
Google Maps Pacman - jbergknoff
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0848052,-79.0949707,17z/data=!1e3
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noedig
That's cool, but I wish they had spent the time making Google Maps usable
again.

~~~
leeoniya
this makes it usable again:
[https://maps.google.com/maps?dg=optperm&output=classic](https://maps.google.com/maps?dg=optperm&output=classic)

until they kill it off entirely :\

there is no version of the GL-enabled maps that ever ran faster or better for
me than the basic tiled original.

~~~
coldpie
Hahaha. I've been using the new GMaps for ages, and always thought it was
fine. So I thought, I'll check out the old one and see how different it really
is.

Holy _crap_ it's fast. Wow. There's no loading or giant pixels, zooming is
instant, scrolling around is instant. I can't get over how much faster this
is. Woof.

~~~
sp332
Part of that might be that no one is using those servers anymore.

~~~
leeoniya
i can tell you, unambiguously, that it has _always_ been this fast. those
tilesets are almost certainly statically cached and served at lightning speed
with practically 0 overhead from some regionally located cdn server.

server load would have a statistically imperceptible impact here; never seen a
google product roll out with scale-related issues, especially one as mature as
their gmaps architecture was at the time of the GL switch.

EDIT: the image-based maps is a great example of the "Choose Boring
Technology" thread [1]. the benefits of the GL maps, IMO, do not justify the
enormous speed sacrifice, at least to the end users. i'm sure google's
ultimate plan was/is to merge google earth and "3d/vr/augment all the
things!", but for basic maps it is just terrible. i'm really sad about the
whole situation because they really have great looking, readable tilesets,
much better than OSM (even if less complete). sadly, they never did get the
pixel-density-appropriate versions made for mobile devices and all the
features looked tiny when implemented using their js maps api :(

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291215)

~~~
jeffasinger
I think one of the "benefits" of the new version of the maps is that they can
more easily customize the output per user.

This means that they can show different businesses to you based on your
searches, and possibly some day charge businesses to be "put on the map".

~~~
GauntletWizard
Sponsored listings and ads in map search are already a thing on mobile. If I
search for certain common terms ("Smog Check", for example), some pinpoints
are already highlighted differently because they correspond to ads in the
search results list.

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hoopism
Was hoping to find some interesting links to levels:

I'll start
[https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6395308,-71.3158648,18z/data...](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6395308,-71.3158648,18z/data=!1e3)

~~~
chippy
if you go to Mountain View...

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_nullandnull_
Cool but I'm pretty sure someone needs to read up on the algorithms used by
the ghosts...

[http://gameinternals.com/post/2072558330/understanding-
pac-m...](http://gameinternals.com/post/2072558330/understanding-pac-man-
ghost-behavior)

~~~
AceJohnny2
I was wondering whether they paid attention to that. There's definitely
different behaviour depending on the ghosts (red always follows you)

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bryondowd
Finally! Something good to come from the way this traffic circle was
butchered!

[https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4314342,-74.5802579,18z/data...](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4314342,-74.5802579,18z/data=!1e3)

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vivien
This is an awesome piece of work.

metagame: find the hardest/simplest level on earth :) (I got Manhattan vs
Tokyo)

~~~
jcl
Someone pointed out to me that the Arc de Triomphe is quite fun, with a big
enough window size.

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jpwagner
pacman is a burner:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7870737,-119.2049763,18z/dat...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7870737,-119.2049763,18z/data=!1e3?hl=en)

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nmc
Not available from every country (at the time of writing this).

I feel so left out.

EDIT: I was wrong, just that it is not available in Safari. Works with Chrome.

~~~
smhenderson
Thanks, I figured it was a browser issue but I was wondering what I was
supposed to be seeing. All I got was the regular maps page.

Finally tried in Chromium on Debian and wow, fun!

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azurelogic
April Fools is the new Black Friday. It's creeping into the day before. Soon,
all of March is going to be prank month.

~~~
martinml
I guess it's because in Australia it has been April 1st for 3 hours already.

~~~
hiharryhere
Google Maps still has a lot of development work done in Australia. So it
doesn't surprise me that the april fool launched 'early' in their timezone.

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chiph
No fair! The people in the midwest get an easy grid system!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System)

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madhavcp
This reminds of the recent Pixels movie trailer-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHprLW48no](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHprLW48no)

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mzs
This reminds me of when the google doodle was a mini-pacman game, neat it
still works!

[https://www.google.com/#q=pacman](https://www.google.com/#q=pacman)

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bchen
They should implement one-way streets, where you have to obey the direction
but ghosts don’t, to make Pacman even more interesting.

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baddox
The nearly 45 degree orientation of streets in SF Soma sure do make it
difficult to play.

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lkbm
Ingress is Pacmanified as well today--various icons are Pacmen or ghosts.

~~~
mdellabitta
Photo evidence:
[http://i.imgur.com/7xzpTas.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/7xzpTas.jpg)

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eightysteele
This is how DeepMind will train its pacman AI. Brilliant. :)

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benhamner
NOW WE KNOW how the self-driving cars work!

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itsbits
Good but not that useful..

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itsbits
Why not people who are downvoting me just provide uses of it?

~~~
Zirro
Not all things created have to be useful. Some things can be fun. While we
humans may not be the most efficient beings imaginable, we do excel in
creativity ;)

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gfrench27
i'm too old for this ... while it's amusing, i do not intend to plunge into
the abyss of time lost to the exploration of things of small importance.

~~~
imgabe
Well, I'm glad you at least had the time to write us all this little note
informing us of how valuable your time is.

