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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

231–240 of 397 posts

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#231
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find turn by turn directions are incredibly annoying while driving in areas I'm intimately familiar with and there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes". I've turned off voice navigation altogether. It's just not necessary in most cases. Just take a minute or two before departure to actually read the map and the route, if you are not pre…

I check map apps for my best commute option a lot. My gripe is that for each leg of my commute, there are about 3 or 4 options, and I know how to drive all of them, but turn-by-turn insists on explaining it. What I want is a summary when I head out, and possibly an update at decision points. I just have no idea how to make an app (or an interface) for that.

I think turning off voice navigation will help. You simply drive each leg on your own and glance at the navigation screen at the decision points.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#232

That 10px font size is not accessible. I can't read what's there without zooming in. It looked like decorative text or legal disclosures for a contest or something. Did the site's creator find that the ideal text size to use?

Never mind, there is no real content in the text just empty phrases.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#233

This is a hack in an older, juvenile sense of the word, the sense that found cars on top of MIT buildings and football fans holding up cards that spell "we suck" in aggregate. I might be getting older but "hack" these days seems to just mean "go to work" or even "go to work on the weekend".

This is just like releasing an un-weaponized buffer overflow.

It's now up to someone else to see where they can push it.

Create a app that connects everyone's phones and spoofs GPS(Not sure this is technically easy) as a group.... What can you do?

Create secret clubs of commuters? Draw a penis on Google maps?

Fake data during viral outbreaks to maximise peoples exposures by making them all use the same overloaded car park at a hospital? Move cars into locations were there are riots?

Google Maps data was used by researchers during the protests in Tehran. I'm sure the three letter agencies use it as well.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#234
post #179
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does exist. Download offline maps for the region you are in. Then turn off the Internet connection. Ask Google Maps to do the routing while offline.

Offline routing works? Every time that I've previously tried offline routing on downloaded maps it spun for a while and then gave up with a connection error. I was under the impression that the only point of offline maps was for looking up locations, not for navigating to them.

Get Here WeGo, Nokia's maps app. You can download whole states/countries to use offline (it's all vector data so it's not too huge), and traffic data is optional. I've been using it since the Nokia N9 days.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m...

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-city-navigation/id95...

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#235

Navigation apps have mostly settled into a comfortable state of "good enough" mediocrity. In addition to the "red but no traffic" problems highlighted by others I find turn by turn directions are incredibly annoying while driving in areas I'm intimately familiar with and there's no way to say "I know what I'm doing when I'm in this area" or "pause giving me voice directions for 10 minutes". Additionally: * I can't co…

My personal pet peeve: using the wrong language for the region. So, I'm a native English speaker - but I'm driving around Germany. Give me the names of the streets in German only - NOPE. Still can't find any way to fix this issue. Its terribly annoying.

What do the English equivalents look like? I do the same in Vietnam but I'd rather hear the proper pronounciation rather than a butchered one.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#236
I'd love a motorcycle mode aka "ignore traffic", in states/jurisdictions where lane filtering/splitting is allowed. I don't want to have to go offline to avoid it taking into account current traffic.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#237
> Google’s map service has fundamentally changed our understanding of what a map is ... and how they look aesthetically.

Paper maps used to look like a diagrammatic network of streets, with pale background and yellow for main roads, and our fundamental understanding of what a map is, was that it was a tool for navigation.

Now with Google Maps, maps look like ??? and our fundamental understanding of what a map is, is ???.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#238
post #199
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered taking some driving lessons to become more assertive in traffic? You don't need to feel this way for a left-hand turn.

You do, and you should feel that way for a left turn. This is a behavior we normalize in a driving society. Being assertive as you turn left does nothing to reduce the impact of another car hitting you at 45 miles an hour (or even faster in more rural places). >A study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) shows that turning left is one of the primary causes of automobile collisions. 61 percent…

There's a line to be walked between his decently extreme opinion and your decently extreme opinion on left turns (yes, I know this is a potential middle ground fallacy). No you shouldn't barrel on into them but they're not as dangerous as your comment implies. As like most things driving as long as you have decent situational awareness they're fine.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a bit naive question, but how does Google know that the virtual phone is not a real phone and the signal is not true? In a way that is not spoofable?

They can likely consider only 1 device per IP address. Unless the region is blanketed in strong public WiFi

I thought NAT was widespread with mobile providers making that difficult?

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long have you been driving? That feeling should go away with some time.

I dont think it's necessarily a bad thing

Yeah, "don't inconvenience anyone else" is a pretty good as far as simple driving strategies go.
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