A little over a week ago, adventurer Steve Fossett was reported missing in Nevada, after he failed to return from a solo flight. Search efforts have not located him so far. In a move similar to the (failed) February search for Microsoft researcher Jim Gray, you can now help search for Fossett using your personal computer.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk system is being used to search for Steve Fossett. Using new satellite images of the search area, you can browse through online images, searching for signs of the plane. You can also use Google Earth if you want to get a closer look at a particular piece of ground. If you find something, simply flag the image and a team of experts will inspect it. Every image will be reviewed by multiple volunteers, so don’t worry that you might accidentally miss something.
You can get started searching, or read more about the disappearance (and a bit more about the Google/Amazon effort).
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It’s really sad. The fact is, to sign on and help search they are requiring every bit of personal information they can muster out of you. I don’t really understand the need to become a member of amazon.com in a case like this.
I was hoping to look at a few pictures to help. Of course my address wasn’t something that amazon’s computer’s could rectify. Hopefully the pictures I was going to review weren’t the ones that ended up saving his life.
Anything to turn a profit I guess.
posted by Drew on 9-10-2007 at 12:47 pm
It is a shame that when rich people disappear people fall over them selves to find them (remember that guy from cnet?). Some of this money and effort should be put into katrina relief. While I an at it, the top ten richest people in the U.S. could each give half-a-billion dollars and not even miss it.
posted by gus on 9-10-2007 at 2:47 pm
Tell me if I’m wrong. Doesn’t Google Earth contain some old information? Did they take recent pictures of the area just for this assignment? I thought I remembered reading that some of the image sections on Google Earth can be up to 3 years old.
posted by Larissa on 9-10-2007 at 3:30 pm
Is he the guy in the red and white striped shirt and beanie?
Seriously, though, if the best thing you can think to do with your millions is play daredevil then you get what’s coming. There are really needy people out there. Adios, Steve.
posted by Bassman on 9-10-2007 at 3:31 pm
38°33’44.09″N 119°19’36.92″W
posted by allison on 9-10-2007 at 3:34 pm
Nah, he landed in the Black Rock Desert during Burning Man and ran away with a little Raver Chickie.
posted by BurnerGirl on 9-10-2007 at 3:46 pm
Larissa – yeah, they rephotographed the search area over the weekend (though you do need to update your Google Earth to get the new data). There’s some info on the Mechanical Turk page on exactly how this works — I believe you have to plug a “KML” file into Google Earth to update it.
FWIW, another interesting side effect of this search — apparently volunteers have already found a variety of non-Fossett plane crashes that have been sitting undiscovered out in the desert for years.
posted by Higgins on 9-10-2007 at 3:47 pm
Gus and Drew are right- they want your info for their own benefit, and the rich people get special treatment. Nobody cares if the family-man father of three children crashed his plane in the desert, but if the Hilton prostitute crashed her Lear, America would go over the desert with a microscope to find her. It’s really quite sad.
posted by Luciano on 9-10-2007 at 5:30 pm
hmm… intrepid souls, American had. Since Fosset dare to flew singlehandedly & was a seasoned adventurer, let him find his own way back. Of course, state policies may require a ‘search’ on unexplained dissappearance of a person. But it should not extend to more than a certain set of days – for adults. Maybe a bit more for juveniles!
posted by dwLIN on 9-10-2007 at 9:17 pm
I think they should be looking in water he was looking for a dry lake in that area is bull shit he was up to something else he knows where dry lakes are in Utah and right next to his Mojave Calf. factory. there are no dry lakes in the Sierra Nevada’s
posted by Dan on 9-10-2007 at 10:46 pm
1st time visit & last time.
What a pathetic bunch.
If you had the means to help a friend that was missing what would you do?
Piss and moan? Or gather everyone you know to help.
This man happens to know people from all sides of the globe. Thats why there are so many searchers, freinds coming from all over the globe,because they want to. Willing to risk their own buts to help.
…………………………
Breaking news
…………………………
YOU DON’T COUNT YOUR LIFE BY THE BREATHS YOU TAKE, BUT BY THE MOMENTS THAT TOOK YOUR BREATH AWAY.
source unknown
…………………..
Steve has made friends everywhere he been, if you had spent even a few minutes with him you might have had a clue as to his character.
……………………..
Stop sniveling you judgemental twits,grow some balls.
This man has a family just like you, how would you, like your family to read this kind of stuff about you or one of your own.
……………………….
Its not what you take, but what you leave.
also unknown
……………..
Before you shoot your mouth off about someone you should really have some clue as to what / who you are talking about, do a litle home work.
Not one of you have ever met this man but yet you are willing to judge him, is that what you teach your children??
………………………..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming — “WOW–What a Ride!”
……………………………..
Before you judge other people you should learn to walk upright.
posted by TomMcnutt on 9-10-2007 at 10:49 pm
Wow, Tom! Don’t go McNutts on us!
If average people got the attention this guy has, those other crashes would have been found before.
It’s my perogative to judge based on limited knowledge. Like everyone, I occasionally take advantage of it.
Thanks for all the motivational!
(snivel, snivel.)
posted by Bassman on 9-11-2007 at 5:46 am
Eh, motivational quotes, that is.
(Is that how you spell perogative? It just doesn’t look right.)
posted by Bassman on 9-11-2007 at 5:48 am
I believe Mr. McNutt is aptly named. Good job, McNutt parents!!
Bassman – it’s prerogative. Why the extra ‘r’? I don’t know!
I can’t really be bothered to care about Steve Fossett. Yes, it’s sad that he’s disappeared blahblahblah, but as an above poster suggested, if you have so much money that the only thing you can think of to do with it is to risk your life, then you deserve what you get.
There are thousands of charitable organizations in this country alone that would welcome even a couple thousand dollars in donations. Squandering money by doing these stupid daredevil stunts is just irresponsible, in my not-at-all humble opinion.
posted by Rachel on 9-11-2007 at 6:10 am
Wow..what a display of class envy.
Why the hate?
posted by Karen on 9-11-2007 at 6:48 am
Losers hate winners. What else is new. Why should we care what they think. They’re losers.
posted by Steve on 9-11-2007 at 8:29 am
My daughter feels Steve crashed near the Carson Sink and there’s nothing left of the plane. For more info contact
Kim at Kaanichee1@aol.com. She’s usually very accurate. This is important as he is still alive. 9/11/07
posted by Leslie Cleland on 9-11-2007 at 8:34 am
Thanks Rachel. From now on I’ll think prerogative/February. That should help me spell it right.
____
Class envy? Was he classy? Could be right. I tend to the clumsy and oafish, myself.
____
Depends how you define winning and losing.
____
Um, you mean your daughter’s psychic or something?
posted by Bassman on 9-11-2007 at 10:07 am
We live in a free country. Search for whomever you want to find.
As for me, I am still looking for Amelia Earhart … and my old college roommate.
Pat, where are you?
posted by Janix on 9-11-2007 at 10:35 am
I wanted to help look, but I’m concerned about the sign up process. It seems to require a lot of personal info, (and a check box with some sort of authorization to debit my bank account?). I don’t see how this is relevant to the search. I don’t mind sharing a little info, like my name and email,that could be being used to verify that users are live people, and to keep mean spirited people and bots and such from spamming the site and wasting time with frivolous reports. Heck, I wouldn’t even mind if they were just going to sell my name and email to spammers to offset operating costs. Email is deletable. But my address, phone number, and possibly authorizing some kind of account to be opened makes me nervous. Amazon should make the search less intrusive. I bet I’m not the only one scared off from helping by the registration process.
posted by Melissa on 9-11-2007 at 12:20 pm
Melissa – FWIW, the Amazon Mechanical Turk system is designed for paid tasks. Normally the tasks would pay you an incremental fee for doing something, hence the requests for credit card info and such. The use of the system for charity tasks like this is a bit of a hack.
Having said that, I agree, there should be a way to sign up without submitting all that stuff (and just be prevented from doing paid tasks).
posted by Higgins on 9-11-2007 at 12:23 pm
Oh, wait a minute. I think I figured out why they need all that info. I looked further into this Mechanical Turk thing. Apparently, the Fossett search isn’t the only task they’re running, and some of the tasks are ones people get paid to work on, so the account that it wants me to set up is related to those I guess. It makes sense now. I think I’m going to go ahead and sign up to help. It looks like it’s not just random intrusion after all.
posted by Melissa on 9-11-2007 at 12:25 pm
I think this might take us in interesting directions, at least. As technology gets better, imagine how many people could help in future searches! Not only airplanes, but maybe people lost in the woods, etc. Grid an area, find people willing to volunteer and search via the internet, get that area’s images updated, and have maybe ten people look over one square or something. I don’t know how practical it would be, but it’s an interesting thought, nonetheless. Sure would help the rescuers if someone could spot the location.
posted by Larissa on 9-17-2007 at 3:47 pm
Larissa – agreed! I can even imagine a world in which there was some near-standard way to make a distress signal — for example, if people knew to make some figure (say, a triangle) of certain minimum dimensions, out of fallen logs or some such. That way you wouldn’t even need people to view the images — just write a good application to scan images and look for the pattern. Anyway, yeah, I think this is a big part of the future of search-and-rescue.
posted by Higgins on 9-17-2007 at 4:17 pm