Eye on the World
While looking up information on Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) for GIS I came across some DEMs of Afghanistan and some satellite pictures of tunnel entrances in the mountains. It just amazes me how our government (and many others) have an eye on the world--literally--even in the most remote places.
In case you're ever interested in taking a peak at the United States down to a pretty awesome resolution (one foot!) check out the USGS website for free images of basically anywhere in the US, many of them high-resolution orthoimagery. What is even more incredible is to think of how public images like these are restricted by the government..and that they have even higher resolution surveillance.
The government did flyovers of the 133 most populated cities in the country after 9/11 and have recently (in the past couple of months) added all of the high resolution color orthoimagery online, which all seamlessly fit together and are geo-referenced to make me smile. :o) It's fun to take a look at Portland and find my house, Mt. Tabor, landmarks in the neighborhood, and even create a shapefile and digitize my walk that I took to and from home each day [yes, I'm a nerd!].