Comments on: Take a drive with Google Earth

Take a drive with Google Earth

iffley — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:32:38 -0800

Enter start and destination and watch your route payed out.

By: rtha

rtha — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:38:22 -0800

Neat! Made me a little carsick, though.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:39:11 -0800

More like: make sure you're using a Mac or Windows, download and install a 20MB browser plugin, enter start and destination and watch your route payed out.

By: found missing

found missing — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:42:53 -0800

I'm appalled that a Google Earth app would require Google Earth!

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:43:58 -0800

I'm a bit confused why Linux Google Earth wouldn't work with a plugin that works between OSX and Windows.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:52:04 -0800

It's the weekend. I can't believe I just commuted.

By: dixiecupdrinking

dixiecupdrinking — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:52:29 -0800

Cool! Approaching Manhattan on the bridges is epic. Holland Tunnel, not so much.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:52:59 -0800

The car is definitely NOT driving 35 mph like the plugin says. I carefully watched the highway stripes while playing Duke of Earl just to make sure.

By: cashman

cashman — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:54:26 -0800

I'll wait for the YouTube vid.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:58:39 -0800

I built something like this for flying trips. Not as impressive up in the air, but it's helpful for understanding how close you might get to mountains.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:00:29 -0800

Faaaaake. My car doesn't look like that at all.

By: meinvt

meinvt — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:03:50 -0800

Hmm, kind of fun re-creating my old Pittsburgh area commute. Coming in through the tunnels from the south hills actually sends you right _over_ Mt. Washington.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:06:36 -0800

Pretty neat. Although it doesn't handle bridges well, which created the impression that the car was driving on the bottom level of the Bay Bridge on the way to San Francisco (wrong way).

By: cccorlew

cccorlew — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:32:38 -0800

Make a bicycle version an I'll be even more impressed!

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:39:08 -0800

I'm appalled that a Google Earth app would require Google Earth! I have Google Earth installed, but you need an extra thingy too.

By: indubitable

indubitable — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:40:27 -0800

Make a bicycle version an I'll be even more impressed! I don't think even Google has perfected asshole-in-a-pickup-truck-running-you-off-the-road technology.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:50:05 -0800

Doesn't work on Linux. Boo.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:51:06 -0800

found missing: “I'm appalled that a Google Earth app would require Google Earth!” I've got Google Earth. I use it all the time. This still doesn't work.

By: bayani

bayani — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:51:41 -0800

I like it! Now if I only actually had somewhere to go ...

By: schmod

schmod — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:03:45 -0800

Have it take you onto the highway, and get up to 60 mph. Now, hit the "Speed [+]" button 3 times. This is how fast you'd be traveling if we'd properly invested in High-Speed Rail.

By: ChrisHartley

ChrisHartley — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:06:36 -0800

There is a browser only tool (works in Linux) that does perhaps the same thing here. You can't modify the traveling speed but I have seen another version around that does support that.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:14:13 -0800

OMG I just drove through a building

By: desjardins

desjardins — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:17:06 -0800

More seriously, this is awesome because we're planning a road trip to somewhere we've never been, and I was wondering what the scenery was like between here and there. Now I know.

By: elwoodwiles

elwoodwiles — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:17:20 -0800

I'm driving to Alaska, or at least simulating the drive I took when I was in my twenties. Back then it took 5 days. I'm thinking I'm just going to let this run in a window for awhile.

By: rebent

rebent — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:22:09 -0800

:/ it was waaaay too blurry to be interesting.

By: birdherder

birdherder — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:23:20 -0800

It seems that the simulation shows a freeway system with all overpasses collapsed. My trip over the Coronado Bridge ended up being at water level.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:28:29 -0800

Is there a tunnel in Montreal or can you just drive wherever the fuck you want?

By: brewsterkahle

brewsterkahle — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:32:40 -0800

My sim swam across the bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and over a hill in Marin rather than through the tunnel. I will try it that way today.

By: dflemingecon

dflemingecon — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:34:00 -0800

By: selenized

selenized — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:41:19 -0800

My sim drove through various seasons. It started out in the summertime, drove through the winter and back into the summer.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:46:21 -0800

Is there a tunnel in Montreal or can you just drive wherever the fuck you want? There is a tunnel expressway under the downtown financial district.

By: plep

plep — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:57:15 -0800

Hint: Try New York to Sydney. Takes you all the way there via Japan and the Pacific.

By: reformedjerk

reformedjerk — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:58:54 -0800

Is there a tunnel in Montreal or can you just drive wherever the fuck you want? Both are true in Montreal.

By: mreleganza

mreleganza — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:03:59 -0800

The first intersection out of our house is normally a pretty lengthy wait, but he plowed his way right in there without even stopping. I'm amazed he didn't hit anyone. I wonder if I can get away with that Monday morning... You probably didn't have the speed up to 32x. I did, and it caused a truck to jackknife and started a fire that lit up the weigh station. I would have thought it was cool-looking except so many people surely died.

By: jocelmeow

jocelmeow — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:08:19 -0800

All green lights in this thing! And I drove over all the cars in the way, Inspector Gadget style. I put in a route in the community I grew up in, but it was sort of hard to parse visually because of the lack of hills in the app. I had never thought about how much topography is a part of my mental map.

By: jocelmeow

jocelmeow — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:18:41 -0800

Also, my route paid out $0. Anybody else hit the jackpot, or is this like Letterman's "Beat the Clock"?

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:23:05 -0800

Wow, that crashed Firefox hard. Like it took four relaunches of the application to get the browser back to normal.

By: empath

empath — Sun, 08 May 2011 13:30:34 -0800

You people fucking kill me. The mere existence of this website is a goddamned technological miracle and you still find a way to complain about it.

By: notion

notion — Sun, 08 May 2011 14:27:28 -0800

The mere existence of this website is a goddamned technological miracle and you still find a way to complain about it. Everything is amazing, and nobody's happy.

By: jake

jake — Sun, 08 May 2011 14:27:46 -0800

Hey, no complaints here. I just drove from my childhood home to my elementary school and picked a fight with a simulated 9-year-old who yelled "GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T" at me. Very cathartic.

By: jake

jake — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:04:44 -0800

Also, that Louis CK video. I get weird looks when I start ranting about how much we take for granted. I can barely walk on a sidewalk without my mind being shredded by the fact that the truck that poured the concrete is made out of thousands of individual parts, each developed through years of research and materials science, to say nothing of the reflective jackets the workers are wearing, or the concrete / cement -- itself a product of centuries of technological advancement. Then I go type about it on a plastic keyboard on a computer that does billions of math calculations every second and displays the results using liquid goddamn crystals, and send the data over a worldwide network made out of glass fibers. And this is the stuff I think about BEFORE breaking out the vaporizer. 'Course, this doesn't mean we ought to be complacently appreciative of new technology, or else there's no point in improving it or ironing out bugs. I'm still going to be frustrated that my laptop's freaking wifi doesn't work in Linux, even if all three of those technologies are mind-meltingly insane. Anyway, my point is, fucking magnets. How do they w---(desjardins' car crashes through wall, killing me instantly)

By: nathancaswell

nathancaswell — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:14:38 -0800

Press RETURN to size up the situation

By: meh

meh — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:32:15 -0800

Meh. I want virtual holographic immersion road trips. Then I'll be happy.

By: Nabubrush

Nabubrush — Sun, 08 May 2011 17:12:50 -0800

I put in my last trip from Alaska down to the states. It kind of reminded me of Minecraft.

By: xthlc

xthlc — Sun, 08 May 2011 19:09:16 -0800

Mostly, this just reminded me that my recurring escapist fantasy of driving from Boston to Yellowknife is a really, really bad idea.

By: mnemonic

mnemonic — Sun, 08 May 2011 20:32:55 -0800

Set mine from Tucson to Vegas, a la Smoke and Mirrors. Made it all right, so I guess mine paid out.

By: pernoctalian

pernoctalian — Sun, 08 May 2011 21:05:58 -0800

Tried the drive from my old house in Pittsburgh to my parents' in Maryland. Even at 32x I couldn't wait to get off the turnpike.

By: alexei

alexei — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:33:11 -0800

This is how fast you'd be traveling if we'd properly invested in High-Speed Rail. It also serves as a demonstration of why it's not a good idea to put the rail in the highway median, like some have proposed (rollercoaster!).

By: schmod

schmod — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:35:09 -0800

It also serves as a demonstration of why it's not a good idea to put the rail in the highway median, like some have proposed (rollercoaster!). A few highway medians are suitable, and the whiplash effect when running through the curves can be mitigated by tilting trains. However, you would also never construct a high-speed line that required tilting along its entire length.