Build Date: Thu Dec 18 12:20:23 2025 UTC
Point? What point? Who's got the point? Taco BOING!
-- Tjames Madison
Google Maps Street View Bypasses the Hood
2007-05-29 18:43:32
Today google maps unveiled "street view" which gives you a 360 degree camera angle view of the nice areas of some major cities.
I had fantasies when I was a child that if I stared close enough at a map, I could see the people move. Now, google maps has made this a reality. Currently, if you go to google maps and look at Miami, New York, Denver, Las Vegas, or the SF Bay Area, you can get a street-level view of the map. This is accomplished by vans driving around with high-tech cameras, soaking in all that they see.
Noticeably missing from the SF bay area are almost all of the ghettos. All of San Francisco is mapped but there is suspiciously no Hunter's Point or Bayview District. The vans drove all the way to Berkeley but never took one picture of Richmond. San Jose and Mountain View are blanketed, but only one street in East Palo Alto has a "street view."
Luckily for would-be drive-by shooting planners using google maps, some hoods were mapped in Oakland. A few scenes were captured that residents may have not wanted on the internet. For instance, if you go to B and 89th St. and look Southwest, there is currently an image of two ladies sitting on the hood of a Jaguar while one woman in a miniskirt jumps into a Cadillac. If you roll the shot backward (by going NE), you can see her talking to the guy through the driver side window a few seconds earlier. This may be her grandfather in the car, but it still sparks the imagination of this casual onlooker.
Amazingly, google decided it was too much trouble to blur anyone's license plate or face. There are some obvious questions only time can answer. When is google going to take the first picture of a guy breaking into a car with salad tongs? How long it is going to take before some dude sues google for taking a picture of them in front of a motel with someone who is not their wife?
Google, if you're listening, please map out some of the streets with homeless people, dice games, drug dealing, and other interesting things to see. For instance, roll through 82nd and Birch a couple of times, why don't ya? What is google scared of, someone carjacking their van?
T O P S T O R I E S
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
This week: another fine spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL! Drink it in peace, because WE DID THE RESEARCH! (More...)
Pigdog brings you SETI astronomer Seth Shostak to bring you the truth about Ay-leens (More...)
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
Albany, CA's homeless hooverville by the Bay, "Hobo Junction," is going to be torn down by The Man. Entrances are already being blocked off, and it's now difficult and dangerous to get there. Worse, these obstacles are making it hard to get to the nearby HORSE TRACK on foot. Local historian, Pao Tzu, has an overview of situation. (More...)
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
