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Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

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

#501

Post by hlasdjlfhalwjk »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #113
squeaky-clean wrote: post #97

Not really related to the article at hand, but I've been on a bit of a Google Maps binge the past couple weeks. I learned a few interesting facts, blurry Israel being one of them. Another strange thing I found that might not be super well known (I didn't know about it) is that all GPS data in China is offset by a nonlinear psuedo-random amount. If you turn on the satellite view in Google Maps and look at various citi…

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…

IIRC civil GPS chips won't work above a specific altitude or when moving above some speed limit. I think the idea was to prevent people from guiding missiles using those chips.

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

#502

Post by sofixa »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #479
deanCommie wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But more Palestenian lives are being lost. Purely from a numbers perspective if you put aside all other variables or blame, wouldn't that explain why one side is being criticized extra right now?

How about criticizing Hamas, a terrorist organization, for shooting rockets at civilian populations of a country with one of the most advanced armies of the world? How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers? Seems like the media is willfully ignorant here. Then you have nonsense like: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hid... Clearly this smells foul.

> How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers?

How about criticizing Israel, a country with one of the most advanced militaries in the world, for bombing civilians that can't defend themselves, in retaliation for very basic level attacks by a terrorist group Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from?

Hamas are the bad guys, Israel are even worse because they could show restraint and not murder civilians, not evict Arabs and resettle their lands with Jews and all the other war crimey shit they do, yet they still do that, under a very corrupt leader that mostly stays in power with nationalistic and proto-fascistic rhetoric.

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

#503

Post by markdown »

eloff wrote: post #417
markdown wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Woah, you've gone pretty far off the deep end. You'd do well to remember there are two sides to any conflict (as my parents drilled into us whenever my brother and I would blame each other). In my opinion you can see Israel exercising serious restraint, evacuating people from a target first when possible, firing warning shots before the real attack. Hamas on the other hand is indiscriminately firing over 3000 rockets…

> You'd do well to remember there are two sides to any conflict (as my parents drilled into us whenever my brother and I would blame each other).

What if the entire world was watching while you shaved your brothers head? Your lies would be pointless, because the entire world has seen what you were doing.

> In my opinion you can see Israel exercising serious restraint

Almost 200 dead in days. If you call that restraint, I think it's you who's gone off the deep end. Restraint would be doing nothing because barely anything has been done to you. Or shooting 10 Palestinian freedom fighters. That would be restraint. Firing missiles into a populated city isn't restraint.

> Hamas on the other hand is indiscriminately firing over 3000 rockets at Israel civilians.

Surely you jest. Those fireworks do almost nothing. A single Israeli missile is more deadly than 3000 Hamas rockets, so you have it backwards.

> Now there is a big power imbalance here, and I feel for the Palestinians

No you don't. Quit the propaganda.

> but they're hardly the good guys here. That's terrorism, plain and simple.

How is defending yourself terrorism? They're slowly been driven off the map. They should be firing 3000 rockets every day, and the world should be sending them more so they can fight for their families. Next you'll tell me that the Jews who fought back against Hitler were terrorists.

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

#504

Post by ac29 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #204
exegete wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-stat…

> People who live in Gaza never leave, and nobody else enters

The border crossing with Egypt is (or was) open earlier this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing

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

#505

Post by fer »

fps_doug wrote: post #490
Uberphallus wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "impossible". Private, independent geographical surveying is illegal in China. [0] So technically you can't do it even in the local coordinate system. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

OSM has an extensive article about mapping in China. Generally it's not allowed. Still, in the bigger OSM is quite accurate. :>

Anything that can be seen from a satellite is quite accurate, that's true, but oftentimes things like number of lanes, type or direction of the roads is unknown, footpaths in rural areas are very spotty. Basically anything that requires local human verification (addresses, business location, etc) is off limits and accuracy in those points comes from pre-ban times (or illegal activity).

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

#506

Post by Ndymium »

hlasdjlfhalwjk wrote: post #501
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…

IIRC civil GPS chips won't work above a specific altitude or when moving above some speed limit. I think the idea was to prevent people from guiding missiles using those chips.

Seems this is an ITAR restriction and only applies to chips exported from the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Rest...

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

#507

Post by billfruit »

casefields wrote: post #145
billfruit wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for emergencies like flooding where it is very important to know which areas are flooded and which are not, I think presently there is no satellite based system which can give this information anywhere near realtime with anything close to the required resolution. So in the absence of such I assume the information will have to be gathered from ground reports and areal surveys, which I would think will be extremel…

Even the biggest of floods is a localized problem. A fleet of drones can give you live feeds of the entire thing. The caveat is of course the military has the best ones, and there's an uneasy balance of allowing military use on home soil. Baltimore has been leading the charge on aerial surveillance: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-aerial-p...

I doubt drones could be a solution for flood monitoring presently, flood events could last days, endurance could be an issue. Floods could affected regions of several hundred square kilometres, I think it might be impractical to cover that much area by drones.

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

#508

Post by [deleted] »

mncharity wrote: post #412
mastazi wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have misconception and what's the "correct-conception"?[1] I'm curious because I get what parent means in terms of intellectual property issues in China but I don't get what do you mean from your comment, especially the fact that you include "other party states" - is it some sort of general rule that you're hinting at? [1] funny, I just realised that there is no antonym of "misconception"

Verconception? - truth, 7 hits on google. Orthoconception? - straight, also 7 hits. Benconception? - good, 80 hits off topic. What else...? At least in science education, misconceptions are so vastly more common than correct conceptions, that it makes sense there's a compact negative form but not a positive one. /s

[deleted]

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

#509

Post by wombatmobile »

mvzvm wrote: post #367
jussij wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel can get all the detailed imagery it needs by just launching a reconnaissance aircraft or drone. So on that basis I would say it only stops the Palestinians from getting imagery of the area. Now considering the fact Palestine only has rockets and not missiles, I doubt that imagery is of much value to them. Call me cynical, but I suspect the more important reason to keep these images blurred might be to stop the…

> Call me cynical, but I suspect the more important reason to keep these images blurred might be to stop the rest of the world from seeing what is going on. No, not cynical. I will call it for what it is - baseless conspiracy.

I’m curious how Palestinian people live. I’d like to see the condition of their dwellings, infrastructure and resources eg water, roads, rail, ports, public spaces. I just want to get a feel for the place, like I can almost everywhere else. How can I do that?

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

#510

Post by woodpanel »

user982 wrote: post #457
nl wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@dang there is something odd going on here. The comment I'm replying to from user woodpanel says (in part): ""most populated" > "crammed" > "jailed" > "the new warsaw ghetto"... The word you're looking for also describes what's enabling the cognitive dissonance of putting Gaza in the same category as a Singapur, a Tokio or Hong Kong without blinking... a town with an economy that only consists of NGOs, the Hamas and…

Don't look directly at the hasbara.

Of course, I'm a typical German troll farm run by the mossad. You clearly have incorporated the word I was hinting at.

Why not own it?

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