161–170 of 173 posts
By the way, for anyone who prefers Google Maps to load fast and show actual satellite/aerial imagery (rather than trying to render each tree as a weird crumpled blob) there's a flag you can set to get the old, fast 2D mode: https://maps.google.com/?force=canvas
Crumpled weird distorted trees and houses have to be one of the worst features of the newest google maps.
Just give me the satellite or the Street View photos.
TBH Bing's "Bird's Eye" view was far more useful that the shitty resolution (mandated by law BTW) satellite photos.
Of course, Microsoft killed it :(
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Maybe Google can also flip the globe "upside-down" for all users "below" the equator. I must be the only weirdo who wants the opposite: equator up . South-up in the Northern hemisphere and north-up in the Southern hemisphere. Why? Because I want the Sun at the top of the screen (or more accurately, the sunny side of buildings/hills/anything).
Then you'd have to special-case maps that include the equator itself.
W/r/t Sun angles, things are pretty weird anywhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me give you a concrete example. Here is what North America looks like on this new map: https://i.imgur.com/lCI8DjY.jpg This is not a good projection to use if you want to see all of North America. There is dramatically more distortion than necessary, and shapes near the edges get very squished (the west coast of the US is okay), but it is not at all obvious to a naïve viewer what kind of distortions are involved,…
I'm not convinced it isn't still the best option. The naive viewer may not properly perceive the distortions, but I bet they'll get closer than with anything else, for general purposes. What projection would you say would be good for that view?
There are many choices. An orthographic projection is generally one of the worst except insofar as it gives the impression of a physical sphere when you zoom all the way out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a guy on a TV documentary once that had worked for the government in some capacity. He was explaining that the satellite maps provided to the public are extremely zoomed out compared to what the government is able to see. He said that the government had photography so detailed, that they could find a golf ball on a golf course, and even tell you what brand of golf ball it is.
There's always some dude on TV bragging, but I'd be skeptical. https://www.quora.com/How-powerful-are-the-cameras-on-modern... TL;DR is that satellites have a 9 cm resolution at best. That's not enough to see a golf ball (4 cm diameter), and far away from discovering a producer's imprint on it. With drones you can get an order of magnitude better, but that's still only barely enough to find said golf ball, and not en…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I count with one hand all the technologies that have blown my mind: discovering the electronic parts of my toys, playing a NES game in my friend's PC, my first contact with the internet, the first iPhone. But discovering Google Earth was a really special one, suddenly I was able to explore every street in the world, I was able to look at my house (in a small city in a developing country). Then I started imagining all…
There was a guy on a TV documentary once that had worked for the government in some capacity. He was explaining that the satellite maps provided to the public are extremely zoomed out compared to what the government is able to see. He said that the government had photography so detailed, that they could find a golf ball on a golf course, and even tell you what brand of golf ball it is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a guy on a TV documentary once that had worked for the government in some capacity. He was explaining that the satellite maps provided to the public are extremely zoomed out compared to what the government is able to see. He said that the government had photography so detailed, that they could find a golf ball on a golf course, and even tell you what brand of golf ball it is.
There's always some dude on TV bragging, but I'd be skeptical. https://www.quora.com/How-powerful-are-the-cameras-on-modern... TL;DR is that satellites have a 9 cm resolution at best. That's not enough to see a golf ball (4 cm diameter), and far away from discovering a producer's imprint on it. With drones you can get an order of magnitude better, but that's still only barely enough to find said golf ball, and not en…
Annoying that techcrunch could not find that out.