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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

291–300 of 397 posts

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#291
This video is a bit of a seminal moment for me. It's made me realise the information and tools we rely on and assume are true are actually just systematic fabrications produced by self-serving corporations, and are not necessarily the truth whatsoever.

What does this mean for Google Search?

(We had this discussion the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421)

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it had a “no left turns” feature like they have for avoiding tolls.

I wish cities had roundabouts instead of intersections, so that would not be a problem :)

Roundabouts only work in the burbs. In cities, they are death traps for pedestrians and cyclists.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#293

This video is a bit of a seminal moment for me. It's made me realise the information and tools we rely on and assume are true are actually just systematic fabrications produced by self-serving corporations, and are not necessarily the truth whatsoever. What does this mean for Google Search? (We had this discussion the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421 )

> systematic fabrications

If that's what you want to call models, sure. It doesn't matter whether it's a 503(c) or a corporation, modeling the real world is imperfect and messy.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google uses phone sensors to tell motorbikes apart form cars. Pretty simple tech: cars don't lean. Which makes it all the more infuriating that Google Maps still has huge flaws when it comes to motorbike navigation.

> I think Google uses phone sensors to tell motorbikes apart form cars While they could, I doubt they do... do you have evidence of this?

not the GP, and I don't how it's done, but my Google Maps timeline does distinguish between motorcycling and car trips, however its reliability is questionable. It has often mis-categorised my motorcycle trips as car trips, but rarely if ever the reverse.

I would guess (unsubstantiated) that it classifies a motorcycle trip as being unexpectedly fast through many traffic jams.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with Waze and most driving apps - they optimize for "least time," not "least anguish" It's my impression that Google Maps does the latter; Waze is known for taking wild routes that are nominally faster. I'm not sure that I see a basis for complaint, as they're just offering a choice of different route objectives to optimize for (I know people who explicitly use Waze because they prefer its aggressive optimization t…

I travel to new cities often and usually rent a car from the airport. In most cities around the world, there is dedicated signage pointing out the access to the airport on every major approach it. I would say half the time Google wants to take me on a different route on some back road that is not meant to be the public access to the airport, which creates the extra mental overhead of having to ignore the gigantic "AI…

My favorite example of this was in NYC heading to Citi Field for a Mets game. Google Maps guides you past the exit, has you make a u-turn by getting off at the next exit (which is really unusual) and get you trapped on some ramp for an extra 20m.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#296
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've visited and I wouldn't say that is true. There is all kinds of seedy. There are white/skinny seedy people walking rats, kinda freaky. But taking the downtown bus gave equal race representation when someone started a fight with me over there bag's right to occupy my seat. The Asian gangs robbing/hitting people on the bart I was on showed a different side of seedy. The uniquely San Fran treat was someone asking my…

The Bart is designed to look automated, but it's one of the least automated transit systems around - There's a human driver on each train, station agents to watch the doors, and it's only the fact that they have nice recordings that makes it feel impersonal and automated.

The Bart is designed to look automated, but it's one of the least automated transit systems around - There's a human driver on each train, station agents to watch the doors, and it's only the fact that they have nice recordings that makes it feel impersonal and automated.

Yeah, no. BART doesn't have station agents watching the doors, and human drivers are a common occurrence on pretty much every subway system in the world.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#297

An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-…

So I'm stuck in a traffic jam, and google maps is telling me I can take an alternate route to avoid it and save 25 minutes vs waiting in the traffic jam. Something that occurs to me as I sit in this traffic...

what portion of all the other driver's around me also looking at google maps? Is Google Maps telling them to take the same alternate route as me? Are they all going to do it? If they all do it, does the alternate route (which likely can't handle as much traffic as the original route) just became as jammed as waiting in traffic? Or even worse, if they're all going to do what google maps says, would I in fact be much better off ignoring it and sticking to the original route?

It's hard to tell what's imagination/selection bias, but following google maps traffic-jam-avoidance suggestions has seemed disastrous enough to me enough times that I mostly just stick to the original route now. (Of course, one could also imagine using one's own route knowledge to pick an alternate route of one's own without google maps...)

I suppose google maps could be smart enough to tell half the people to go one way and half the other... I kind of doubt it is, but one could imagine a computerized route direction system which, if enough driver's had it, could actually maximize efficiency by sending different drivers different routes intentionally... I'm not holding my breath for it.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish cities had roundabouts instead of intersections, so that would not be a problem :)

I hate roundabouts. I live in France, and we have them everywhere. They're a huge clusterfuck that does not win any time, and when misused can be a lot more dangerous than a properly planned intersection. Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts. I hate them.

> Of all the accidents I've driven past on my daily drives, all of them happened on roundabouts.

In localities with few/no roundabouts, the vast majority of accidents still happen at intersections. Intersections of roads are the most prone to accidents (for fairly obvious reasons), with or without roundabouts.

I believe there is research showing roundabouts are actually quite a bit safer in general, but it's possible it depends on various things. But anyway, accidents happen mostly where two roads intersect, either way.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#299

This video is a bit of a seminal moment for me. It's made me realise the information and tools we rely on and assume are true are actually just systematic fabrications produced by self-serving corporations, and are not necessarily the truth whatsoever. What does this mean for Google Search? (We had this discussion the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421 )

What a predictably cynical interpretation. Your immediate reaction to the application of imperfect models to the real world need not be one of distrust as if slighted but rather simple acknowledgment that this is just the best we can currently do.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#300

This video is a bit of a seminal moment for me. It's made me realise the information and tools we rely on and assume are true are actually just systematic fabrications produced by self-serving corporations, and are not necessarily the truth whatsoever. What does this mean for Google Search? (We had this discussion the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22139421 )

We use estimations to approximate some real-world truth, then we mistake those estimations for the truth, until somebody breaks the illusion and it turns out that the information we thought we were getting (e.g. cars on a road) was in truth something else.
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