For a short moment last November, the web was totally, complete obsessed with one unlikely thing: a series of curiously anonymous satellite images. Jesus Diaz, over at Gizmodo, broke the story last November, asking, “Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert?” Collectively, there were eight photographs, pulled from Google Earth, which showed enormous, bizarre structures built way the hell out in western China.You probably saw the pictures. The original post got two million page views, and in the days after it seems like everyone felt the need to repost, share, and offer an opinion. Were they giant QR codes in the desert? Secret spy satellite calibrators? Had the Chinese ripped off a secret DARPA project? An elaborate politically-charged bit of land art?Eventually, it got sorted and people went back to making Sad Keanu macros, but for a week anyway, those images were burning up the web. When the pundicators talk about the social media, this is kind of what they’re talking about. All that sharing and posting and conversation would have been impossible ten years ago.But then again, 20 years ago those satellite images wouldn’t really have existed either, at least not publicly.Read the rest at Motherboard.
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