It’s just data

Dude, Where's My Car?

If you do a Google search for Sam Ruby NC, Google will helpfully give you my phone numbers and provide you with links to find my house via Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and MapQuest.

They all get you close, but to the wrong house.  As does MSN Maps.

Apparently, they all use the same source.

Google’s new satellite images help visualize the problem.  While the house numbers on my street only go up to 1440, the maps apparently “think” that the numbers go up to 1490.

This data error is also shared by my car which would announce that I had arrived at my destination somewhat prematurely.

Furthermore, while my house faces Enchanted Oaks, the entrance is on the side, so this turns out to be a better virtual address.

This “small error” makes a big difference in the directions given.  Compare this route to the nearest movie theaters with this route.

It is a weird world in which you have to lie to your car about where you live.

Time to file a bug report...

Dude, where’s my building?

Sam Ruby talks about having to lie to his car since the navigation database is inaccurate. I have a similar...... [more]

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Dude, Where’s My Car?

Don’t feel alone. Jurgen Schrempp, chairman at DaimlerChrysler, has had a similar experience.

Posted by Larry at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

This kind of thing has been discussed in RISKS before (20.62, 23.20), but
apparently the problems are still there:

1. Go to  [link]
2. In the Start section, select “Norway” from the listbox
  and enter “Haugesund” into the “City” field
3. In the End section, select “Norway” from the listbox
  and enter “Trondheim” into the “City” field
4. Click on “Get Directions”

Posted by bob at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

They seem to be aware that this is a possibility: did you look at the help? And did you send in some feedback?

Posted by Seth Roby at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Seth: I’ve gone ahead and reported this to Google, but I really do believe that the root cause is an error in NAVTEQ’s digital map database.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Dude, your house is HUGE! :) Just out of curiosity, are there any golf courses out there? What’s your commute like?

Posted by Christian Romney at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Now that you mentioned it, I noticed that my address also shows up wrong. Mine isn’t the third house from the corner, it’s  10th.

Posted by Christian Romney at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Nearest Golf Course
My Commute

Posted by Sam Ruby at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Killer commute, if there’s heavy toy traffic on the stairs.

Posted by Phil Ringnalda at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

You don’t know what you are missing. ;)

Posted by Christian Romney at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

It could be worse.

Posted by Henri Sivonen at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

TerraServer has a better picture.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Googlemaps doesn’t do Germany yet, so I’m using a mapper on this PC. It puts my house about 8 miles(sic!) from where I live :-(

Village addresses in Germany are appended after a hyphen to the name of the town (administrative unit) to which they belong. Our’s is Lichtenau-Henglarn , and all the villages and their town share the same zip code (33165).

So the stupid mapper doesn’t “know” this, nor does it have the road-names in the villages, and places everyone in the centre of the town (Lichtenau).

Bummer for any visitors :-(

Stu

Posted by Stu Savory at

bird's eye view

google maps are the shizznit...or is that, shizzit? i’m especially diggin' the new satellite image function, and i find myself just looking around to see what interesting and cool views i can find. this isn’t on google, but it’s a......

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