cool use of technology

the paramour found this (since zie reads slashdot while i am too out of it to do that these days); i'm just flogging it:

steve fossett (who is famous in aviator circles for holding a number of records, including flying a plane around the world without refueling) went missing in a single-engine plane in the nevada desert. digitalglobe (who supplies much satellite imagery for google earth) went and got high resolution images of the area. amazon is making those available for people to look at through its mechanical turk. now anyone who cares from anywhere in the world can try and find a missing airplane in nevada.

i think that rocks. and i'm hoping it'll turn out better than a similar search for computer scientist jim gray who got lost at sea earlier this year (he was never found AFAIK). fossett has been missing for 6 days, but he's known to be a survivalist, so all isn't lost yet.

p.s.: dear fellow aviators: file a fucking flight plan and stick to it.