I haven’t thought about writing a bio using Google Earth instead of Microsoft Word until I saw this post: http://www.archdaily.com/88467/the-indicator-following-the-white-rabbit-through-google-earth/. I wonder if Google Earth Tool can be another form of memoirs after physical books, ebooks, documentary movies and audio books.
And then, I took a test and marked in Google Earth all the significant places in my life, and tied them up into a video tour. I know I can always add new texts\ pictures\ videos related to my experience in these places in the future. However, because I am using a free-version wordpress blog, I cannot share the kmz file I made in Google Earth. But I picked the following 6 screen shots. They are neighborhoods where I lived more than 3 months, and the screen shots are of the same scale (Eye at 2000 meters).
Conclusion of this practice: (1) I made a good transition from living in huge condo buildings in China to small houses in the States; (2) I don’t mind living in cul-de-sac neighborhood if it’s served by convenient transit; (3) New York is really dense, and Kansas City really has beautiful suburb; and (40 I don’t think the concept “block” really applies to urban context in China… in a lot of the cases.
南昌航空大学, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
北京大学，Beijing University, Beijing, China
Northwood, Ann Arbor, Michigan
7 Corners, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jackson Heights, New York City, New York
Kansas City, Missouri
It’s quite intriguing to see those patterns in parallel, with the same scale, but open variables like density, context, tempo, etc. Good way to see ourselves while we are too small to be posted on Google Earth.
I even recorded a video in Google Earth to track my moving from one city to another. It’s kind of exciting to see the entire globe spinning to the other side of the ocean:)