[HN Gopher] Google Maps is ruining us
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Google Maps is ruining us
Author : HAARP
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-07-23 07:42 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (therectangle.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (therectangle.substack.com)
| bitdeep wrote:
| Yep, don't trust Maps or Waze, you can get shot in Brazil if you
| use it blindly.
|
| Always force it to suggest main routes, even if suggest a route
| with less traffic.
| TheBengaluruGuy wrote:
| How can it get you shot?
| rokkamokka wrote:
| Criminals setting up ambushes on less traveled roads
| theolivenbaum wrote:
| Going up the wrong road and ending up inside a favela
| https://www.france24.com/en/20170807-british-tourist-shot-
| af...
| akolbe wrote:
| Mm. Google Maps will sometimes confidently suggest roads
| which without that recommendation would have seemed quite
| unsuitable. So people put their instincts aside and think
| Google must know better ... only to regret it later.
|
| It would be helpful if Google could add a few qualifiers
| like "Note that this is a very steep and mostly single-lane
| unpaved road" or "This road leads through an unsafe
| neighbourhood", followed by "An alternative route would be
| ..."
|
| Maybe in a few years' time.
| rurp wrote:
| Google Maps works pretty well in cities but is terribly
| unreliable outside of those areas. I have had it route me down
| all sorts of terrible or nonexistent dirt roads when there were
| much better options available. There are many stories of drivers
| blindly following directions, getting stuck, and needing a rescue
| or worse.
| dustincoates wrote:
| So, yeah, Google Maps sent the author down the wrong way, but how
| are paper maps going to be any better? The paper maps aren't
| going to know that those roads are closed, either.
|
| What does the author propose as an alternative? He's in Sicily,
| so he can't rely on his own built-up knowledge. Maybe he's
| suggesting asking locals, but nothing's stopping him from doing
| that, and it's not so easy.
|
| So yeah, online maps have downsides, but what concretely is the
| proposal?
| saulpw wrote:
| The road wasn't closed. Google Maps was wrong.
|
| And with a paper map, you would have the intuition that it
| might be stale, so you ask a local. Whereas Google Maps is
| marketed as the latest and greatest and most up-to-date, so you
| wind up trusting it, even over your own senses sometimes!
|
| The trust is the mistake, but it's hard not to fall into that
| trap when it works reasonably well most of the time. But it's a
| fragile system--when it fails, you're truly SOL. Whereas paper
| and people are anti-fragile--they're less trustworthy but
| because of that, they're also more resilient. Who hasn't gotten
| directions from a stranger and wondered if they were a troll or
| an imbecile? And then either gotten a second opinion or
| proceeded with caution?
| yetihehe wrote:
| Sometimes it's about shunning responsibility:
|
| I followed a map and made an error, I'm responsible, someone
| will be mad at me.
|
| I followed google maps, they are responsible for providing
| bad directions, so it's not my error, you should be mad at
| google, not me.
| dustincoates wrote:
| > We followed the navigation apps, and after 30 minutes of
| driving, they dropped us off at a closed road. We turned
| around, drove another 20 minutes or so, and encountered
| another shuttered lane.
|
| I'm talking about these closed roads.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I was that dumb foreigner in Japan that got lost in a forest on
| an island off the Shimanami Kaido (I think it was Setoda IIRC).
|
| I had to get to a bus stop near a highway in a very rural area,
| and Google Maps led me through a (albeit gorgeous) winding path
| through farms and forests, until the underbrush started taking
| over the road. With the last bus time quickly approaching, and
| having to get to the next island over as that's where my next
| hotel was, I was starting to get desperate, rushing through vines
| and fallen tree limbs.
|
| The path ended with a gate, looking nothing like what Google was
| telling me the path should.
|
| Eventually I back tracked, and arrived just in time for my bus. I
| had leaves in my hair and my legs were all scratched, which left
| this gaijin looking even more like like a sore thumb in this
| rural island.
|
| All this to say, I was dumb and frankly a bit ill prepared for
| this particular leg of the trip. In very weak, tepid defence,
| organizing these smaller details in rural areas of countries
| whose language you don't speak can be at times challenging.
| johnny22 wrote:
| I don't like how it is "because we trusted screens"
|
| A physical map that was marked the same way and touted as being
| up to date would have caused the exact same problem.
|
| At some point things are not going to work and you're going to
| have rely on human judgement. It sounds like trust was built up
| enough over time that such reliance was second nature.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Fun story, I grew up on an incredibly steep street which dead
| ends - it gets too steep - and then continues again at the top
| of the hill.
|
| Well, one edition of some Thomas Guide had this street
| connecting.
|
| Every 5 or so years, some poor, poor, truck driver would get
| stuck on the hill, and need to carefully reverse down this tiny
| street and its ridiculous hill. One year, a giant semi hauling
| glass windows got stuck at the top of the dead end. He was
| unable to reverse, and so we had to call every neighbor to move
| their cars off of the hill to give the driver room to turn
| around. Took most of the day.
| lainga wrote:
| I have some inkling that _not_ having the urge to lock in to a
| single input (as TFA puts it) is not universal. One of the most
| common reasons (IIRC) for failing the RN 's submarine command
| course (the "perisher") is excessive reliance on a single
| instrument -- these are officers with 5-10 years of experience
| by the time they enter the course, and the cream of the crop to
| have even qualified -- and with enough stress, even they lose
| the ability to do "sensor fusion".
|
| Anecdotally, I don't know anyone who's constantly doubting the
| map and cross-checking it against signs the way I do when
| driving or walking. Then again, my first thought in basically
| any situation is what the worst case could be! so...
| divnat2023 wrote:
| Frequency of use of road, or else some kind of road review is
| relevant for rural roads.
| netsharc wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see if the road is mostly used by
| farmers but other locals avoid it, and Google theoritically has
| all that info, assuming they have Android phones: a farmer
| lives near the fields and spend a lot of their daytime on the
| fields, a local lives in the village.
| jurassicfoxy wrote:
| > We drove down an increasingly narrow and desolate road. The
| tarmac disappeared, replaced by lose stones. It got steeper. The
| track turned into potholed grass and dirt. Huge rocks reared out
| of the earth.
|
| ...
|
| > And it was all Google Maps' fault.
|
| I mean, it was 100 % your fault, but you can blame a stupid phone
| if it makes you feel better about having zero common sense, and
| being a poor driver.
| jjulius wrote:
| tl;dr - nothing is perfect.
| gizajob wrote:
| This seems more like a problem with Italians than a problem with
| Google maps :\
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >And it was all Google Maps' fault.
|
| No, it was your fault.
|
| Paper maps can be, and almost certainly all are, wrong. It is
| normal to blame a paper map if you sail off the edge of the Earth
| where the map says there ought to be more sea?
|
| Even if you run into an island where there should be no island,
| or drive into a space that should be fit for cars but is not,
| your hands are on the wheel and your feet are on the pedals.
|
| >Consider this: have you ever been in a situation where you've
| seen a beautiful landscape or watched something funny happening
| and your first thought is, "how can I take a picture of this for
| Instagram?"
|
| No.
|
| Something is wrong with this person's brain.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You need to read the next paragraph of the article.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| "lol j/k it's really because I made the mistake of trusting
| the computer" is deflective nonsense.
| jmalicki wrote:
| > It is normal to blame a paper map if you sail off the edge of
| the Earth where the map says there ought to be more sea?
|
| That's what the US Navy does (in part) when a $3 billion
| submarine hits an underwater mountain.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/navy-submarine-under...
| snakeyjake wrote:
| That event is perfectly illustrative of my point.
|
| You can't even see out of a submarine but still the
| commander, executive officer, and chief of the boat of that
| submarine were fired because no matter what technology or
| capabilities exist it is the responsibility of the person in
| control of the machine to control the machine.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| To be fair, US military anything is about as far as you can
| be from normalcy
| timonoko wrote:
| "Russian Topo Maps"-app is the best if you want to survive in
| wilderness of Japan and Norway. The material from 1960's before
| people moved to big cities on both those places. You can find
| overgrown pathways and railroads which will help your near-death
| trek to the nearest Seven-Eleven.
| welcome_dragon wrote:
| So ... Computers try to kill you in a lake?
| wsve wrote:
| Isn't this literally a gag in The Office...? Which would
| unfortunately make this author Michael Scott in this situation...
| silisili wrote:
| One thing I'm finding myself not liking about Google Maps is its
| routing algorithm. It defaults to something I'm not positive on,
| perhaps shortest possible route or time? But in doing so often
| has me taking 5 or 10 turns through neighborhoods and poorly lit
| streets that don't seem designed for through traffic.
|
| When I look at the map, I usually see a way easier way to go,
| that's usually about the same or maybe a minute or so longer. I
| wish it defaulted to that. I'd much rather have an easy, two turn
| 15 minute drive than a zig zag through neighborhood 14 minute
| drive.
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(page generated 2024-07-23 23:15 UTC)