Google Maps goes where no one wants to go | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps goes where no one wants to go

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39 pointswicknicks16 comments

I really wish I knew the story behind some of these images, especially the SUV wreck, with the man sitting at the edge of the roadway hanging his head in a pose of ultimate dejection.

On the one hand Google Street view is a testament to incredible technological power, giving us little still life glimpses of the huge world around us, but it still can't capture all the humanity of life and the many human interactions that happen every day on our planet.

yet. folks have been talking about lifeblogging for years.

We're only just now being able to fulfil the storage requirements at a reasonable price. Battery technology has yet to catch up though.

It'd be nifty if these were hyperlinked to the actual Google Maps location, so we could then explore around them.

A lot of them probably have been taken down/updated :)

But yes, I agree.

i tried to track a random one down (based on info in the shot)...looks like the exact shot was taken out, but i'd say it's confirmed real.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=89+Myrdle+Street+Whitechapel+e...

I love this. Wish you could click on the images to see the map.

I'm having a hard time believing these are all actually Google Maps shots. Would have been nice if they had included a link to the image on Maps.

#17 from the end looks like the creek near Google. I'm guessing those are some of the Google Street View people in the picture (one on scooter, one with visible badge, one mad scientist long haired type) :-).

You are correct. Turn around and move up the street a little, and you will see quite a few other googlers hanging out on the side of the road ;)

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.421069,-122.086591...

Am not sure that everybody sees the same pictures. #17 from the end, for me, was a road going through wide-open prairie with a small hill in the background and a bison (?) in the foreground. No people at all.

Edit: Just reloaded. The ordering is definitely different, and it looked like some of the pictures were different too, though many were the same.

This really is a cross-section of everyday life across the world. Amazing!

Some are kinda NSFW.

So?

Here's a theory on why gov'ts don't like Street View; it exposes their countries' lesser sides, the ones that don't end up on postcards.

Also, governments like to have an exclusive on power. They don't share well. Each time technology gives power back to the people, governments fight it.

sure, but there are plenty of reasons that people wouldn't want themselves (or their houses) to end up there either. So blaming it on the government(s) exclusively isn't really fair.

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