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The non-use of collected data is the most ridiculous part of all this. I work with many companies that collect tons of data and only use a small percentage of it. All they're doing is building a bigger haystack.

This is partially due to the fact that Google Analytics is free and the default for most website/app builders. But, still, it's ridiculous.

Ken Kesey of merry pranksters fame "discovered" LSD via being a volunteer in the CIA's MKUltra experiments. So, interestingly, the CIA's experiments were one of the major triggers for the whole 60s counterculture.

I've seen people enter their email into those intrusive "sign up for our newsletter" popovers because they think that's the only way to bypass them. Which is probably one reason why sites keep using them. Not everyone is as web savvy as we like to think.

I get that cycling is complex to route but when I ask Google Maps for directions to the city centre from my apartment, it sends me over a huge row of stairs.

I notified them of the issue a couple of years ago and it got fixed a few months later, but it came back again. At that point I gave up as I don't really use the service for cycling anyway. I know my city well enough and when I cycle outside of it, I use Strava.

Brings back great memories of long nights spent making ansi screens in TheDraw. I still have the muscle memory for all the keyboard shortcuts (it seems weird nowadays to imagine drawing with the keyboard).

I was even a minor member of iCE for a while. My first experience of impostor syndrome :)

There is a human looking at the photos. When you take the Eurostar you can see them sitting in a booth after the gates. If you look into the booth as you pass, you'll see a grid of photos on screen. I'm assuming they're overseeing it all rather than checking everything manually.

I noticed that these gates were quite slow ID'ing me the first couple of times I went through them but now I hardly have the time to see my face flash on the screen before the gates open. Maybe there's a human check on initial passes. Either that or their code has gotten way better or they store data that helps matching after a few uses.

I attempted to locate the photos in this set on streetview. Some were easier than others.

In the same order:

Whitechapel Road https://www.google.com/maps/place//@51.5173129,-0.0668225,3a...

Spitalsfield Market https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5190196,-0.0773324,3a,75y,74....

Belhaven Street (no longer exists, got as close as I could) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5286117,-0.0380893,3a,75y,27....

Stifford Estate (demolished) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5174684,-0.0497713,3a,75y,285...

Mile End Road https://www.google.be/maps/place/@51.5243606,-0.0367707,3a,7...

Three Colt Street (difficult to get the exact location so got one with visible landmark) https://www.google.be/maps/place/@51.5096904,-0.03012,3a,75y...

Watney Market (massively changed but pointing in the right direction over the area) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5128337,-0.0581398,3a,75y,348...

Gardiner’s Corner (nothing left, the department store burnt down in the seventies) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5151995,-0.0716539,3a,75y,289...

They seem to be following the same course with Moves, the fitness tracking app they acquired recently.

You used to be able to tag locations with foursquare data, that feature was removed in the latest update. I assume facebook places will be replacing them.

On a recent project, I looked into using OSM alongside streetview but after digging through Google's license it appears google's own maps are the only ones you can use if you're also using streetview.

Which makes sense, but I checked anyway as I had seen websites using other map services coupled with streeview.

That's a pretty literal translation from Dutch, a better interpretation would be "There isn't a chip card in circulation without security technology based on the work of UCL professor Jean-Jacques Quisquater".