Fun with GIS

[flwyd]

I heard on NPR this morning that Amazon has a new maps page. The embedded map is Mapquest, but the cool feature is that it will show you photos as if you were walking along the streets. There's a limited number of cities, and limited areas within the cities, but it sounded pretty cool, so I clicked on Denver this morning. It took me to a map of downtown Denver and said that no pictures were available. So I hit the box to show where all the streets with pictures are, moved the cursor around, and still couldn't see anything.

"Well, maybe they're having problems with Denver... I'll try Philadelphia, since I'll be there for work next week." Same problem -- everything works but the reason for visiting the site. I click New York and finally get some pictures, but when I try to scroll around, no pictures come up. Nothing for San Francisco or Los Angeles, either. Go Amazon.

Later this afternoon I noticed it was still up in my web browser, so I clicked around again. I selected Miami and finally got to play with the tool. As you click on the GO arrows, you can take a few steps up or down the street. That's pretty neat. Helps you get a feel for where to go once you've parked down town and need to find an unassuming shop. I then searched for Colfax and Broadway, Denver, CO. Apparently they weren't interested in taking pictures of the State Capitol Building, but RTD busses fascinate them.

(The ad on the side of the bus is the same across several segments, so I assume they were walking at bus-speed while taking pictures. I've often found that busses travel at about foot speed...)

Comments

[mackys.livejournal.com]

(I've often found that busses travel at about foot speed...)

In Boulder during jr. high and high school, I generally found that I could walk to most places faster than the bus could get there. If I had my skateboard, it was absolutely no contest. The only exception was going all the way across town. That one I had to resort to my bicycle to do faster.