At a site near to a chemical spill, the incident commander has set up a tent and is directing her team of 100 field agents. She has a visual fix on the location up on screen. It’s a Google Maps satellite-coordinated representation of the spill zone, tagged with information from her agents about hazardous areas, casualties, temperatures and pollution levels. The map has also also been printed out and laid out on a table. The incident commander and her team of data analysts rapidly annotate the map with post-it notes as they assess the situation, evaluate requests for help and decide how to respond. Up on the wall is a whiteboard scribbled with marks about the relative urgency of various tasks and their deadlines for completion. Here, in this tent, is where the spill zone is set in perspective. Here, at some distance from the ‘unknown quantity’, is where knowledge emerges, a piecemeal narrative is assembled and the disaster is properly seen for the first time. The defining user interface is that of the overhead aerial view, with its assumptions of privilege, power and possession. See http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/following-the-reaction-to-bin-ladens-death/#why-commandos-do-not-use-google-maps