A novel way to address your envelope | Hacker News Reader

A novel way to address your envelope

mapenvelope.com

I'm kind of confused about the placement of the marker and personal note. In most cases, I open envelopes by tearing the topmost fold, which would cut the connection between the place marker and the message.

I think this envelope is intended to be placed into another one which is actually mailed, so that the one with the marker does not have to be sealed. I guess that's pretty common for doing various kinds of formal invitations, etc.

And a partial howto from one of Google's Appengine devs, Nick Johnson:

http://mapvelopes.appspot.com/

http://blog.notdot.net/2010/04/Generating-PDFs-on-App-Engine...

Wish we could zoom in or out; some addresses are way too far out to be interesting.

Doesn't seem to work for me, though I am using IE6 so that is probably the issue.

I think this would be fun, but anyone have any experience making their own envelopes? Wonder if they hold up well...

Might be simpler to just print directly from a map or sat view on to a store-bought envelope, using your printer's Envelope paper source.

... except that the artwork goes on the INSIDE of the envelope...

Doesn't seem to work for me too, and I'm on Firefox/Snow Leopard.

IE6? Wow!

He should get a prize for still using IE6. Any suggestions?

Torture?

Yeah, it is from work. I should have a disclaimer or something.

read: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1231870

I like that the submitted site has a "send me an email" link. I didn't see a privacy policy posted (that's usually de rigueur for a website that asks for personal information), so I sent a question asking what the privacy policy was for users who submit their personal address.

Edit for update: I received this answer to my question:

"The policy is that we don't do anything with it whatsoever.

-- Stephen Hallgren"

That might be a good thing to say explicitly on the site, with the usual "privacy" link text.

Is the "privacy policy" a legally binding document? If so, how so? If not, why do you think it's important what a tiny start-up's privacy policy is?

The privacy policy is a promise. Broken promises have repercussions in proportion to how well known it is that you break your promises. For Facebook, that might be important. For weekendproject.com, I can't imagine why you're fixated on it.

I don't know how you reach the conclusion I'm "fixated" on anything. I just note for the record that it's an industry-standard recommendation for websites that solicit personal information to declare a privacy policy. I agree that there has to be a certain degree of user trust in any such stated policy, because the stated policy might be a lie. On the other hand, if the stated policy is a lie, then users who are misled by the stated policy would have a legal remedy if they chose to pursue that.

The default example when I loaded the page was "Niagara Falls", but the market was on a golf course. Weird.

I guess this prints Google Maps on it? How can this be legally fine? Google Maps is not even remotely "free" for such things. OpenStreetMap data however would allow it with attribution.

If they're using the API, then "as long as your site is generally accessible to consumers without charge, you may use the Google Maps API" (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html#tos_commercial)

Oh, I was thinking they would actually print out the envelope. If it is "just" a website then of course it is fine.

It falls into a bit of a gray area in the TOS.

Just using the satellite images alone wouldn't be allowed, because they're not obviously from Google. Using the satellite images with the Google streets displayed on top probably would be okay because it's obvious where you got it from (though you have to include the attribution too).

This is mostly just the satellite view but they also use a honking big Google speech bubble and little red place marker, which possibly brands it enough to pass muster.

http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html (see print section)

Your right this wouldn't be an issue with OSM as they're much more open, but then they're mostly maps not aerial photos.

There was http://www.openaerialmap.org but I don't think it's live anymore.

"Sorry, we were unable to geocode that address" for every address entered. Different browsers, all the same message.

Ok, it's working from home, must be a firewall or shared IP thing at work... odd.

Wish it wouldn't mangle the formatting of the address, but that's probably the fault of Google.

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