you can be big brother, yes you!

I just found out about this hack for Google Earth. There are certain parts of the world that can be viewed at a much MUCH higher zoom level. Makes me worry a little bit about our privacy. But in the meantime, it's kinda fun to play around with.

1. Go to maps.google.com and find your location.
2. Click the Satellite button in the right corner.
3. Click "link to this page."
4. Scroll to the "z=" part of the url and make the number bigger.

That's it! I admit, I haven't found many places in the world that will allow for a zoom over "z=20," but many others have.

According to comments on GoogleBlogoscoped's post, the ultra-zoom is due to a collaboration with National Geographic as well as an Australian day flyover.

At some point they must have done flyovers in Africa too, because the man in picture is totally looking at the camera.

The weirdest part is that the super zoomed image (link) has a blurred edge, as if Google wanted us to find it.