More random crap

[drwex]

I have a rule of roadtrips: don't go on a trip where time spent at the destination fails to exceed total travel time (there and back again).

Yesterday I violated this by approximately a factor of five. This leads me to observe that sometimes you need to throw out the rules because there's something more important going on.

The "factor of five" was due almost entirely to the fact that maps.google.com sucks LARGE HAIRY ROCKS and has twice failed to give me directions that were even approximately right. New rule: don't use maps.google for anything more than amusement value.

Maps.google was not just wrong by a trivial thing like missing a one-way street; it was wrong by a couple of TOWNS. As in "No, town B is NOT next to town A. In fact, town B is on the other side of D, which is next to C, which is next to A." At least it was exceedingly pleasant driving weather.

Speaking of "driving weather" it was apparently raining penguins on a Texas highway. No, really. Poor penguins. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4776449.stm

And finally, catya pointed to this Canadian gem (also linked in Neil Gaiman's blog): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060806.wr-rogers07/BNStory/Business/home
A court has decided that it will apply ordinary rules of grammar and enforce a contract termination clause based on the placement (or mis-placement depending on which side you ask) of a comma. My inner grammar authoritarian is cackling with absolute glee.

Comments

[catya.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the last line of that penguin story.

[sykotropic.livejournal.com]

If you haven't picked up this book for either yourself or later the rugrats.. You MUST (and yes desiringsubject I'm ordering a copy for you and all residents of something different)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399244913/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_2_img/104-4768231-7346340?ie=UTF8

[drwex]

Read it, loved it. Gave a copy to my mom for her birthday (Mom made her living as a biomedical editor for most of her career).

[catness.livejournal.com]

Ah, you've acquired the wisdom of Internet Mapping Tools. I'm sorry you had to learn it the hard way.

It's certainly convenient to clickety click and print, but as someone who travels a lot by car, I never *ever* depend on any of the websites without verification by either paper map, or reliable human resource. (Or both.)

Yup.

[drwex]

I have not had similar egregious eff-ups from mapquest. They do tend to miss minor details, but nothing of this scale has been in my experience with them.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Good heavens! Which towns?

[drwex]

The town I needed to reach was Whitinsville. The location given was slightly east of Upton.

[ceo]

Hmmm. Both Mapquest and Google give me the same location for Whitinsville: a village in the town of Northbridge, which is just east of Upton. There is no actual town of Whitinsville in MA.

I think all the mapping sites run off the same GIS data set, which ultimately comes from the USGS. Mind you, I never trust any of them for directions, especially around Boston.