Beware the Google
Category: Humor
Posted on: February 9, 2008 2:19 PM, by PZ Myers
Another of the virtues of rural living: the coverage of my area by google maps/earth/etc. is pathetic. The rest of you, though, better watch out.
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Comments
I zoomed in on my brother's dairy farm the other day. I could practically count the cows. And that's way out in the sticks.
Smile!
Posted by: Zeno | February 9, 2008 2:35 PM
I have you beat, Google Maps doesn't even register my little 'make believe' street. It stops on the other side of the ravine where the old sway bridge washed out in the late 80's, never to be rebuilt.
We're just a mass of dingy grey to Google Maps. I guess that would explain the lack of directions to my street from MapQuest and Yahoo Maps as well.
Posted by: flame821 | February 9, 2008 3:18 PM
I was in Beijing a couple of months ago, and tried to figure out how to get somewhere using google maps. Turned out not to be useful. Beijing, according to google maps, consists of five roads that meet at a point. Oh, and the point where they meet is in a lake.
Posted by: Christopher | February 9, 2008 3:25 PM
Yep. I just googled my address, and "street view" gives a crystal clear photo of the front and sides of my house. I can easily read the street number above my front door, and I can see in the recycle bin that I enjoyed some Guinness that week.
I don't know whether I'm glad that I wasn't stepping in/out of the house that moment (some recognizable people are up and down the street). On the one hand, it would be a bit disconcerting to be googlified. On the other hand, I'd probably be e-mailing my friends, saying, "check it out; I'm on google maps."
Posted by: Physicalist | February 9, 2008 3:26 PM
Big Google is Watching You - doesn't quite have the same ring.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 9, 2008 3:26 PM
It's not true: we got a quite decent map of Morris off googlemaps when we were going out there last year (though granted the satellite photo wasn't terribly hi-res).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | February 9, 2008 3:35 PM
While Google Earth sees my house and even my cars, it's at least 3-4 years out of date. It still shows a huge orange grove across the street that was torn down 3 years ago and doesn't show the apartment complexes they started building 3-4 years ago about a half-mile away.
Kind of pointless for spying on anyone.
Posted by: Cephus | February 9, 2008 3:40 PM
checked out my house (sunny picture--def not the case today--snowing). I also decided to check where my parents live. No street level views, but I now know the name of the street they are on.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 9, 2008 3:48 PM
Providence, RI is mostly google street viewed now. Some time ago the Providence Plan had done something similar, you can use their mapper tool to zoom on a property and get all the information, who owns it, recent sales, etc. It gives a picture of the front of the house.
I do note that many people get snapped in the google frames though. And I can see a point where people will be able to tap into the street view API and map their own homes. It'd be an excellent tool for burglars.
Posted by: Tony P | February 9, 2008 3:55 PM
BTW: There are also nice aerial photos of houses (from 4 directions) at zillow.com. Getting to be lots of photos out there. (Does help for house-hunting.)
Posted by: Physicalist | February 9, 2008 4:02 PM
No street view for me. I just now noticed the "terrain" button, though, and it's kind of crap. They could have just superimposed a topo map, but instead it's gray shading that doesn't really tell if the shaded areas are higher or lower than their surroundings.
Posted by: Carlie | February 9, 2008 4:18 PM
One funny thing that used to happen at Google Maps if you went out to this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Philadelphia,+PA&daddr=Malvern,+Worcestershire,+United+Kingdom&layer=&ie=UTF8&sll=45.71444,-36.674841&sspn=73.789456,131.660156&z=3&ll=45.95115,-36.738281&spn=73.547218,131.660156&om=1
They used to tell you to jump in the ocean and swim to England but I guess they got too much grief out of it.
Posted by: Cephus | February 9, 2008 4:30 PM
Hmm. You can zoom in on my childhood home in Google Maps/Earth enough to make out the individual buildings; where I went to college, though, you can't see unless you zoom out enough to see the entire town at once. Dunno why... my home was way out in the country, all that you can see are trees, more trees, and pastureland, plus scattered houses and barns.
Posted by: Seamyst | February 9, 2008 4:43 PM
#11. If you have a fast internet connection, try downloading Google Earth. That allows you to tilt the map and see the terrain in 3D, with the 2D stuff projected onto it. It even has a built-in flight simulator.
Posted by: steve_h | February 9, 2008 4:52 PM
Am I the only one who thinks the video is hilarious?
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | February 9, 2008 5:01 PM
Invasion of the killer cursor! Zoom away, dude, zoom away!
Funny short film, nice work.
The Google map of my house is out of date, too, showing an umbrella in the back yard patio table that isn't there anymore.
Posted by: JJR | February 9, 2008 6:26 PM
Anytime I'm out in open areas, whether they be a front yard or a parking lot or whatever, I always make sure to shake my fists at the sky and scream "Damn you, Google Earth! Does it bring you pleasure to watch us toil about sea monkeys!?"
People look at you funny, sure, but they probably looked at Galileo funny, too, back when he used to yell at Google Earth.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 9, 2008 6:33 PM
I actually meant to say "toil about LIKE sea monkeys," but to be honest, I kind of like the cryptic elegance of the words "sea monkeys" just appearing in a sentence seemingly at random. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see carved onto a tree at the site of a mass dissapearance. Historians would puzzle over it for centuries.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 9, 2008 6:38 PM
#15, you are not alone--Mr. Mony and I cracked up at this one!
The only thing I learned from Google Maps is that the island in the middle of our lake is shaped like a seahorse. That's good to know.
Posted by: monyNH | February 9, 2008 7:57 PM
I'm alright, I live down the road from GCHQ (the UK equivalent of the NSA), the GoogleEarth pics are lousy, no doubt as part of a (probably misguided) attempt to preserve the secrecy of the place. Of course, that doesn't protect me from GCHQ's attentions....
Posted by: NelC | February 9, 2008 9:12 PM
That's a virtue of living in a rural area, you say? You might not think so when Google begins its next project.
Posted by: Escuerd | February 9, 2008 10:57 PM
Cephus #7: "While Google Earth sees my house and even my cars, it's at least 3-4 years out of date. It still shows a huge orange grove across the street that was torn down 3 years ago and doesn't show the apartment complexes they started building 3-4 years ago about a half-mile away."
That was the Google Earth cache you were looking at. ;-)
Posted by: MH | February 10, 2008 5:44 AM
No street view in the UK as yet, but the normal map seems to have been updated since I last looked at it. A few months ago there were a few newer buildings missing, roads were laid out differently and our car was parked at the house we lived at 3 years ago!
Posted by: wolfpurplemoon | February 10, 2008 11:04 AM
You can see the washing on the line in my garden on Google earth.
Posted by: Nick Bates | February 10, 2008 5:20 PM
Re#15 by C. M. Baxter:
Nope, I thought it was hilarious as well. A cute little vignette very reminiscent of the old B-movie horror flicks. A little bit too true, a little bit too paranoid. Knowing where the balance in this area exists is going to be a topic for many years...
Posted by: Strakh | February 11, 2008 10:12 AM