[HN Gopher] The Mongolian Meta
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The Mongolian Meta
Author : deletionist
Score : 87 points
Date : 2024-03-30 19:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (docs.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (docs.google.com)
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| Is this whole thing just a strategy guide for playing Geoguessr
| in one country?
| macrael wrote:
| yes
| klysm wrote:
| People go very deep into various "metas" for all of the
| countries
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| My god, and my wife says that I am nerdy about geography
|
| I got nothing on the hardcore geoguessers
| makin wrote:
| This is amazing, but surely analyzing the Google car itself would
| be against the spirit of the game for the hardcore players? Is it
| a standard tactic?
| a_t48 wrote:
| Once you know, you can't exactly go back, can you?
| GaggiX wrote:
| As far as I know, in most countries there is no such variety in
| what you can see on the Google car. But meta are used by expert
| players.
| fmbb wrote:
| Hardcore players play to win.
|
| Looking at the car, the picture quality or other image
| artifacts is a very useful tactic that everyone uses.
| sandspar wrote:
| Related reading:
|
| https://www.sirlin.net/ptw
|
| "David Airline's Playing to Win has been the competitive
| gamer's bible since the year 2000."
| gadders wrote:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scrub%27&pag...
| bhaak wrote:
| I'm a regular GeoGuessr player and I use the meta stuff mainly
| for getting quickly out of boring locations without losing too
| much points.
|
| For example South America and Africa are huge and it's really
| no fun getting dumped somewhere far from any civilization and
| having to drive hours to get any real life geographical hints.
| klysm wrote:
| People have varying opinions on this, and there are browser
| extensions which will block the car out
| umanwizard wrote:
| It's a bit like asking if intentionally fouling to force free-
| throws and a possible turnover late in a basketball game is
| against the spirit of the rules. Maybe yes as they were
| originally conceived when it was a recreational activity years
| ago, but at the modern competitive elite level it's very much
| part of the game.
| keybored wrote:
| Is being born tall against the spirit of basketball?
| shpx wrote:
| We can only hope that someday someone at Google takes the time
| to improve the car segmenter.
| djsavvy wrote:
| Good to see some Geoguessr content on HN!
| alt227 wrote:
| This stuff must get outdated very quickly. Google could very well
| upload an entire new set of photos for Mongolian roads tomorrow.
| How do Geoguessers keep on top of that? Is there a central
| repo/db where they store the dates that each country, or even
| potentially province or town, get updated by google.
|
| Im imagining some kind of RSS feed that Geoguessers all subscribe
| to which alerts them of a country update and they all scramble to
| catalog the new meta.
| keybored wrote:
| > This stuff must get outdated very quickly. Google could very
| well upload an entire new set of photos for Mongolian roads
| tomorrow. How do Geoguessers keep on top of that?
|
| Refer to the Meta meta document.
| shpx wrote:
| The Mongolian photos are from 2015/2016, so not too quickly.
| perihelions wrote:
| It's like a metaphor for life: you tend your garden, then the
| storms come and level everything, and then you tend a new
| garden from scratch. No human labor is everlasting--it's why
| the nomads invented yurts.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Ah is that how Geoguessers work? process of elimination through
| elements within a LIMITED dataset. Still impressive
| nonetheless, but I was wondering if I took a picture from my
| rooftop is Kenya how they would be able to guess
| swang wrote:
| It took me a while to realize that first section was about how
| to guess based off the Google Street View car's characteristics
| (tire, roof rack). I didn't know people were even allowed to
| use that as part of the game. I guess I'm only watching some
| specific people like rainbolt, who seems to use the terrain and
| other city landmarks (stop signs, poles along highways, etc)
| for his guesses.
|
| I'm guessing for Google Street View Car stuff that's probably a
| differentiator if you're super competitive at this.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Rainbolt also uses car meta in specific scenarios (Kenya is
| obviously a big one), it's just that it's obviously less
| impressive so it doesn't make it into viral videos. If you
| watch streams it's quite evident he's very aware of car meta.
| gwern wrote:
| Mirror as PDF: https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/2021-kommu-
| themongoliangeo... (it doesn't appear to have been updated since
| 2021 and Google Docs are bad for
| longevity/discoverability/archiving).
| jsf01 wrote:
| There are some really cool geoguessr metas that aren't as much
| about memorizing the street view cars that I love. (Although, a
| few car metas are interesting such as the handful of African
| countries that required a security follow car to tail the Google
| car, or the "Kenya snorkel" on the more off road capable street
| view vehicle for Kenya.) One of these is that there is a
| geostationary satellite just south of Texas that most US
| satellite dishes will point to, so if you can find a house with a
| satellite dish on it then you can combine its angle with your
| compass and get a rough sense of the US region you are in.
| gfaure wrote:
| Is there an index of resources that lists metas that people have
| put together for each country?
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(page generated 2024-03-31 23:00 UTC)