Colorado River in the base of the canyon as 1,160 ft (350 m), and they show that the height of the precisely vertical drop directly under the skywalk is between 500 ft (150 m) and 800 ft (240 m). In 2015 the attraction passed one million visitors.

Commissioned and owned by the Hualapai Indian tribe, it was unveiled March 20, 2007, and opened to the general public on March 28, 2007. It is accessed via the Grand Canyon West Airport terminal or a 120-mile (190 km) drive from Las Vegas. The Skywalk is east of Meadview and north of Peach Springs with Kingman being the closest city of some size.

Three men face federal charges for approaching bears eating in Brooks River at Katmai National Park

Aside Markozen.com Animals

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Three men face federal charges for stepping into a closed area of Brooks River at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park to capture up-close photographs of brown bears in the river.

The incident happened in 2018, according to a press release from the U.S District Attorney’s Office of the District of Alaska.

On Aug. 9, 2018, 56-year-old David Engelman of Sandia Park, New Mexico; 54-year-old Ronald J. Engleman II of King Salmon; and 30-year-old Steven Thomas of King Salmon allegedly “left the authorized Brooks Falls viewing platform” and jumped into the Brooks River to approach brown bears “feeding on and in the Brooks River just below the falls,” according to the press release.

The national park is a “safe zone” for the numerous bears that roam the Brooks Camp area, requiring visitors to follow specific rules and regulations to protect any bears or people. The release stated the men created a “hazardous condition” when the they allegedly “came within 50 yards of the brown bears.”

The three men were recently charged with creating a hazardous condition in a closed area and approaching within 50 yards of brown bears. If convicted, they could each face a maximum sentence of six months in prison, a $5,000 fine and a year of probation, according to the release.

The National Park Service is still investigating the case.

These guys are idiots.