5/3/2005: Korea at night

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

Here's an image of North Korea at night that does not appear fake to me (top one.) It shows a few city lights, it shows a brightly lit DMZ, it shows lights in surrounding countries that appear to be dark in today's IOD above. This is was I expected North Korea to look like.

OK, I'll stop ranting and raving now.

The bottom one in that link is the same image UT posted. In the center between the two is a comparison showing the NK capitol lit up in '96 but not in '01.
If you're right and it is a fake, who's faking it and why?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Karenv

"IOW I don't understand your point."

The difference between the original picture submitted by UT and the pics with some light could be due to time of day and just having dim lighting. Why assume that it is doctored when there are simpler explanations?

So why are lights in the Korea Straits off in the water adjacent to the island of Tsushima? Why does the ocean have more lights than the adjacent island of Tsushima? Why are there lights as bright as in Seoul located at 36 degrees N, 130 degrees East in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) off the city of Pohang? No land mass (island) exists there. Why are there bright lights in the Yellow Sea off the city of Gimpo and Incheon (west of Seoul)? How does time of day cause bright lights to appear where only ocean should exist? I don't understand your point. What does time of day have to do with lights where no human civilization should exist?

Those lights don't appear in a picture provided by xoxoxoBruce and in a new photo provided by UT. So what created lights where no land masses exist? Time of day?

[russotto]

The diagonal line is probably a seam between images from successive passes.

It looks to me like this image deliberately excludes everything outside of S. Korea, though. China should be lit, and Pyongyang as well.

[chrisinhouston]

Having never been to Japan I have to wonder if they ever turn any of their lights off at night? Seems to be the brightest spot on the planet!

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Wow, tw, I had no idea that North Korea was so misunderstood.

No, but it does show the unintended consequences of politics and government.

If Nixon had taken a hardline stance towards China, would the world be better off?

The US embargo of oil to Japan is cited as one of the provocations for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Of course, the Iraq oil for food program shows that corruption is one of the results of attempts at humanitarian relief.

All I can say is that I don't have any good answers. But all of this shows that diplomacy is a minefield mixing human emotions with the possibility of devastating outcomes affecting millions of lives. A 'beat on it with a stick' approach is generally not good. Whether the results are tens of thousands starving to death, or some 19-year-old kid from Ohio dying on a street during a military operation, there are consequences for almost every action.

One thing never changes in politics, the people making the decisions are very rarely the ones who bear the brunt of the suffering from their failures.

Personally, I am not a big fan of the 'starve them to make them free' approach.

[wolf]

I'm trying to decide what not having a year on the otherwise precise date&timestamp means.

[lookout123]

dammit people! i told you them n'rth k'reans had lights! we got to invade now. it's time to kill evry las' one o' them sonzabitches!

[Trilby]

Lookout, um...er...what are you doing today? You sound a little different.

[lookout123]

oh, that was just my best reactionary, redneck,rascist, militia imitation. you don't like?

[wolf]

Originally Posted by lookout123

oh, that was just my best reactionary, redneck,rascist, militia imitation. you don't like?

I thought you were in psychic symbiosis with ZippyT.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

Anyway, back to the image. ... I'm not saying North Korea has as many lights as the South. I know it's a backwards-ass country with little electricity. I just think the image looks fake. It looks more fake compared to the other two images posted, which do show the capital city.

Why are there lights in the ocean between Korea and Japan - in the Korea Strait? There is a Japanese island just off Pusan. But not as large as those lights indicate.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

Why are there lights in the ocean between Korea and Japan - in the Korea Strait? There is a Japanese island just off Pusan. But not as large as those lights indicate.

From the site;

It is possible to distinguish four primary types of lights present at the earth's surface: human settlements, fires, gas flares, and fishing boats.

Maybe fishing boats??

[xoxoxoBruce]

From a link off glatt's link. I downloaded the 39.6MB tif, converted to a 4.54MB jpeg that's 227.556 inches x 113.778 inches.
Did a surgical strike on Korea for this image.

They look like islands offshore in this image?

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

From a off glatt's link. I downloaded the 39.6MB tif, converted to a 4.54MB jpeg that's 227.556 inches x 113.778 inches.
Did a surgical strike on Korea for this image.

That image makes far more sense. Chinese towns are now lit. Whole cities do not appear to exist in the Korea Straits. And the lights more correspond to a poplulation density map of Korea. For example, the shape of lights around S Korea's major population center in Daegu are more in agreement with how that area grew between moutains and along the highways.

N Korea has lights in P'yongynag and in other major cities such a Wonsan (where the USS Pueblo was taken after being captured) and Hungnam. Curiously, N Koreas North East poplulation centers don't seen to consume much electricity for lighting even though this is the region containing most of the nuclear related activities.

[Karenv]

You know, the time of night could make the difference. If it were 7 or 8 pm there would likely be more lights. If it were past midnight in a country with severe energy shortages and no night life, then, there may be too few to show up on a satellite. No light color doesn't mean no electricity, it could be very dim or unconcentrated electricity.