So I’ve spent the past couple hours helping find Steve Fossett. I have become a Mechanical Turk for Amazon and have been reviewing satellite imagery of the area where Steve is supposed to have disappeared last Monday.
I am not a super fan of Steve but I have followed his record-breaking exploits in the news over the past few years and felt kinda touched by his disappearance; enough to wish that I could help actually, and enough to subscribe to Google Alerts on Monday to receive alerts in my inbox as soon as any news site would update us on him.

When I heard that his buddy Richard Branson was collaborating with Google and their famous maps to help find him I laughed a bit because those satellite photos are not known for being always up-to-date, nor very high-def (for non Pro members at least)…

But then a few things happened today:
- I watched Deja-Vu in which some machine allows to “see” in the past and track people and their whereabouts in the area the movie takes place in.
- It made me wonder what it would take to build a system to review satellite imagery and help find Steve, in the same way that unused computer cycles can be used to help fight cancer, Aids etc via the various grid projects .
- Next thing, I open my mails and see a Google Alerts pointing to this:
You Might Help Find Steve Fossett.

And so I better get back to my tasks.