Google expands its reach

Sometimes Google needs to just chill. Other times, they are on the right track. This is one of the good times, I think.

Streetview now goes underwater.
Satellite mapping now includes aerial pictures from World War II and forward.
(sorry, jd. I should have mentioned: Google Earth.)

This is seriously cool. They got permission to include War Department images and they've put them in the correct places on the current-day maps - overlay form. Seriously. Visit Dresden, Germany and look in the corner of the screen for a "History" slider. If there's available images in your current view, you can set the date back to any time for which they have a picture.

Update, Screenshot:
I've gone to Dresden and clicked the little clock icon to show the historical slider. The little blue lines in the slider indicate what's available and I've chosen Dec 1943. The vague green area outside the city is off the image.You can then slide back to the present and compare the rebuilt city with the old image.

Isn't that awesome?

GOOGLE Earth mapping service is letting people use the Internet to dive into the world's oceans or see the ruin that World War II bombings rained on European cities. The Internet powerhouse on Thursday added an Ocean Showcase and WW II era aerial photographs to its free, interactive on-line atlas.
"The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today's latest mapping technology," Laura Scott of Google Europe said in a blog post. "We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities."
The feature includes images taken in 1943 of 35 European cities pictures and of war-battered Warsaw in 1935 and 1945. Google Earth users are able to do side-by-side comparisons of the cities then and now.

Regression Data and those "Found" pictures

When I teach regression or curve-matching, I like to use real-life stuff for most of the examples. Linear is easy but some of the others can be difficult to find right off the top of my head. Kids have a tougher time.

I think it's counter-productive to let them misfit curves to the real-world. I don't send them off to take random pictures and I won't accept a physically inappropriate curve fit to the image of a cloudbank, like this. Firstly, there isn't a curve there. Second, it's not a cubic. It isn't, won't and never will be.

Continued below the jump:

Regressions on the TI

Kate Nowak was asking about data for Regressions on the TI and I added a few:

Linear: temperature vs. volume of gas in a closed container
10oC, 500 ml; 20oC, 520 ml; 30oC, 531 ml; 40oC, 558 ml;
What I like about this one is extending the line backwards until V=0. The resulting temperature is very close to absolute zero. These are kid-found numbers and yet we get within 10o of the accepted absolute zero. That's definitely cool.

The freestyle skiers and motocross users have a program that allows a video to be converted into stop motion or for two videos to be superimposed, called Dartfish. They use it at the Olympics to show two racers running a course simultaneously. Search Google images for Dartfish and racers and then combine the pictures and a grid. Make sure to tell them to mark the centers of gravity. Or not. Make it interesting with one of Dan's Pictures that doesn't have the complete arc.

Then, here's a set of points. Figure out which regression gives you the highest value of R^2 -- 2nd catalog > Diagnostics ON
x: -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3
y: 3, -8, -7, 0, 7, 8, -3

An additional note for anyone using TI: In all of these, I have them put the equation into the y= list. I let them retype a couple times, then mention that (Stat, Calc, 4) LinReg (VARS, Y-Yars, Y1) Y1 will automatically put the equation into Y1 if it is empty. Use a different Y if Y1 isn't empty. Then you can have the points and the regression showing together. This stunt works with any of the regressions.

I got into the spirit and wanted a total list for future reference so I copied the comments from folks who chimed in. I kept those who provided links or a different thought and trimmed the rest. I did not check the links and did some editing ...

Read more below the jump: