[HN Gopher] Should this be a map or 500 maps?
___________________________________________________________________
Should this be a map or 500 maps?
Author : cromulent
Score : 241 points
Date : 2024-07-02 04:50 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (escapethealgorithm.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (escapethealgorithm.substack.com)
| anitil wrote:
| Quite a charming story and of course now I want to see the maps.
| Did I miss is somehow? Is there somewhere I can see the 500 maps?
| elygre wrote:
| Exactly the same!
| bigiain wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/AtlasDeEspaa.TomsLpez/page/n9/mo...
| thinkingemote wrote:
| All the priest maps appear to be in the Spanish National
| Archives. There are a few academic articles about them . e.g.
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228910878_EL_LEVANT...
| (in Spanish)
| lmm wrote:
| I hate overly designed news articles. I want to read the words
| and maybe see a couple of relevant pictures, thanks.
|
| Similarly I suspect most of these different individual maps are
| just bad. Whimsy and idiosyncrasy are all very well in theory,
| but in practice they're mostly just annoying.
| pfix wrote:
| The worth here is actually in hindsight as now historians can
| learn a lot about localities and local perceptions. They don't
| care as much about aesthetics (or at least perceive them in a
| different manner)
|
| But in general I assume you're right about the actual quality
| and it was hinted in the text. And when you take a look at the
| maps provided as examples, some of them are not accessible[1].
| And for news articles, it really depends for me. Most of the
| time, I want the essence. But sometimes, especially with
| articles that are not actually news but a deeper analysis of a
| situation (e.g. ukraine war, palestine), I've read articles
| where on mobile it helped that they put extra effort in making
| the media work for the information by interleaving graphics,
| scrolling text, and so forth.[2] But as always this is also a
| matter of taste.
|
| [1] e.g.:
| https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
| [2] I haven't bookmarked those texts and I am not sure if it is
| actual useful to pick one random example for this discussion so
| I just save my time searching for this one example I only
| vaguely remember.
| beAbU wrote:
| Yeah I feel the same.
|
| Interestingly, with the fact that the article is digital,
| surely we can leverage so many more different and interesting
| ways to present the information, but I feel like most prefer to
| just read the text.
|
| I think it's because everyone reads a paper article in a
| different way. If you ask people how they read a magazine,
| you'll get as many responses as respondents. Some read back to
| front (I do that for some reason), some read articles from top
| to bottom, some scan through and look at the pictures and
| captions, then pulled quotes, then the main text. Some even
| read the paragraphs out of order and assembles it all
| afterwards.
|
| Everyone consumes a body of text in a different way, and an
| article that jacks your scroll and does "fancy" stuff with the
| way you can access the content makes assumptions about how the
| reader prefers to consume the content, and this assumption is
| often very wrong for me personally.
| nicbou wrote:
| This is true on the web, but not in print. Salt Fat Acid Heat
| is a gorgeous book and the beauty just doesn't translate well
| to .epub
| card_zero wrote:
| Hey look, an idiosyncratic map by that illustrator.
|
| https://cdn.prod.website-
| files.com/64240ee4eb3a3b4b2059ff7c/...
| yen223 wrote:
| Well, you've got your wish. Every damned website now looks the
| same. Whatever creativity the early internet promised has now
| been snuffed out to appease the user-metrics gods.
| arnorhs wrote:
| I'm all for creativity but laying devil's advocate,..
|
| who is this supposed creativity for? If the majority of
| people just want to scan headlines efficiently and
| read/parse.. isn't that a good thing for most people?
|
| Pragmatically speaking, the creativity is not needed for news
| articles/headlines. We need better reporting / journalism in
| online news, not more creative frills..
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The left hemisphere wondering what creativity is for...
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, for most of the twentieth centuries books all looked
| the same. Same handful of typefaces, sizes, margins, etc.
|
| Newspapers also. Same handful of column layouts, typefaces,
| styling.
|
| It's not about user metrics. It's that what's important is
| the content of the text itself, alongside whatever
| photographs and illustrations are necessary and informative.
|
| Websites are no different from the long tradition of books
| and newspapers in this regard.
|
| There are plenty of spaces for artistic, aesthetic creativity
| on the internet. No shortage whatsoever. More art than
| there's ever been before.
|
| There's no need in also trying to shoehorn it into nonfiction
| articles everywhere.
| lanstin wrote:
| e.e. cummings
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The early (graphical) Internet was black text on grey
| background with blue links and no images.
|
| Myspace and Geocieties were already a couple of generation on
| from that, and ... frankly kind of a mess.
|
| For the most part, I vastly prefer the Reader View rendering
| of websites over whatever's native. Design gets in the way of
| many things, including robustness and resilience over time
| (what happens when all those dependencies and embedded
| resources go away and/or are replace by pr0n, crypto miners,
| phishing, and/or surveillance payloads?), and simple
| legibility.
|
| It's the exceedingly rare instance where "interactive" pages
| provide any additional information or capabilities, and
| virtually all of those are specialised one-offs. I'm thinking
| of several of the xkcd specials, or the work of Bret Victor
| or Nicky Case. I'm _sorely_ hard pressed to think of any
| others. Mainstream pubs (notably the _NY Times_ ) are far
| _worse_ for their efforts in this space.
| lmm wrote:
| The most creative parts of the early internet were on Usenet,
| I found. Posts all looked the same - better yet, they looked
| the way _I_ styled them - but the look wasn 't what was
| important.
| jve wrote:
| > Close your eyes and picture the design of a news article on the
| web.
|
| For people with aphantasia: yes, there are actually people that
| can make/see pictures when eyes closed. Or even use their brain
| as CAD software.
|
| As for us, sorry, can't do it.
| nicbou wrote:
| We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group.
| It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show
| the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It
| doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show
| named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep
| the screen on without having directions.
|
| For most people, the entire experience of using a map is
| constrained to this mediocre one-size-fits-all solution.
|
| Personalisation in general is just gone too. Remember the crazy
| weird skins for Windows Media Player? Now you're lucky if you can
| pick the OS-wide highlight colour.
|
| In the quest to build universal products, we ended up with a tech
| culture designed by committee. As software is eating the world,
| so does this culture.
|
| A welcome change from this is OsmAnd, an insanely versatile and
| customizable map that can be adjusted to your exact needs.
| ListeningPie wrote:
| I use Magic Earth on iOS where a route can be saved as a file
| and then shared with others.
| peebeebee wrote:
| Most of our software is bland because it is about practicality
| and functionality. A UI should do a lot more things than to be
| expressive. Being expressive is very low on the list.
| Reliability, accessibility and recognisability are very high on
| that list. Expressiveness also tends to fight accessibility and
| recognisability.
|
| This also goes for other design fields. As a (stupid) example:
| I can design all kinds of weird wonderful stairs in public
| places, that will give the place some charm. But the best one
| will be with a more boring ramp of with about 5degrees of
| incline, because that's the wheelchair-accessible one.
| nicbou wrote:
| Style is not the only form of expression. Adapting a tool to
| your workflow is also a form of expression. I'm surprised
| that with all of their resources, tech companies still build
| software that completely ignore relatively common use cases
| like hiking.
| dsign wrote:
| There are plenty of apps with maps for hiking. Hell, I use
| QGis when I go in long-paddle boarding expeditions (a
| general purpose GIS environment). I'm fine with letting the
| big monopolies handle the 90% case of going from A to B as
| quickly and efficiently as possible. And I'm very, very
| grateful for the other 10% which is enjoyable and in the
| realm of citizen agency.
| subroutine wrote:
| As you pointed out, there are many other map apps that target
| specific communities and use cases. It doesn't seem too
| surprising that google maps is designed primarily for the most
| common use case (the fastest route from current location to a
| specific destination).
| wiredfool wrote:
| I wound up creating a vector data set + formatting that
| highlights all of the local roads in Ireland, minus ones that
| are not connected. N level roads are screened back, M dropped
| out completely.
| netsharc wrote:
| A crowdsourced map with a collection of "favorite routes" would
| be an interesting idea, although some people (including me)
| hate trodding down beaten paths. I suppose these are mostly on
| websites/specialized apps, eg. for hikers.
| sfphoton wrote:
| Actually you can fit your needs with Openstreetmap. People
| regularly upload public GPS traces that you can view - thus,
| get a rough idea of how popular a path is. But OSM also shows
| all the paths, so you can avoid beaten paths as well.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Strava has a global heat-map for running, cycling etc.
| although I believe it is a subscription-only feature. There
| is also your personal heat-map which is cool to see if you
| use the app enough.
| habi wrote:
| Not subscription-only, but ,, Street-level detail is
| available only to registered Strava athletes" on
| https://www.strava.com/heatmap so you need an account.
| reddalo wrote:
| Shout out to OsmAnd, it's a great app. Worth the money for the
| premium version.
| dtx1 wrote:
| And its free in fdroid
|
| _edit:_ Don 't understand the Downvotes, the Version on
| F-Droid is a legitimate free version of the premium app
| version: https://f-droid.org/de/packages/net.osmand.plus/
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I've personally been using Gaia more and more. OsmAnd is
| great, but the additional layers available (beyond OSM) in
| Gaia are really useful in remote areas.
| eCa wrote:
| OsmAnd is awesome, I use it especially when walking in new
| cities.
|
| For cycling though, I'm a happy user of cycle.travel[1].
|
| [1] https://cycle.travel/map
| aa-jv wrote:
| >walking in new cities
|
| I do enjoy digital life, but you know what else rocks,
| apropos walking in new cities[0]?
|
| Custom maps, printed.
|
| Its fun to look at the little piles of maps I've made for
| myself over the years, from Frome to Rome, Berlin to Pristine
| ..
|
| In fact, I think I prefer printed maps over digital, for
| personal adventure/navigation needs.
|
| ([0] Disclaimer: Got navionics and predict wind running on
| multiple tablets..)
| navane wrote:
| There's a castle in France, near Dijon, in which one wall,
| about eight meters high and five wide, is covered with a
| detailed map of all the area that belonged to that castle
| at one point in time. It was so detailed you had to stand
| close to it, two or three feet, to read it. I have never
| seen so much information in one map.
| dangond wrote:
| What do you mean by custom maps? What do you
| include/exclude from them, and how do you make them?
| aa-jv wrote:
| I use tools such as Google Maps and Open Street Maps, and
| I cut/paste, mostly just by eyeball, with the relevant
| things I might be interested in - the train stations of
| Rome, for example, and so on. Google Earth is also great
| for this, but I confess that the last one I made for
| myself (Berlin), I just screengrabbed and pasted my
| friends # in place, with the train details, etc.
|
| There's something comforting about knowing how to get
| around when the power goes out. Since I enjoy roaming
| adventures requiring navigation, making little maps for
| myself is basically just how I roll .. got me where I
| needed to be.
| wiredfool wrote:
| My experience of cycle.travel is pretty good -- it finds
| routes over small roads that I've already chosen in the past
| when I look locally.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I feel this a lot cycling in London. Both Apple and Google maps
| _really_ wants you to cycle along the canals, which can be a
| huge pain especially on busy weekends. Thankfully I know some
| areas well enough and I just cycle through the path 10 metres
| "inland", but the maps constantly want me to do a u-turn and
| get back on the canal.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Need a 'commute cycling' mode and a 'leisure cycling' mode :)
| jorisboris wrote:
| I'm still looking for a map which let me optimize for "stopping
| as little as possible" which in practice means avoiding traffic
| jams and traffic lights.
|
| I notice this makes me drive more relax, and especially with a
| baby it's way easier to keep the baby asleep
| JR1427 wrote:
| Similarly, there was a time when my daughter got very car
| sick, and I desperately wanted an "avoid roundabouts" option!
| leeoniya wrote:
| or "fewest turns".
|
| i would rather drive an extra straight 0.25 miles down a
| major road than to zig-zag through tiny side streets while
| trying to carefully pay attention to unfamiliar street names
| and/or constant nav app directions.
|
| i've had google maps instruct me to take four or five
| additional turns to save a couple hundred yards of driving.
| themk wrote:
| Google maps is absolutely horrendous for this.
|
| I've found OsmAnd to give me much better results. But
| google maps traffic awareness is pretty handy...
| poloniculmov wrote:
| Waze sort-of does this, it tries to keep you moving by taking
| lots of left turns and side streets. I hate it :).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Sportbike mode: route with least likelihood of speed traps,
| plus 1-minute warning ahead of known trap locations.
|
| No-selfies mode: route with least cellphone coverage.
|
| Horsebox mode: route with fewest intersections and the most
| sportbikes.
| account42 wrote:
| Doesn't Google Maps somewhat have this - it often suggests
| multiple routes, some of which have a green leaf.
| exe34 wrote:
| I find Organic Maps to be less irritating, but it doesn't
| always find the address I search for - but once I've found the
| place and dropped a pin, it's much nicer to work with for
| walking and cycling.
| dataflow wrote:
| > It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another
|
| This might be a computational cost thing. Modern routing
| algorithms preprocess the graph to find the optimal route
| orders of magnitude faster than you normally would without
| preprocessing. If you let each person customize the graph then
| such queries would be much more costly.
|
| Then again, I'm sure there are lots of other complications
| already and that most users wouldn't want alternate routes, so
| maybe the marginal cost here is irrelevant?
| codetrotter wrote:
| Hire some game devs that have worked on path finding in AAA
| games. They will find a way to partially pre process the map
| data in such a way that on-device computation can then let
| the user pick and choose what roads to favor and what roads
| to exclude.
|
| And as an added bonus they'll be unrelentingly optimizing
| your map application to the point where the UI will run at
| 144 Hz ;)
| dataflow wrote:
| Game routing is not remotely similar to real world routing.
| Neither in scale, nor in other aspects like road traffic or
| incorporation of human preferences.
|
| In any case, I'm not suggesting it's impossible, just
| costlier than people imagine when they ask for the feature.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| > _Hire some game devs that have worked on path finding in
| AAA games._
|
| I think you're seriously overestimating how many AAA games
| do any kind of fancy pathfinding beyond "just use A*".
| codetrotter wrote:
| Well. I'm not saying to unconditionally hire them.
|
| Ask them a few questions in the interview to see what
| specific kind of problems they've been solving :)
| bazzargh wrote:
| Cyclestreets already built a custom bike routing engine
| that is used in a bunch of different cycle map
| apps/websites, and has been for over a decade
|
| https://www.cyclestreets.net/help/journey/routing/
|
| at the most basic level it lets you choose between fastest
| and quietest routes, understands hills, cycle paths, etc.
|
| There's many, many other choices
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing
|
| contraction hierarchies
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_hierarchies made
| cross-continent route planning practical and practically
| instant, eg in GraphHopper. A lot of the options listed
| there work offline.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Those overrides could be stored locally and the maps service
| could still return the same optimized graph. The client
| device can then swap out and override it and do the
| calculation on device.
| account42 wrote:
| > most users wouldn't want alternate routes
|
| I wouldn't be so sure about that. I have seen many different
| users intentionally deviate from the suggested route because
| they know more than Google about what is best for them (or at
| least they think they do).
| btbuildem wrote:
| I sometimes I think Waze is sending me on an exploratory
| missions, giving me a sub-optimal route just to learn the
| current conditions along it.
| dataflow wrote:
| s/users/queries/.
|
| I wasn't saying this never happens. I myself deviated from
| Google Maps just _yesterday_. But, like, this was probably
| the only one out of my last 10 queries. And I was trying to
| say this is a minority of the queries.
| arsome wrote:
| Even when driving the best Google maps can do is avoid
| highways. OsmAnd is great but it doesn't solve the routing
| issue to my knowledge. If you know of something that solves
| that one please let me know.
| 12907835202 wrote:
| The biggest thing for me with maps is the refusal to allow
| multiple tabs on phone.
|
| If you're the passenger on a road trip and doing the navigation
| you're unable to use maps to make plans for tonight or
| tomorrow.
|
| Okay the driver could be nav, but now they also need to be the
| music, and everytime you the passenger wants to use it to look
| for petrol on route or change music you have to ask their code
| or hold it up to their face. Plus now you see all their
| notifications.
|
| Even without being on a road trip, on a desktop i'd be making
| plans in multiple tabs before making a decision. On a phone
| it's a nightmare when it could be so easy.
| lupire wrote:
| Install Maps Go for another map, and set up a Work Profile
| for 2 more maps.
|
| Or use Maps in abBrowser.
|
| Interestingly, when you have public transit navigation
| running, Maps is able to run "current trip" in background
| while you plan an alternate/additional trip.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes. Then buy another phone for up to 4 extra maps.
|
| At this point paper maps start looking more useful than
| digital ones.
|
| Google Maps is _not_ a map. It 's a half-decent _nav_
| system slash ad delivery vector, that pretends to be a map,
| but sucks at it.
| Retric wrote:
| That seems like complaining for no reason. It's the
| default app not your only option.
|
| You can also have functionally unlimited maps on
| different browser tabs not just nav apps. https://nps.map
| s.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=...
| high_na_euv wrote:
| Weird, Id say Google Maps is really good product
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's a good product. It's a bad _map_.
|
| Maps are meant to help orient yourself and communicate
| rich information about the area. They're used for
| _planning_. Google Maps has long been moving _away_ from
| this case, focusing instead on just-in-time point-by-
| point nav and searchable PoI database. This is an
| entirely different product category to a map, and has
| opposite goals.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Huh? Google Maps _is_ a map.
|
| If you don't use it for directions, then that's entirely
| what it is.
|
| Sure there are a few icons for sponsored businesses, but
| that's all. They're easy to ignore.
|
| The way you can pan and zoom, it's 1000x more useful than
| any of the road atlases I used to have to keep in my car.
| Looking up an address is instant rather than taking a
| couple of minutes on a paper atlas, and it's simple to
| pan and zoom the route you want to plan, without having
| to jump from page 30 to page 65 when you go north and try
| to re-locate the road you're trying to follow.
|
| It's much _more_ than a map, but it 's crazy to say it
| isn't a map. Along with Apple Maps and OSM, they're
| basically the best maps ever made by humankind.
|
| (And you can put down markers too, and then remove them
| later. Paper maps you can draw on, but erasing is
| hard/impossible.)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _The way you can pan and zoom, it 's 1000x more useful
| than any of the road atlases I used to have to keep in my
| car._
|
| Except when it cleverly hides the street names, PoIs and
| other important labels, as you zoom in. The way Google
| Maps does it is so absurd that it feels it's done on
| purpose.
|
| A road atlas is a high-density map. Not the most
| convenient in paper form, and ripe for digitization, but
| not in the way Google Maps does it - information density
| is a _feature_ on a map, when you 're trying to orient
| yourself. It's only a problem when the app is optimized
| for navigating you to points you already know the address
| of.
|
| > _(And you can put down markers too, and then remove
| them later. Paper maps you can draw on, but erasing is
| hard /impossible.)_
|
| Sorta, kinda. That's another feature Google is going out
| of their way to make impossible to use. You can't _just_
| put markers (multiple) in the middle of a search or
| normal scrolling, for example.
|
| Erasing from paper maps is easy - buy laminated ones and
| use dry-erase markers (or permanent markers and have some
| alcohol handy).
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Except when it cleverly hides the street names_
|
| It's usually fine. Sure sometimes I wish it showed more,
| but that's just a matter of degree. Again, still 1000x
| more useful than a paper atlas. If it doesn't show the
| street name, it does when I zoom out or in or pan a
| little.
|
| > _You can 't just put markers (multiple) in the middle
| of a search or normal scrolling, for example._
|
| During normal scrolling? Of course you can. Just click on
| any building, and tap "save" in the panel that appears. I
| just checked on desktop, and you can even do it in the
| middle of a search -- the panel that appears is in
| addition to your existing search panel. Do it as many
| times as you want.
|
| > _Erasing from paper maps is easy - buy laminated ones
| and use dry-erase markers_
|
| I've never seen a laminated road atlas, and back in the
| day I worked a job that required driving for hours a day
| to addresses I'd never been before so I was familiar with
| all the atlases sold at the gas station and the
| bookstore. You're talking about the metropolitan atlases
| that are 100+ pages? I can't even imagine how thick and
| heavy they'd be if each page was laminated. Maybe they
| exist.
| ukuina wrote:
| > Paper maps you can draw on, but erasing is
| hard/impossible
|
| I am amused when movies show military situations where
| commanders draw on huge and otherwise pristine rollout
| maps. Are they going to be discarded after this one
| engagement? If not, shouldn't there be scribbles from
| prior uses?
| crazygringo wrote:
| The best part is when you realize the movie production
| did 20 takes of that scene.
|
| And so actually did discard 20 huge, otherwise pristine
| props, and had another 30 waiting because they didn't
| know how many takes would be needed.
| Retric wrote:
| You can use multiple map apps at the same time on one phone.
|
| Default + website (on multiple tap) are always available, but
| on long road trips I use Waze.
|
| There's also a bunch of really nice apps for things like
| subway maps, trails, etc.
| tnel77 wrote:
| While you are correct, I think they were saying it would be
| nice to turn on Google Maps directions and then use the
| same app on the same phone to do research without
| disrupting the current navigation.
| Retric wrote:
| I regularly use Maps as an actual map not just a
| navigation system. I'd be nice if they included a
| topographic map view, etc but not every app needs to do
| everything at the same time.
|
| Many people have serious issues even with how stripped
| down everything is, so IMO as a default app loaded on
| every device it's a decent compromise.
| lupire wrote:
| > It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another.
|
| In the Directions mode, you can insert a map pin for a point
| you want to pass.
| stevage wrote:
| I have put enormous effort into building routable cycling maps
| over the years: https://stevebennett.me/2015/01/14/cycletour-
| org-a-better-ma...
|
| It's frustrating to me that after all these years, I still end
| up using Google Maps mostly. I haven't really come across a
| general purpose mapping tool I can use for cycling directions
| and routing, both on desktop and on my phone, in cities and in
| the bush.
| frederikvs wrote:
| This is why I need to have 10 different map apps on my phone. I
| hate it.
|
| Google maps is good enough for find my way in a city, or
| getting to a destination by car. And when I get there, I whip
| out another app to pay the parking. If I forget where I parked,
| my car has an app with a map. To plan a longer trip with an
| electric car, ABRP is better. And when I'm just looking for a
| charge pole where my card will work, Plugsurfing. If I want to
| use car sharing, another app with another map.
|
| If I want to go for a run or a hike, outdooractive has some
| routes. Komoot has some others. But if I want to find some rock
| climbing routes, I need 27crags. Meanwhile, my sports watch
| also has a map which can show me the route I just ran.
|
| None of these are fundamentally different. All show a very
| similar map, just with other points of interest, other routes,
| other layers, other navigation algorithms.
|
| But all of these apps have different UI, different features,
| and just behave slightly differently.
|
| I wish I could just have a single map app, where I enable the
| layers I'm interested in.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I feel like if you had all the map apps in one, you'd end up
| with a Salesforce of maps.
|
| I kind of like having separate apps for different activities.
| For sure, it's nice that they integrate eg. gas station
| search into Waze -- it's a car-related thing, and a likely
| option in the workflow of navigating a trip. I'll use a
| totally different app for route finding along mountain trails
| - here I'll be concerned about offline availability,
| topography data, terrain types, shelters, precise location
| and orientation, etc.
|
| To OP's point, it would be nice to have a bike-centric app
| that responds to concerns cyclists have and others pay little
| attention to - eg, road surface quality, lane widths,
| grading, wind exposure, general safety rating etc. Google
| Maps does the token thing of indicating the total climb and
| descent for a planned route, but it doesn't give an option to
| optimize for that (eg, longer route with fewer climbs).
| mFixman wrote:
| OsmAnd is great despite being so ugly, but for cycling I would
| should out Komoot.
|
| It's made for long touring rides, but it works perfectly for
| shorter rides within the city and its routing is produces
| routes that are faster, more pleasant, and overall much better
| than Google Maps.
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| There's a certain (group of) employees/people in Google maps
| team which prevent things like this because of their self
| appointed social justice/we know better ego and they are
| actually proud of it.
|
| https://x.com/kaseyklimes/status/1802431551671603375?s=46
| gjm11 wrote:
| The argument made there isn't about "things like this".
|
| To save everyone a click, here's a summary of that argument:
| you might want Google Maps to let you ask for the "nicest"
| rather than the "quickest" route; that would systematically
| tend to send you through the fancier higher-income parts of
| town, and in the case of walking directions the effect (which
| would happen across the entire world) would be to shift foot
| traffic, and hence e.g. custom for shops, from poorer parts
| of town to richer parts of town, and that would be bad.
|
| Now, for the avoidance of doubt, I think this is a silly
| argument for many reasons; here are a few of them. For
| walking directions through commercial parts of a city,
| practically everyone is going to choose "quickest" rather
| than "nicest" and they probably aren't going to stop in the
| shops along the way; for driving directions, moving traffic
| from poorer to richer parts is probably a net social-justice
| _improvement_ ; most people asking for "nicer" routes are
| probably more interested in e.g. avoiding major roads
| _outside_ cities.
|
| (I _do_ think it 's reasonable to ask: what would be the
| consequences for the world if we offered this feature? and
| sometimes to conclude that it would make things worse. But I
| can't say I find it very easy to believe that companies like
| Google do in fact generally make their decisions on this
| basis, given what most of those decisions look like.)
|
| But, bad argument or not, and genuinely representative of how
| Google makes decisions or not, it _isn 't_ an argument for
| not letting people make more specific choices like "avoid
| this particular road" or "prefer this road when possible",
| nor for not showing cycle routes and hiking trails, nor for
| letting you keep the screen on without showing directions. It
| doesn't have anything to do with any of the things the
| grandparent comment was complaining that Google Maps doesn't
| let you do.
|
| I guess it's possible that Kasey in fact argues against all
| forms of user customization in Google Maps on the grounds
| that users might customize Maps in ways that are socially
| harmful. It's even possible that she does so _and it makes a
| difference_. But there 's nothing in her tweets linked above
| to suggest that she does, and it doesn't seem plausible to me
| that considerations like hers have much to do with a broad
| lack of customizability in Google Maps.
| jameshart wrote:
| I'm often struck by how poorly Google and Apple Maps work as
| substitutes for an _atlas_. They focus on roadways, and while
| they can show you the physical appearance of terrain, they do a
| poor job of putting names to both physical features - mountain
| ranges, rivers, valleys, seas and bays - as well as human names
| for regions.
|
| Apple Maps tries a little - I can zoom out over the US and
| occasionally it tries to write 'Appalachian Mountains' along
| the length of the range, for example - but it pops in and out
| as you zoom and scroll and actually getting a view where the
| whole name is visible is difficult. Sometimes it labels the
| 'Gulf of Maine'. Sometimes it labels it 'Fox Islands
| Thouroughfare'.
|
| Google maps as you zoom out just keeps showing the road
| networks with no hierarchy of importance (the interstate
| network doesn't stand out from the dense grid at all) and at
| some level just labels states and countries. It has. Interest
| in labeling large scale geographical features at all.
|
| Try picking out a good view on one of these maps that lets you
| trace the course of the Mississippi River and pick out the
| major cities along the route. It's just not something you can
| accomplish with these maps.
| psychoslave wrote:
| > modularity is inversely correlated to expressiveness
|
| I would highly mitigate this statement. It's more like some forms
| of expressiveness are out of scope once you settle for a set of
| constraints, be it through modularity requirements in precise
| specifications sent to people that all passed the same qualifying
| formation, or vague query to a set of random people who don't
| held in common much more than ability to match your query with
| some mind representation of their own.
|
| There is nothing that was either created by humans out of
| ontological constraints, even when nothing close to a mere
| wishlist was present. No one can instantly turns all its
| inconsistent dreams into shared reality just by turning its
| attention to whatever desire flows through their mind. And even
| dreams and desires and constraints by physical ability of brain
| mixed with psycho-social constraints.
| acka wrote:
| https://websim.ai/ would like a word with you.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Seems fun, thank for the link. Not sure how I should
| interpret your comment however :D
| breck wrote:
| I've made some incredibly expressive art, perhaps the best art
| in all of history, by ignoring all modular constraints.
|
| I'd show it to you, but I ignored the constraint of sticking to
| the visible frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.
| netsharc wrote:
| Reminds me of this Zadie Smith writing about Facebook:
| https://archive.is/lRddT and how we've been lead to categorize
| ourselves.
| glenjamin wrote:
| I think a great takeaway from this article could be
| "standardization is not inherently valuable or desirable".
|
| Standardization, like almost anything, has costs and benefits and
| tradeoffs and so on.
|
| So when you're pushing to standardize something - consider what
| it is you're gaining and what it is you're losing, and decide
| whether that's a tradeoff you're ok with.
| arkh wrote:
| Reminds me of Structurizr and its perspective option to map
| software architecture. Multiple maps in one map.
| etalgo wrote:
| hey this is elan, author of this piece. thanks for sharing and
| for the discussion
|
| for what it's worth i do agree with the one or two comments here
| that say that the line "modularity is inversely correlated with
| expressiveness" is a bit reductive. i did have a long section of
| caveats but removed them because i felt like they confused the
| matter more. ironically i'm butting up against the expressive
| limits of the english language, its own modular technology :p
|
| html of course is another shared protocol that is so flexible
| that it does allow for immense expressiveness even while it makes
| certain core decisions that limit (arguably helpfully) certain
| forms of expression
|
| squarespace would be the ur example to me of a frankenstein
| product whose exceptional modularity makes expressiveness a
| battle with the machine
|
| which is all to say, i welcome more thoughts on this dynamic!
|
| for those asking to see all 500 maps, i wish i could too!
| unfortunately as far as i can tell they haven't been digitized.
| if you find them please (please please) let me know. happy to
| upload the higher res versions of the maps i do have later.
| chatmasta wrote:
| I loved the phrase "modularity is inversely correlated with
| expressiveness."
|
| I don't think it's reductive, just incomplete. It's missing a
| third dimension of "complexity." You can increase
| expressiveness, but only by adding complexity. But even then,
| you're just fractalizing into 500 more maps; the complexity is
| comprised of layers of modularity, each with its own degree of
| expressiveness.
|
| For example, you could mimic HTML by giving each map maker some
| standard components for expressing and classifying buildings
| and their relationships ("church," "road," etc). And sure, now
| you've increased expressiveness. But you've also added a new
| layer of modularity. So you're right back at where you started.
| The maxim holds.
| skybrian wrote:
| Surveys come to mind as another scenario where standardization is
| practical but hides a lot of individuality.
|
| For any survey question, asking the participant "why did you
| choose that answer?" could reveal interesting information. Maybe
| they interpreted the question in a surprising way?
| tomaskafka wrote:
| That's what an UX researcher will do with your NPS
| questionnaire. The score is bullshit, the "why" answers are the
| gold.
| drivers99 wrote:
| > I don't want this to be mistaken for a story about web design.
| If you squint, you will find the same set of tradeoffs in all
| manner of creative work and systems thinking
|
| Lots of comments about literal maps and then web design. This
| generalization of the idea quoted above made me think of
| something I believe about technological convergence (putting
| everything into phones and tablets). We're losing the way custom
| made devices for different purposes were able to optimize for one
| purpose. I was thinking of the alarm-clock/radio (which itself is
| a converged device, it loses benefits of a wind up alarm clock
| and the benefits of a dedicated radio) vs just using your phone
| as an alarm clock and music/news player. For one thing, the alarm
| clock has the time always visible. For another, the radio is
| instantly available with a single click. And that's just one of a
| hundred things that have been converged into the phone (starting
| with the actual telephone).
|
| I've been working on learning to build my own small computers.
| Part of it is that each one could be for a unique purpose and
| designed accordingly. (Circuitry, buttons, etc.) Thinking about
| it like thus article, one could go further and not limit each
| application to being "a computer" at all.
| ongytenes wrote:
| Goes to show, when you want a job done right, you often end up
| having to do it yourself.
| ongytenes wrote:
| Goes to show, if you want a job done right, you often end up
| having to do it yourself.
| naet wrote:
| Slightly off topic but when websites disable default touch
| actions like pinch to zoom it makes for a rough mobile
| experience, especially when trying to read an article about maps
| which encourage you to take a close look.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Interestingly, I have the "opposite" problem. I have many maps
| that I wish were "one".
|
| I have 7+ mapping apps that I use regularly. Usually I am using
| several at once and having to swap back and forth to figure out
| the information I need.
|
| I really wish we had an interoperability protocol that allowed me
| to combine the data sets locked in each app. I would love to use
| only one map.
|
| I think there is a strong argument that such a standardized
| protocol would allow people to currate and combine these datasets
| in their own way. While in one sense, it would mean there was
| just "one" map, but in another, there would be a plethora of
| maps, each tailored to an individual or purpose.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I'm reminded of _Seeing Like a State_ by James C. Scott[0], which
| is in part about just this sort of thing. Maps were one example
| presented in the book. And it does apply beyond just that too; I
| read this blog post a while back relating this tendency to social
| networks: https://technomancy.us/199
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
| colega wrote:
| I clicked on the link expecting to find an article about
| hashmaps.
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