The Cartography is appalling. Ugly, blobby, fisher price imprecise. All that matters is roads, railways are a comedy train track, other facilities rarely marked.
Compare these
streetmap, using the bartholemew map of london
google
and these rural locations (Edale in derbyshire)
OS basemap with streetmap
Google
Nice idea, crap implementation.
― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 10:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― reverto levidensis (blueski), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― reverto levidensis (blueski), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:07 (seventeen years ago) link
I totally agree with Ed. It's completely let down by the crap cartography. Many street names bear no relation to reality, as well. I guess they just decided to save money by buying in cheap-ass data rather than Ordnance Survey or whoever. Even elsewhere in the world, where all online maps are a bit shit, it's not very good comparatively. I was looking at Pakistan recently, and multimap had much more detail.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:09 (seventeen years ago) link
There's some MS thing that is WAY better for up to date accurate street locations - but it doesn't have sat imagery.
― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bhumibol Adulyadej (Lucretia My Reflection), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 11:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Latham Green (mike), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 12:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― SAVE IT FOR THE CAKE LIST YOU CRAZY BROAD (patog27), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link
it is fisher price and blocky, but i think thats part of its charm in a way. its good for roads (apart from the odd occasion when it looks like roads join when they dont). yes it is bad for railways, and for geographic features (but for geographic stuff, just switch to the sat imagery). i figure theyve concentrated on roads precisely because you can switch to satellite for non-road stuff
as for yahoo maps, well, theyve improved immeasurably in the last couple of years. a few months ago london was just a few made up lines, no resemblance to reality, and roads not even named. this has totally been cleaned up now. also, only the uk and england were mapped. now, i think, all of europe is mapped.
― Storefront Church (688), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link
They need a bit of quality control.
The satellite photo of my road comprises mostly of a large shadow, whereas my work colleague can examine the condition of his chimney.
― Bob Six (bobbysix), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 13:07 (seventeen years ago) link
'The Dr'?
― Storefront Church (688), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:18 (seventeen years ago) link
I actually really like the simplicity of the map (and am willing to sacrifice details I don't really need, like the railways)--the streetmap ones especially hurt my brain.
― you win again, gravity! (tissp), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 13:08 (seventeen years ago) link
why does google love Norton so much?
― Friendly Tree (688), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
i guess one good thing about google maps is that you can zoom right in to the point where street widths and lengths are to scale in relation to each other (unlike streetmap).
― vita susicivus (blueski), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Charmmy Kitty's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (ex machina), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Slumpman (Slump Man), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ed, Thursday, 19 April 2007 07:18 (sixteen years ago) link
― 600, Thursday, 19 April 2007 07:53 (sixteen years ago) link
― jergïns, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:24 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:25 (sixteen years ago) link
― StanM, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:40 (sixteen years ago) link
― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Someone told me that they leave off most facilities as this is "how it's done" on some standard American maps and that is where googlymaps started
― Jesse, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Woah! Street Views on Google maps!
You can see a 360 views of streets in a few US cities.
― molly mummenschanz, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:26 (sixteen years ago) link
Can you give an example? I cannot find such things.
― Will M., Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:38 (sixteen years ago) link
There's a link to it on the map itself, next to the buttons for "Traffic", "Satellite", etc.
Here's the demo link
― molly mummenschanz, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:40 (sixteen years ago) link
Okay you didn't warn me about the orange-shirted dork there.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:41 (sixteen years ago) link
Spandex-wearing dork, to boot.
― molly mummenschanz, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:43 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm going to really have to learn to stop picking my nose in public
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 16:08 (sixteen years ago) link
ha ha i like the way you can click on the arrow and move along the street there. WHERE IS THE MYST ISLAND?
― Alan, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 16:29 (sixteen years ago) link
i was going down the street but the cars coming towards me never did actually pass me wtf
― blueski, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 16:32 (sixteen years ago) link
http://news.com.com/Amazon+A9+takes+it+to+the+streets/2100-1032_3-5833916.html
― Steve Shasta, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 21:17 (sixteen years ago) link
hahah. reminds me of dave barry on the german school system, where some of the grades actually lead you back to grades you've already completed
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 25 August 2015 15:32 (eight years ago) link
You people need to get a dedicated GPS receiver. I have a handheld one for use in cities and a satnav for the car. Much better than relying on google maps.
― anthony braxton diamond geezer (anagram), Tuesday, 25 August 2015 15:37 (eight years ago) link
Every week, I discover something new that sucks about Google Maps - most often something that Google Maps used to do very well, but no longer doesn't.
Latest example - Open a map, zoom in a bit, and drop the guy onto a street to get the Street View. OK... so it takes a little longer for the street routes to load up, that's not what I'm talking about in this case. No, the thing I'm talking about is when you search for a location - like a CVS or Walgreens - and then the little orange man disappears so you can't drop him down to see what the place looks like.
― pplains, Wednesday, 26 August 2015 01:20 (eight years ago) link
i use citymapper now, it's great in nyc and london
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 02:04 (eight years ago) link
whyyyyyyyyyy did they do this
― welltris (crüt), Friday, 18 September 2015 18:37 (eight years ago) link
Today I learned mapping apps sometimes send drivers on less-than-optimal routes in order to use them as guinea pigs to generate data. That's fucked up! (From "Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting The Rules of Work" by @mawnikr.) pic.twitter.com/TL9eBurJeD— Adrian Chen (@AdrianChen) October 16, 2018
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 22:43 (five years ago) link
footnote leads to this paper https://datasociety.net/pubs/ia/Wisdom_of_Captured_09-16.pdf
There are different strategies and technologies for building navigation models. One such technical tool is the “multi-arm bandit algorithm” and is applied to route traffic. Hypothetically about 90% of the time, traffic will be routed on the best performing route, but the remaining 10% of the time, the algorithm might divide traffic between two versions of a route from A to B to explore how well they perform (Chopra, 2012). For that exploration phase, the mapping service might recommend a route to an individual driver that is under-tested, so that that the driver will unwittingly test it out and generate more data about road conditions. This may help the aggregate of users who rely on the mapping services (and therefore the perceived efficacy of the service), but if the exploring driver is given a bad route when they expect a high-confidence recommendation, that driver is effectively being deceived.It is worth recognizing that this deception is made possible by the fact that the platform wields considerable power over the decision-making of a given driver in a “wisdom of the captured” setting. Without explicit notice, users will have no way of distinguishing between a high-confidence recom- mendation and a low-confidence recommendation. This is particularly challenging given that full disclosure of the exploratory intent of the system may make users behave differently or be less likely to follow its purportedly personalized route recom- mendations. This would parallel studies suggesting that disclosure of persuasive intent can itself erode the influence of recommendations in eliciting compliance from users (Kaptein, et. al, 2011). When the platform makes a low-confidence recom- mendation in order to acquire more information (exploration), there is a trade-off that produces a social welfare benefit for the users as a whole, but has ethical implications for the deception of the individual. The optimization needs of the algorithm and the powerful position of the platform in relation to a driver create the opportunity for user expectations to be violated in an undisclosed and systematic way.
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 22:46 (five years ago) link
this is more an interesting thing to ponder the ethics of, maybe after smoking a joint, than like some terrible techfuturedystopia or whatevs
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 22:48 (five years ago) link
this is just MVT aka A/B testing, no? if so the suboptimal routes are not going to be THAT suboptimal otherwise there'd be no reason to test them against the canonical ones
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 22:50 (five years ago) link
if so the suboptimal routes are not going to be THAT suboptimal
OR ARE THEY?
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 23:06 (five years ago) link
well yes i see what you mean, but on the other hand they might find the control routes are actually the suboptimal ones in some statistically significant way in which case you're in the lucky 10% that got a shortcut!
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 23:09 (five years ago) link
if i'm understanding the quoted text correctly (i have not read the pdf)
i guess i'm not sure what "violating" the "expectations" of users is exactly; maps are a service and they can dish out whatever info they like. websites are constantly testing features and editorial choices to certain segments of their visitors in this "silent" way.
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 16 October 2018 23:13 (five years ago) link
Yeah the suboptimal routes will be selected in inverse proportion to how bad they are. So once the decision is made to send you on some route other than the one it thinks is he very best, it’s very unlikely to send you on a bad route. It’s not going to add 20% to your journey. This is algorithm is good in the sense that it captures the fact that the route it thinks is best may not be best any more because the world (in this case traffic patterns) change constantly. It’s even good in the sense that, if your goal is to minimise the total amount of time users spend in their cars, or distance driven, or some other thing averaged across all users (in a utilitarian sense) it’s provably optimal given enough users.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 17 October 2018 02:20 (five years ago) link
This is a relatively informal technical argument for what I just said btw http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=132
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 17 October 2018 02:21 (five years ago) link
It’s suboptimal that Stanford hosts this amazing summary of the philosophy of technology with a big piece on engineering ethics and yet
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 17 October 2018 03:29 (five years ago) link
When do we start find-and-replacing “suboptimal” with “ironic”
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 17 October 2018 03:31 (five years ago) link
Or I guess if we really wanted to be nasty we could say “suboptimal” = “teleologic”
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 17 October 2018 03:33 (five years ago) link
Finding the way the photo versions work pretty weird after using the program to check old street addresses over the last week.& finding that it appears there must be gaps in the coding tying in with limited scope of how photographs were taken. Finding myself being whisked off to the next street when i go to get a close up on a front door to check the number.NOw looking at the photo set up of the far side of the park here and realising that its cobbled together from shots from various years and some of the angles still have defunct details in them. Like they rebuilt the layout of a walkway to incorporate a road to a school that was built sometime over the last decade. & I'm seeing both before and after that road in photos that are in use.
NOticed also there were some weird Easter Egg like details in places. Looking at the area around Westbourne Grove tube station and came across a photo of one of the black Olympic team taht I couldn't get by. Kept trying to navigate around him and wound up having to go back to the aeriel shot to do so. So wondering if that happens elsewhere. I thought the shots were taken from a camera mounted on the roof of a car so surprised this would happen. Think there was something weird about some shots of the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin too. Trying to move around so I could see the shopfronts along the quays and finding myself having to move between 2 people with hands raised.
Can see how useful it is to have photos of teh area but can also see how intrusive it is.Did wonder if they did use drones to shoot any of it. Would seem to be the best way to get continuopus shots of things. But can also see how creepy it would be to have that going o around you. Assume this black athlete cannot be the only person who is absolutely identifiable in the photos here. Assume he must have been intentional so wondering if that was a competition or something, or if it tied in with the 2012 Olympics or similar.Also trying to check door numbers and then finding that there's a bus blocking off that part of the street.
NOt sure how often the streetviews are taken or if they continue to be updated still. Did see some shots from last year though.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 8 December 2019 13:06 (four years ago) link
The latest update somehow switched google maps into Croatian. Deleting and reinstalling fixed it but I have no explanation as to why it ended up that way.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Sunday, 16 February 2020 07:06 (four years ago) link
Go to Myanmar in Croatian Google Maps and see what it calls Mandalay!
― cherry blossom, Sunday, 16 February 2020 08:49 (four years ago) link
Oh you fixed it
Mandalay is Kathmandu in Croatian google maps. Kathmandu is also Kathmandu
― cherry blossom, Sunday, 16 February 2020 08:51 (four years ago) link
https://joemorrison.substack.com/p/google-maps-moat-is-evaporating
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 31 December 2020 23:36 (three years ago) link
The coding/AI for the mapping itself is still amazingly buggy, I always get incredibly wonky routing recommendations like this:
https://i.imgur.com/sI6mbg9.jpg
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 31 December 2020 23:43 (three years ago) link
all change
― organ doner (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 08:39 (four months ago) link
?
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 08:54 (four months ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/st0toYJ.png
― organ doner (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 09:10 (four months ago) link
yesterday:
https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/the-latest-google-maps-update-comes-with-an-unpleasant-surprise-for-some-users-147113_1.jpg
― organ doner (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 09:18 (four months ago) link
got that a couple of months ago. do not like.
― StanM, Wednesday, 15 November 2023 12:12 (four months ago) link
idgi
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:04 (four months ago) link
It might be an unpleasant surprise to find yourself in the centre of Paris if you do not like Paris
― The narrative of arthur gordon pimp of nantucket (Bananaman Begins), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:11 (four months ago) link
you sure are making me work today tracer.https://www.techradar.com/computing/software/the-latest-google-maps-redesign-makes-it-look-a-lot-more-like-apple-mapsarticle says the new background is white - looks grey still to me. looks like it was rolled out a while ago but I defintiely only got it today, I've been obsessively mapping running routes recently and did so yesterday. my phone is on dark mode, that hasn't noticeably changed.
― organ doner (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:22 (four months ago) link
any geographers up in here? been using Google Earth Engine and it's pretty incredible
― Heez, Wednesday, 15 November 2023 13:42 (four months ago) link
anyway here's google maps a while ago telling me how to get to embankment pier from trafalgar square:
https://i.imgur.com/g3dSFy9.jpg
what you wanna do mate, you don't want to cross the road there, far too busy, what you want to do is walk across the bridge - yeah i know you're already on the same side of the river as where you want to go - walk across the bridge, walk down the side of the river in the wrong direction a bit, then walk into the river - walk, swim, i don't mind - go down the middle of the river, back over to the side you were on already, bob's yer uncle.
― organ doner (ledge), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 14:55 (four months ago) link
lol sorry i must suffer from some specific blindness particular to map design, i see it nowthe embankment directions look p bad but i’m not gonna lie it also looks exciting
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 16:17 (four months ago) link
come on you hadn't asked to go to embankment pier but via embankment pier and google maps was merely suggesting you might think about starting from the millennium eye pier instead, have a nice look at the river from the bridge on the way
― conrad, Wednesday, 15 November 2023 16:23 (four months ago) link
It wanted you to take a water taxi.
― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 15 November 2023 20:16 (four months ago) link
Google maps bugs me but I don't know of an alternative that:
- in the UK, always shows road names by default instead of road numbers- prioritises walking and public transport when giving directions- doesn't litter the map with logos of companies who pay to be there- pulls in business names and address information- pulls in public transport GPS/waiting time data
any geographers up in here? been using Google Earth Engine and it's pretty incredible― Heez
― Heez
I make maps. Primarily, I do/oversee a lot of socioeconomic and sociodemographic mapping. About 95% is in QGIS. What sort of things are you using Engine for? I've been curious about it whenever I'm reminded it exists.
― salsa shark, Thursday, 16 November 2023 13:09 (four months ago) link
We're running automated change detection on the entire US, looking for new construction. We have been using ESRI's land use/land cover for this, but our initial model in GEE was so much nicer. Also moving into object extract when we find new neighborhoods.
― Heez, Thursday, 16 November 2023 15:08 (four months ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/TcNDRVN.png
They made it more like openstreetmap?
It's fine, just taking some getting used to.
― pplains, Thursday, 16 November 2023 16:24 (four months ago) link
had planned to drive from brooklyn to jersey city this afternoon and kept monitoring traffic conditions throughout the morning on google maps
when we departed, estimated trip time was 55 minutes with traffic (up from 30 minutes when we had checked an hour or so earlier)
it ended up being a 4.5 hour journey down broome street to the holland tunnel -- all the while maps estimating the trip would be over in 35 minutes
obviously an algorithm can't accurately account for shitty drivers doing bad behavior in traffic (and it seemed like several people had abandoned their cars in the middle of the road?) but either way, i may never trust google maps with any information it provides ever again! an insane ordeal
― pitted (blue6ave), Friday, 24 November 2023 08:15 (four months ago) link
ugh that sounds awful waze, which is owned by google, does traffic way better ime
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 24 November 2023 15:02 (four months ago) link
Waze is better for flagging up roaming speed cameras as well.
I'm not really disputing that Maps is a miracle of an invention but goddamn it's absolute insistence on finding the 'shortest' route is maddening. It's particularly insane in rural areas.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Friday, 24 November 2023 16:11 (four months ago) link
Someone explain this to me. I'm booking/managing a business in London (remotely from the US as it happens). A client booked for today managed to turn up at the old business premises on the other side of the city as they'd followed Google Maps instructions. However, we relocated in 2011 and have been listed on Google at the new place ever since! Client is based in Spain I think, so maybe using Spanish Google on their phone? Could a Maps app from a different region have an old cached database that doesn't sync with the UK site? I'm baffled.
― fourth world problems (Matt #2), Friday, 26 January 2024 14:43 (two months ago) link
I have no idea. But!
Could there still be a label pinned over there?
Google will let the laymen stick anything on their maps, such as this "Truck rest area" label on the side of the interstate. There's no website, no phone number, no address even. Just a stretch of highway shoulder.
https://i.imgur.com/1QMWpLV.png
Even though you all have moved and may even have an "official" pin from Google, could there still be an informal label at the old place?
― pplains, Friday, 26 January 2024 14:50 (two months ago) link
Just had a look and no! In fact the old building has now been converted to residential, with a beautiful view of the A406. I'll probably never know how this happened, hopefully there won't be a repeat...
― fourth world problems (Matt #2), Friday, 26 January 2024 15:13 (two months ago) link
there's a local "park" labeled on google maps along the river and every reference to it i can find is on websites that clearly scraped the name from google maps. the city and county don't mention it anywhere, and the city's parcel viewer just says that the land is owned by the federal government, probably because it's next to a levee.
― circles, Saturday, 27 January 2024 15:07 (two months ago) link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
― koogs, Saturday, 27 January 2024 16:23 (two months ago) link
I was just looking at Google Maps and noticed a tiny little "Great Britain" in italics, somewhere between Clitheroe and Blackburn. It disappears altogether if you zoom in too close or too far out. The text also doesn't change size. And that is my only comment on Google Maps.
― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Sunday, 4 February 2024 22:18 (one month ago) link
Quite a concerning story about tagging places on Google Maps from a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/01/17/google-maps-tracking-business-locations/
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 4 February 2024 22:35 (one month ago) link
If you’re old and can’t see shit on G maps (even if you zoom in) …increase the font size, it’s a miracle
― calstars, Sunday, 4 February 2024 23:36 (one month ago) link