Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them. Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps. You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street" flag to their trap streets.
Trap street
11–20 of 23 posts
Re: Trap street
#12Revisited here, 40 days ago, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818584
Re: Trap street
#13I wonder if it would be possible to automatically compare goog vs. bing, identify discrepancies and come out with a 'clean' map?
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#14We did the same sort of thing in the pkzip source code 20 years ago. There were a number of pointless routines in the program that would be clear evidence of code theft. These days I suppose an optimizing compiler would be smart enough to strip away any truly dead ends.
Re: Trap street
#15I'm not really sure why this gets posted here without any context though. Is this supposed to be a statement about copyright? If so, I have to say I'm really sick of these clever attempts to show how copyright is bad. Copyright is not good or bad in and of itself. It can be both and any discussion of it in absolute terms is ridiculous.
Re: Trap street
#16Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them. Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps. You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street" flag to their trap streets.
I'm guessing google doesn't do its own cartography work, especially with roads. Most of that is probably coming from free government sources like this http://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2012/ROADS/
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#17This seems like it gets posted every week. I have to say so what? Is it not totally understandable? I mean, cartography is an invaluable tool and because there information is public knowledge there has to be some way to stop those would cut corners and copy a map. Does it lead people astray sometimes? Sure. But is it causing so much harm that the practice needs to be called into question? No. I'm not really sure why…
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#18Dictionaries do the same thing with made-up words.
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#19Re: Trap street
#20http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-...