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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?

#531

Post by londons_explore »

exikyut wrote: post #483
londons_explore wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With modern high powered CPU's, more detailed maps, and particle filters (which require all that cpu), dead reckoning has become much more viable. I suspect you could go hours driving round a city with the GPS and WiFi location turned off before losing your position - simple wheel speed, gyro and compass is sufficient for most stuff.

Hmmm. What about the sensors on my phone? For a while now I've wanted to know my realtime speed in the underground sections of the local rail/metro network. I suspect the most accurate measurements would be done using wideband SDR, iff I were able to acquire absolute position references for the signals I was seeing. Not likely, especially for something I might like to let others play with and/or generalize. Everywher…

Without wheel speed sensors, distance and speed errors quickly accumulate.

With a particle filter and enough computation, that error can be eliminated after the fact. Ie. At the time you won't know where you are, but after you get out of the metro and the particle filter reconverged you'll know where you were with more accuracy at some point in the past.

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

#532

Post by three14 »

sofixa wrote: post #498
three14 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in cold blood". That's just not what those words mean.

What do you call it when a military air force with enormous reconnaissance capabilities bombs civilian targets and civilians, including children, die?

I don't understand your argument. You want to point out that this is terrible, and in an ideal world, no one should be bombing anyone? Of course! That doesn't mean you should say, e.g. that Israelis are cannibals just because cannibalism is bad.

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

#533

Post by nextstep »

Semi-related: Jillian C. York’s recent book “Silicon Values” talks a bit about the “digital apartheid” in Palestine. Media companies like Facebook often have no presence in the occupied territories and let the Israeli office and policies apply to Palestinian accounts, often resulting in censorship of war crimes.

https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Values-Future-Surveillance-Ca...

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

#534

Post by golergka »

M277 wrote: post #525
golergka wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. No. I'm saying that putting israeli government under a completely different set of standards than any other country in the world cannot be explained with anything else rather than pure anti-semitism.

What different standards do you mean?

I've never, in any other conflict, witnessed a public opinion on the side of the aggressor. I've never, in any other conflict, seen an army that's not fighting overseas, but is desperately trying to prevent massive loss of life in it's own population, accused of "disproportionate" response — even though it would take measures to prevent any casualties that are completely unprecedented in world practices and makes achieving it's goals (see above) significantly harder. I've never in my life seen calls for genocide of entire nation (that's exactly what "from the river to the sea" means, if you're not aware) widely supported through out the world.

Every time this conflict happens again, I can't help but realise that if it was not for IDF, my family would have long have been brutally killed, and all those first-world liberals who're so busy fighting for their causes wouldn't even mind.

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

#535

Post by betsushikime »

golergka wrote: post #534
M277 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What different standards do you mean?

I've never, in any other conflict, witnessed a public opinion on the side of the aggressor. I've never, in any other conflict, seen an army that's not fighting overseas, but is desperately trying to prevent massive loss of life in it's own population, accused of "disproportionate" response — even though it would take measures to prevent any casualties that are completely unprecedented in world practices and makes ach…

Yes, the coverage of the conflict is one-sided and popular opinion is on the side of the Palestinians. The reason for that is that the conflict itself is one-sided. Gaza is occupied by Israel.

Further, Israel has the overwhelming advantage in military power and the Palestinians suffer the overwhelming majority of casualties every time there is conflict.

In the 2008-09 war, the total number of Israeli citizens killed was 13, 10 of whom were combatants and 3 non-combatants (according to the IDF, see [1]). The total number of Palestinians killed was, depending on the source, between 1166 (IDF estimate) and 1440 (Palestinian ministry of Health, Gaza) [1].

The IDF protects your homes and your families, yes. It also crushes the lives and obliterates the houses of the Palestinians. Public opinion is against Israel not because the IDF protects Israeli citizens, but because the IDF kills Palestinians.

Finally, the IDF can protect your families and your homes, but there is nobody to protect the lives and homes of the Palestinians. Public opinion is their only shield and it doesn't stop bombs.

My comment is by way of explanation, not by way of accusation.

____________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War_(20...

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

#536

Post by zmk_ »

nroets wrote: post #480
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…

All Google products except the Google Translate App are blocked in China. So no Google maps. I spent 2 months cycling China from Hong Kong to Beijing. Despite only using Chinese characters, Baidu maps worked very well for me. I copied the characters I needed (Hotel, supermarket) into it from the translator. Here's my journal https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/5000years

They work very well via VPN. I used Google's navigation in Shanghai.

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

#537

Post by dronesoul »

chii wrote: post #365
rhizome wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'll bite: they are a thousands-year old country who has seen nations like the US and protectionist strategies like IP law come and go for centuries. They probably know what the US is going to do before the US knows what they're going to do, and certainly before the US knows what CCP is going to do.

> they are a thousands-year old country china, the ethnicity, is indeed thousands years old. CCP, however, is barely over 70 yrs old.

to be even more correct, china isn't one culture or one ethnicity. it covers a huge area, and especially before modern times, it was composed of a lot of different cultures and ethnicities, with a shitload of different languages and customs. CCP and other earlier powers (Emperors?) just brought them all, or large chunks, under a common flag.

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

#538

Post by runarberg »

Zhenya wrote: post #396
MyKneeGrows wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's why they target news agencies such as AP. Now you can't get pictures on the ground. So we all have to rely on is low resolution maps to judge damage. "Security measures", or so they say. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

Yes. Because no one there has a smart phone. Because they actually killed the journalist. /s Of the course the obvious explanation is the correct one, the building housed military targets (Hamas operations etc) and it was destroyed.

Don‘t discount a conspiracy just because the conspirators are incompetent. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Your average conspiracy usually has multiple layers of incompetents. If a conspiracy looks flawless, it is usually because there is no conspiracy.

Targetting a news organization might be a multi-purpose action, including to limit the amount of photos from the area. The fact that this action has resulted in even worse optics then the photos would have provided, and the fact that people on the ground are still a source of visual evidence for the destruction does not mean that there is no conspiracy, just that they are bad at it.

Given the absence of evidence of any Hamas activity in that tower, and given the clear motive improve the optics of IDF, I would say that both explanations hold at least the same ground.

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

#539

Post by yuvalr1 »

gokhan wrote: post #454
Zhenya wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because no one there has a smart phone. Because they actually killed the journalist. /s Of the course the obvious explanation is the correct one, the building housed military targets (Hamas operations etc) and it was destroyed.

IDF couldn't provide any evidence of Hamas' existence in that building, it was all over the media yesterday. https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1394287848950427649

I wouldn't say IDF couldn't provide. Classified evidence takes time to compile when being passed to foreign countries. If this was truly a Hamas operations office, it changes the whole picture.

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

#540

Post by yakubin »

dronesoul wrote: post #537
chii wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are a thousands-year old country china, the ethnicity, is indeed thousands years old. CCP, however, is barely over 70 yrs old.

to be even more correct, china isn't one culture or one ethnicity. it covers a huge area, and especially before modern times, it was composed of a lot of different cultures and ethnicities, with a shitload of different languages and customs. CCP and other earlier powers (Emperors?) just brought them all, or large chunks, under a common flag.

Most importantly, a common writing system, common to a huge area. One that mathematicians successfully took inspiration from and repeated the success of universality at an even greater scale.
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