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Random Google Street View
- themodelplumber 4y agoI didn't realize it would have the gyro mode (?) active by default. That's actually pretty fun, or maybe I got an interesting neighborhood. :-) Going on my boredom cures list for sure. BTW did you make this op? If so nice job!
- coreyisthename 4y agoYou should definitely share some of the highlights of your boredom list. I’m always looking for more fun little things that the internet has to offer. Someday in the future, we can post them to whatever forum type dealio is in vogue and reminisce about the good ole days when the web was open and free lol
- themodelplumber 4y agoLol. For sure. It's in the profile, enjoy
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- schoen 4y agoThere is also a game (now a family of games) built around this concept, where you get a Street View location without seeing the map, and you have to figure out where you are based on what you can see. https://geoguessr.com/ https://geoguessr.com/
- cantaloupe 4y agoThere are now geoguessr competitions, and the high level players learn to identify locations in seconds based on tiny details like utility pole designs. It’s incredible. Here’s an example: https://youtu.be/Uvqc1_xl2h4 https://youtu.be/Uvqc1_xl2h4
- sharkweek 4y agoI started playing Geoguessr’s ranked duels a few months ago and if not for a family vacation to break me free, might have fully disappeared into the game. Caught myself studying online guides to bollard color and shape by region, what road stripe patterns correspond with each country, the different shapes of the lettering of most major languages… etc. It’s such a fun way to spend 15-30 minutes a day, and it’s quite easy to see improvement in your skill in a short time. That being said, watching the pros can be a little discouraging because they’ll even have things like the ridge lines of mountain ranges memorized, it’s insane to watch.
- dncornholio 4y agoWatching the pros made me realize they are just playing a game of memory.
- solumunus 4y agoHow else could one play the game except using memory of places, cultures, etc? Seems like the whole thing is memory and could only ever be memory...
- dvlsg 4y agoYou can usually look around for street signs or shop fronts that include useful information (a website that ends in .nz for example).
- elcomet 4y agoThat's still memory, knowing that .nz is associated to new zeland? This game is mostly memory + deduction (you see a few signs which when combined, result in only one possible location)
- cs02rm0 4y agoI guess every piece of knowledge could be considered memory. But I can see a difference between memorising the stripes on street furniture or which countries streetview has visited for the sake of playing such games and just knowing which direction the sun is to narrow down the hemisphere or having a little understanding of how the environment varies with latitude.
- wyclif 4y agoTrevor Rainbolt's skill at geoguessr is phenomenal: https://youtu.be/0p5Eb4OSZCs https://youtu.be/0p5Eb4OSZCs
- darylteo 4y ago> Vivaldi intensifies
- ming123098 4y agoI like City Guesser more. No account required and you have to guess the location from a video which I find a bit easier and more enjoyable. https://virtualvacation.us/ https://virtualvacation.us/
- alphabetting 4y agothanks for sharing. that is really well done. monument guesser was great.
- groffee 4y agoI could spend all day on that site! Those kinds of videos are going to be an invaluable archive 100 years from now!
- LeftHandPath 4y agoI spent the following hour and a half after clicking on this on that site. Wow. Being able to "experience" other locations, even in that shallow of a way, is really, really amazing.
- tmnvix 4y agoA lot of fun. https://geotastic.net/ https://geotastic.net/ is also a good alternative.
- ivanjermakov 4y ago+1 Geotastic is the best alternative I know about.
- skc 4y agoI've always assumed these people (I see them come across my social media timelines periodically) are just trolling people because I've seen them guess where a place is based on nothing other than a patch of grass in less than 3 seconds. I still don't see how that is even remotely possible.
- mynameisvlad 4y agoObviously “patch of grass” is going to be harder, but after a while you get good at noticing small details like the style of houses, the way the roads are marked, etc. I’m by no means a pro but I went through a hyperfixation on Geoguessr YouTube videos so I started picking up the general architectural styles of Nordic houses for instance. Or the specific markings you can only find in Russia. There’s also image artifacts which are only present in specific collection attempts. Most images from IIRC Ghana have a specific artifact and can easily narrow it down. There’s a few of these out there.
- kobbe 4y agoAlmost all of those videos are real. You can in fact quite easily identify most areas down to a few 100s of km just from the surrounding nature. It takes some practice but it is for example very easy to learn which continent the nature is in. The videos you see on social media is also of course the best case out of 100s of games.
- apocalyptic0n3 4y agoI play quite a bit, although I'm much more casual and generally just focus on the US. I find myself identifying areas based on foliage pretty frequently. They can be super localized and after you play a few hundred or thousand maps, you just start naturally associating different areas with different plants. I'm nowhere near good enough to guess in 3 seconds based off anything, but after a few months I find I can generally spawn, not move the camera, and correctly guess I'm in 1 of like 4 states. Depending on what's visible, I can often identify the correct state immediately, although pinpointing takes a lot more time. It's just like any game: repetition and practice makes perfect.
- spyder 4y ago
- dewey 4y agoI spent many hours watching GeoWizard tracking down locations: https://www.youtube.com/c/GeoWizard/playlists https://www.youtube.com/c/GeoWizard/playlists
- hcrisp 4y agoVery cool and well executed. After a few clicks I got, not a street, but a cool view of rocky sunrays from the middle of nowhere in Australia: Simpsons Gap https://maps.app.goo.gl/kB5xtFyZJpwLKT4c8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/kB5xtFyZJpwLKT4c8
- beachy 4y agoIn the middle of nowhere, but a game changer for Australia when the team attempting to lay a telegraph line through the Aussie outback found Simpsons gap almost by chance.
- brabel 4y agoAll I got was mundane countryside towns and roads all over Europe.
- Jemm 4y agoI got the exact same view as my third link.
- femto 4y agoI was going to ask if anyone got a place they recognise or have been to, but then you show one that Iv'e been to. Then again it is a popular tourist destination. Here's a magical looking Scottish place it gave to me: https://randomstreetview.com/#xvqf6_-3o1vn_74_a_5 https://randomstreetview.com/#xvqf6_-3o1vn_74_a_5
- greesil 4y agoI got some road in Skog, Schweden. Wherever that is. This is fun and less scary than chat roulette.
- jacquesc 4y agoIdeas could be combined for ultimate creep. Open up web page and get matched with a cartoon avatar of some random other user, standing in the middle of the street talking to you. Extra points if you make the cartoon's mouth move while person is talking
- ss1234 4y agoCan you by chance add a country to the dropdown list India or do you have some limitations I presume anyways thanks a lot!!
- SoulMan 4y agoI think India was enabled for streetview just a month back. May be its just about updating the site
- tech-historian 4y agoGreat site! I was surprised to see some aerial/drone imagery in the street view collection. For example, this in Ukraine: https://randomstreetview.com/ua#sis3u_jvl2j_2j_5_-s https://randomstreetview.com/ua#sis3u_jvl2j_2j_5_-s
- tolidano 4y agoCame here to plug Wander on Quest/Quest 2 as the best app / experience for this sort of thing hands down. Saved my sanity during the pandemic.
- jacquesc 4y agoCool, was just thinking how great this would be in VR. I'll give Wander a shot!
- JKCalhoun 4y agoThere is something deeply sublime about peering into the places other people live, so remote from my own place, lives probably so different from mine. I ruminate on "other lives" I could have had instead — all those other people I could have called friends, neighbors....
- daniel_reetz 4y agoIf this intrigues you, please check out the work of artist Jon Rafman, who uses Google Earth as his medium: https://9-eyes.com/ https://9-eyes.com/
- mikercampbell 4y agoI had no idea what that meant, even though it makes perfect sense. This is absolutely amazing. Far better than I was expecting.
- mackatap 4y agoI wonder the legality of this. Google owns those images, they have copyright. You can see the symbol when you zoom in on Google earth. Is he significantly modifying the images?
- paraselene_ 4y agoAccording to Google's guidelines https://www.google.com/intl/en-GB_ALL/permissions/geoguidelines/ https://www.google.com/intl/en-GB_ALL/permissions/geoguideli... I interept it as "for non-commercial usage, give attribution to us and you're fine". I don't think Jon has given enough attribution though since some of the images do not have google watermark/copyright symbol (cropped?)
- jeppebemad 4y agoThat was very interesting, right until it turned dark. Warning, somewhat graphic/NSFW https://9-eyes.com/post/628925033219309568 https://9-eyes.com/post/628925033219309568
- 4y ago
- bushbaba 4y agoCrazy comparing Europe to North America. In Europe it feels like you always see some structure. In North America a large number of the refreshes are empty roads and large empty lots. It shows that we really dont have a land problem in North America. It's a permitting and transportation problem
- seydor 4y agoPretty much the only reason i use the Oculus quest is the Wander app that lets you browse street view in VR. I love to use the random feature to jump to random places. This planet is amazing
- blobbers 4y agoSlightly annoying that the share button will only link back to the random viewer rather than give the real google coordinates. Is this something one must use the developer console to rip out?
- dang 4y agoRelated: Show HN: Random Street View - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7130192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7130192 - Jan 2014 (166 comments)
- Taniwha 4y agosigh - dropped me into a pleasant sunny pre-war Kviv
- MikeBVaughn 4y agoI tried constraining it to the United States, and on the first click got a road I'd driven in Watertown, WI before, which was pretty funny. After about twenty more clicks I got another one extremely close to where I grew up.
- modeless 4y agoCool site. I wonder how it sustains itself though. Embedding Street View is expensive. $14 per 1000 views adds up fast. Surely the small ads don't make that much?
- iddan 4y agoGoogle should apply FILM on the transitions between photos
- CamperBob2 4y agoSo annoying how Google has recently reduced the maximum distance you can move by clicking near the horizon. It used to be a lot more fun to explore random places when you could surf around an unfamiliar area at a reasonable speed. In fact, it no longer makes much difference at all where you click, you creep along a few meters at a time.
- brak2718 4y agohttps://www.globegenie.com/ https://www.globegenie.com/ has been around for a super long time.
- easyKL 4y agoAlso the guy from Geowizard plays this game, and many more around maps. He even move his ass by going to places, leaving the comfort of being in front of the computer https://youtube.com/channel/UCW5OrUZ4SeUYkUg1XqcjFYA https://youtube.com/channel/UCW5OrUZ4SeUYkUg1XqcjFYA
- bobsmooth 4y agoIt's insane how much of the world I can see sitting at my desk.
- Tepix 4y agoI found various stunning shots on the italian island of Sardinia. Thanks!
- welder 4y agoWish it could filter to show cities or towns instead of middle of nowhere back roads.
- protoman3000 4y agoThis was one of the most crazy speedrun competitions I’ve ever seen, where they made a game out of this in co-op mode of geoguessr. One person describes what the person sees, which the other can’t, klicks through the Google street view, and the other see’s the global map where they put hints for themselves and together they try to find out where they are. https://youtu.be/aV2VuWleEeY https://youtu.be/aV2VuWleEeY
- pigtailgirl 4y ago-- quite amusing if you select Canada - of 10 clicks - 9 = trees - one = a flat empty horizon --
- nwillson 4y agoCool tool. Is it just me or is it a random location from a fixed list of places? web console: randomLocations.all.map((e) => e.formatted_address).sort() tried it on multiple tabs, incognito, etc. and the result was the same.
- ivan_gammel 4y agoI have got a snowy landscape in Akilliq, Iqaluit, NU, Canada, and looking at the shadow, it wasn't a Google Street View car. Someone was skiing to make the pictures. Wow. http://randomstreetview.com/#11y8sk_-14t6sm_9t_1_-w http://randomstreetview.com/#11y8sk_-14t6sm_9t_1_-w
- O__________O 4y agoIt’s a Street View Trekker backpack: - https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/heres-googles-new-street-view-trekker-backpack/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/heres-googles-new-street-v... Don’t see them listed on the program site anymore though: - https://www.google.com/streetview/contacts-tools/ https://www.google.com/streetview/contacts-tools/
- Jemm 4y agohttps://randomstreetview.com/#-e3f28_27m2ax_9j_1_2 https://randomstreetview.com/#-e3f28_27m2ax_9j_1_2
- coding123 4y agoAll these posts lately of "car society" is massively exemplified here. Seems like 99% of the properties built are made for cars. That's got to be like 2 billion houses made for cars. Good luck to those people that want to rid the world of cars.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- somecommit 4y agoInterestingly it's mainly rural areas. I don't know why but I was expecting mostly more city views, because of all the intricate roads system in cities.
- mahogany 4y agoCities have dense road systems, but the vast majority of the surface area of roads is outside of cities.
- aasasd 4y agoYep, in sixteen views I got: - one small village, basically a few houses along a road. - one town in greenery. - one instance of my phone entirely freezing up (this one is on FF, I guess).
- 98Windows 4y agoIs there some kind of bias, I kept being sent to Croatia
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- batuhandirek 4y agoWould be awesome if we could share the random view given to us, maybe by adding it to the URL as a parameter
- dxbydt 4y agodo you think we’ll be able to watch live video from random places on the globe, on television, before the end of this decade ? i’m not talking dull webcam footage. more like google street view but with video and maybe the ability to pan/tilt. if you have a dedicated tv channel that shows live random street videos from all over the world changing every minute or so…i’d watch.
- biofox 4y agoI remember there being online directories of high-quality webcam feeds with pan/tilt 15+ years ago.
- jacooper 4y agoTurns out chromium gives gyro data by default?
- mnsc 4y agoFirst load and I got a Amish(?) dude transporting veggies. Was not disappointed! https://randomstreetview.com/#pmlez_-1hz301_3w_c_-h https://randomstreetview.com/#pmlez_-1hz301_3w_c_-h
- thomasfl 4y agoThe Netherlands has really nice bike lanes! http://randomstreetview.com/#uxdmk_2n6ql_6r_a_5 http://randomstreetview.com/#uxdmk_2n6ql_6r_a_5
- coldcode 4y agoIs it really random or just a random set of prerecorded locations? After about 20 or so images I stopped seeing pictures so I refreshed the page - and got a location I had seen previously, which should be impossible.
- z7 4y agoI'd say the results are too consistently picturesque to be random.
- koonsolo 4y agoWait what? In a boat? https://randomstreetview.com/#11rvrf_-c284x_f_a_-r https://randomstreetview.com/#11rvrf_-c284x_f_a_-r
- goatherders 4y agoLove this. Thank tyou for sharing.
- brap 4y agoReally surprised by how green everything was. About 100% of the spots I visited were surrounded by nature. I was expecting everything to be urban.
- lossolo 4y agohttp://randomstreetview.com/#z70rz_-1ip9x_3f_a_0 http://randomstreetview.com/#z70rz_-1ip9x_3f_a_0
- Bluecobra 4y agoCan whole buildings be blurred out on street view? I randomly found this building and I thought it was a deep fog from down the road. https://goo.gl/maps/QKsUTSTTy3yv6ezTA https://goo.gl/maps/QKsUTSTTy3yv6ezTA