Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 693 posts

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#201

Post by smolder »

sequoia wrote: post #134

Tangentially related but where does this come from and why is it so widely repeated (as in this article): > ...Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world I've seen this claim (both in the "one of the most..." and " the #1 most..." forms) many times and I don't know where it comes from. What am I missing? Here[0] wikipedia says Gaza Strip has ~5,046/sqkm. I thought maybe Gaza City was meant, it's dens…

It's maybe worth noting that objective metrics of population density are generally by land area and subjectively, density is about floor space or even volumetric. Building size could have a big impact on what is perceived as population dense.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#202

Post by gruez »

fwip wrote: post #194
vinhboy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yo. That was crazy. So the whole "zoom and enhance" thing they do on TV is no longer science fiction. That meme is dead judging by what I am seeing in that thread.

We can get computers to make things up, sure. But usually when they "zoom and enhance" on TV it's because they want to see what's really there.

Yeah, if you used this sort of upscale AI on a pixelated picture of a suspect, you'll just end up arresting some guy who's face looks most common in the training dataset.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#203

Post by azernik »

DSingularity wrote: post #151

The motivation should be obvious to everyone here: to stop the public from directly seeing the Israeli war crimes. That way the propaganda machine coming from the American authorities can continue to be swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

This is the result of historical blurring of all of Israel and all of the Territories, by US law. The goal was preventing intelligence gathering against Israel in general, not anything specific to Israeli action in Gaza and the West Bank.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#204

Post by chimeracoder »

exegete wrote: post #155
sequoia wrote: post #134

Tangentially related but where does this come from and why is it so widely repeated (as in this article): > ...Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world I've seen this claim (both in the "one of the most..." and " the #1 most..." forms) many times and I don't know where it comes from. What am I missing? Here[0] wikipedia says Gaza Strip has ~5,046/sqkm. I thought maybe Gaza City was meant, it's dens…

It must just be something that gets repeated without verification at this point. For comparison Gaza City has a slightly higher population density than NYC (but less than Hoboken, NJ) while the entire Gaza Strip has the same population density as Boston ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities... ).

> For comparison Gaza City has a slightly higher population density than NYC (but less than Hoboken, NJ) while the entire Gaza Strip has the same population density as Boston

Comparing Gaza to Boston is a bit misleading. Boston is closely integrated into an entire metro area, and the city limits of Boston are artifacts of history. Comparing to NYC is even less meaningful, because NYC is part of an integrated tri-state area and also the geographical center of a larger connected megopolis that contains 1/6th of the population of the entire US.

Gaza, on the other hand, is a strip of land the size of Queens (New York), and it is entirely cut off from everything around it (both land and sea). People who live in Gaza never leave, and nobody else enters. There's no "commuting" to or from Gaza.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#205

Post by yborg »

tomerv wrote: post #177
jrochkind1 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory says that US government GPS at one point intentionally introduced reduction in accuracy/resolution as well, but they stopped, which was part of what led to the commercial GPS revolution (along with cheaper tech of course). Let's see... Wikipedia seems to confirm: > During the 1990s, GPS quality was degraded by the United States government in a program called "Selective Availability"; this was discontinued o…

Interesting to note that the removal of selective availability enabled the creation of Geocaching ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching#History ).

It also enabled the modern mobile navigation industry. I was working on automotive navigation systems in the early 90s and SA was a killer for the product, options were various dead-reckoning and inertial sensors or differential GPS, both of which ended up being cost-prohibitive. But you can't do usable route guidance with a 100m CEP in an urban area.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#206

Post by yosito »

deadalus wrote: post #5

Is it possible to have real-time live-feed of the entire planet? If cost isn't an issue, would something like that be possible?

One of the closest public things you'll find to this is https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

It's only medium-range and only updated once daily, with some missing spots due to the coverage of satellite tracks, but there are hundreds of different data layers which can be really interesting to explore.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#207

Post by devmunchies »

einpoklum wrote: post #193

tl;dr: Because Israel wants this, and the US has forced that wish on commercial companies like Google.

> US has forced that wish on commercial companies like Google

Not necessarily. Google has R&D in Israel[1]. Sergey Brin and Larry Page are both Jewish. Not that all Jews support Israel, but typically the case.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multinational_companie...

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#208

Post by [deleted] »

merth wrote: post #98
areoform wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the most heavily imaged areas in the world - on the ground, as it's an active conflict zone. In space, satellites will pass over the region every X hours no matter what. Planet's satellites have a fresh, high resolution map of the Earth ~3.5 hours. Google had, at the very least, 7 satellites imaging the Earth in 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySat . The question isn't whether the data exists. It do…

my guess would be that they dont want clear image of slow destruction and take overs also before after pictures.

[deleted]

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#210

Post by devmunchies »

squarefoot wrote: post #81
dijit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is the only country on earth that recognises all of Israel’s territory claims.

Not just that. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

$38 billion. woah. if US continues to give Israel unconditional aid then it will start to look like a vassal state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassal_state

Post reply on HN