Kitz Forum
Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: JGO on March 24, 2016, 08:23:53 AM
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http://www.alphr.com/apps/1003045/google-maps-error-sees-wrong-house-being-bulldozed
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Oh my!
Its one thing driving up to the wrong property.. but you'd think they'd at least double check before demolishing it.
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That's incredible incompetence by the demolition company.
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Hmm... Would anybody really assume that an arrow on google maps would be accurate to street-number level?
Sounds more like maybe they just knocked the wrong house down through their own incompetence then, clutching at straws, decided to try and blame technology. ???
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Would anybody really assume that an arrow on google maps would be accurate to street-number level?
Doesn't say much for the design if that possibility of error exists. As an ergononicist I once worked with put it
" It is 0300, he is cold, wet and fed up. He is an idiot ! so you've got to make it idiot proof." Much "clever" technology is anything but.
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But my point is, surely they weren't supposed to be using google maps in the first place?
It's a product that's amazing because it's free and darned useful for social/domestic purposes, and even for the likes of news gatherers when they're stuck for anything better to cover a story. But I never expected anybody to use it for anything too serious, and house demolition is pretty serious.
May be wrong, but I would have guessed there might be far superior, and far from cheap, alternative mapping applications for those who have a real need?
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I'd never rely on technology for that.
Recently I was waiting for my windscreen replacement to be done here at home and they seemed late. Next I got a phone call from the driver saying why are you not answering the door we're outside, looking out I could not see their van anywhere. I asked to describe where they were and it turned out their satnav had directed them to a place nearly 2 miles away even though they had used the correct postcode!
So for me it's an old fashioned map and my eyes always.
Stuart
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But my point is, surely they weren't supposed to be using google maps in the first place?
Maybe they weren't, but it sounds as if they did ! and as Kitz says, didn't double check !
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When we got our first Sat Nav many years ago my wife used it to go to Sheerness in Kent, she was visiting a dental practice. We entered the address, as it didn't have the postcode facility and off she went. When she reached her destination she saw the dental practice, so went inside only to find out after a bit of confusion she was in the wrong road! There were two roads with very similar names, and both had dental practices in them! After that we always double check on google maps and look on street view, it also pays to look at your route on the sat nav, otherwise you could end up in Ashford Middlesex instead of Ashford Kent! I've heard of a few people doing that in the early days!