muraPOI: November 1, 2012
What I found interesting from O’Reilly Radar in the last couple weeks…
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How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything: Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic writes a great article about how Google is using “Ground Truth” data to improve it’s maps.
The maps we used to keep folded in our glove compartments were a collection of lines and shapes that we overlaid with human intelligence. Now, as we’ve seen, a map is a collection of lines and shapes with [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Google staffer’s] intelligence encoded within.
The more I think about this, I think I was right in thinking Apple should buy a GPS company, or even Nokia.
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Observations on what’s getting downvoted, with some dissected specimens: Ken Fisher of Ars Technica delves into their down-voted posts (comments) and describe a number of archetypes (the author says this is still a work in progress)
- Son of the “I don’t even own a TV” guy: This is the poster who thinks other people will find it interesting that he cares nothing about their discussion or their interests, and in fact judges himself as somehow morally superior as a result.
- The “I only know how to speak in hyperbole” guy: This poster is not always trying to troll, but it often looks like it. This is the individual who cannot introduce nuance into their point of view, but instead must use superlatives and extreme language in what I can only assume is an attempt to get attention.
- The “anybody who X is/does Y” guy: It never ceases to amaze me how many posters are willing to take one small facet of someone’s life or identity (say, their choice in OS), and extrapolate from that all manner of ethical and moral criticisms, or perhaps more commonly, someone’s intelligence.
- The “Ars Technica is the worst site ever but I’ll be back again tomorrow” guy: There’s a handful of readers who simply dive into our comments to chastise us about how horrible we are, but of course they come back day after day.
- The “unpopular but sincere opinion” guy: This is the guy we are trying to figure out how to protect. In the absence of trolling, we would prefer to see differences of opinion respected, and I will say that for the most part, we have not seen heavy downvoting of people merely because of their opinions.
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