Saw this on HackerNews via @hn50@social.lansky.name
My Mastodon post about it & @watmildon@en.osm.town’s reply linking to OpenStreetMap’s documentation with an example to find banks far away from police stations
Breaking news. You can use data to find things.
Always knew my unrelated OSM API key was useful for something. LOL
As a side note, OSM does trails in parks and the like with exquisite detail, much better than Google Maps. Just in case.
OSM is such a badass project
I am a contributor and I frequently bow out of decisions and because it gets pretty brutal.
But I feel like a ant compared to giants because their conversations go way over my head.
And? This is like looking up hammers that don’t leave fingerprints on the grip so you can get away with murder. The tool itself isn’t the issue, the motive is, as well as the person responsible for using it.
Is now a bad time to pitch https://mapcomplete.org/surveillance ?
I don’t see a problem with this, seems perfectly reasonable an API that let’s you query whatever you want. By drawing attention to this you might get some “easily offendable people” to notice OSM and make a fuzz about this which will result in a worse API for everybody.
Is getting on a freeway in Southern California a good way to get away from anything?
Sanity?
I’m probably missing something obvious, but what does distance from a highway ramp have to do with a bank being robbable?
You need the highway section of the mission to shoot the cops while the NPC is driving.
OSM can definitely find you a bank near a freeway ramp, but it can also find you a bank near a creek to make an inflatable boat getaway. What it can’t do is arrange for decoys to confuse the police while you eacape.
The decoys story I believe got animated by Qxir on YouTube
As an aside, I will say that the examples from the OSM Overpass API is pretty nifty for other applications. For example, I once wanted to find the longest stretch of road within city limits that does not have a stop sign or traffic light, in order to fairly assess ebike range by running back and forth until out-of-battery. I knew at the time that OSM had the data, but I didn’t know it could be queried in such a way. Would have saved me some manual searching, as well as broadening to include rural roads outside the city.
Please God do not give Google an excuse to lobby the government to kill any competitors to its Maps product
This must be one of those people whose hobby is watching live car chases
Knive, tool, murder, responsibility.
