Slashdot Mirror
Wrecking Crew Demolishes Wrong Housing Duplex Following Google Maps Error (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A demolition company has leveled the wrong housing duplex after one of its employees was misled by a Google Maps error. Instead of bringing down a house destroyed by a tornado in Rowlett, Texas at 7601 Cousteau Drive, the wrecking crew demolished another home at 7601 and 7603 Calypso Drive, a block away. Owners of the second house were waiting for their house to be repaired, since it didn't suffer major damages in the tornado. The demolition company's CEO dismissed the incident as "not a big deal." The wrecking crew used Google Maps to find the house to demolish because they were brought in from a neighboring town, but failed to double-check with a neighbor before starting their work. A Google engineer confirmed that Google Maps was showing the wrong information.
"All information contained with Google Maps is provided for Entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon for complete accuracy, up to and including: GPS guidance for self-guided weapons systems, Pizza Delivery, and House Demolition."
Seems like you should be using official zoning maps from the city for something like this...
How hard would it be to go to the nearest intersection and make sure you're on the right street, and double check the street address?
I think the (former) homeowners should get to stay in "not a big deal"'s house until new houses are built. "Not a big deal" can live in a tent on the construction site.
and they demolished the neighbors.
It wasn't a Google Maps error, it was a "failure to identify the address error" by the crew. When you're doing something as destructive as tearing down a house, take a look at the street sign and make sure it matches the address on the work order. Don't blindly follow your GPS.
Obligatory GPS scene from "The Office":
https://youtu.be/n5lbShWEGQ0
Both the houses were white with shingle roofs.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This is not the first time this has happened.
I think by law, that whenever this happens, the company 's owner should have their house destroyed - along with all of their personal photos, keepsakes and see if they think it is a big deal.
Basic rule should be an estimate value of the house x 3 - if they don't sue. x 6 if you have to sue. Because emotional losses are far bigger than the physical ones.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"Trust, but verify." The same thing could be said about Google Maps.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I'll get modded down for this, but remember this is the same technology that's supposed to be giving us self-driving cars within the next five years.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"we have insurance to cover the fuck ups our crew does all the time. and those people will never get their stuff back..."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In his version that he observed, the locals who sit in the pub and drink all day got a contract. They went out to tear down a porch after having one more drink. They came back to his pub shaking and needing another drink talking about tearing down the wrong porch. All I can think is that his neighbor will be complaining about the guys who didn't tear down his and asking who his neighbor got to tear down his.
God spoke to me
From TFS: "The demolition company's CEO dismissed the incident as 'not a big deal.'" In what sense is tearing down the wrong house not a big deal?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You think contractors demoing the wrong house is bad? There's been many cases where people have gone in for surgery and they've removed or operated on the wrong limb!! Crazy!
I work at a place that distributes medical supplies and one of the things we sell is 'skin markers', just small markers to write things like "THIS ARM" on patients before operations. It was such a problem that they actually had to come up with a solution for it to stop happening!
A couple years back the wife and I were driving in NV, from Topaz Lake to Hawthorne, over a very dirt-track-across-the-desert, scraped every couple years (but still an official state route), road.
As we approached Hawthorne, going through a pass in a range of hills, the nav system told us to turn left about a mile early and take a little road that went a couple car lengths and then off a cliff, maybe a couple hundred feet high.
Seems there had been an old road there, back in the pony-express days, which had gone away nn a landslide long ago. We're guessing the USGS still showed it, the map company had included it in their database, and the nav system had computed it could save us a couple tenths of a mile by taking the shortcut.
Fortunately we are aware of such pathologies, especially in remote areas, and were on the alert for it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
http://dilbert.com/strip/1989-...
Summation 2
Apple Maps has improved considerably since introduction. I find it quite usable now, at least where I go. You're probably talking about when they introduced it, apparently having decided that geographical information systems really couldn't be that hard.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes