Australia
Sometimes I wonder whether computers suck so much at recognising images because they never have an opportunity to walk round the real versions of the things. I had seen plenty of photos of various places in Australia before visiting (not least from other Hobblings), but even so I wouldn't automatically have looked at this photo and thought 'oh, it's Australia.' I'd have thought it was too green and cool-looking, I wouldn't have recognised the trees, and the untouched forest on the hillside wouldn't have meant anything to me. But now, even though those are the only identifying factors I can force my brain to acknowledge, I just have to open up the picture and my brain zips across to the other side of the world.
(I found this out the other month when playing a somewhat infuriating and addictive game called GeoGuesser, where you get plumped down in a google street view and have to guess where you are. I was a million miles (okay, maybe only a thousand miles, literally speaking) better at continents/countries I'd visited than those I hadn't, generally being able to guess the country at first glance in such cases.)
(With one exception: the vast open desert-ish plains of the American mid-west look an awful lot like the vast open desert-ish plains of either Australia or South Africa. Odd, that.)
Australia
Sometimes I wonder whether computers suck so much at recognising images because they never have an opportunity to walk round the real versions of the things. I had seen plenty of photos of various places in Australia before visiting (not least from other Hobblings), but even so I wouldn't automatically have looked at this photo and thought 'oh, it's Australia.' I'd have thought it was too green and cool-looking, I wouldn't have recognised the trees, and the untouched forest on the hillside wouldn't have meant anything to me. But now, even though those are the only identifying factors I can force my brain to acknowledge, I just have to open up the picture and my brain zips across to the other side of the world.
(I found this out the other month when playing a somewhat infuriating and addictive game called GeoGuesser, where you get plumped down in a google street view and have to guess where you are. I was a million miles (okay, maybe only a thousand miles, literally speaking) better at continents/countries I'd visited than those I hadn't, generally being able to guess the country at first glance in such cases.)
(With one exception: the vast open desert-ish plains of the American mid-west look an awful lot like the vast open desert-ish plains of either Australia or South Africa. Odd, that.)