Humor hidden in Google Maps

Try the experiment below on your own computer – it really works

READER DAN KUBISKE told me to ask Google Maps to direct me from China to Japan. And so this morning I did – and I filmed the process, so what I discovered can be seen on the video below.

In the meantime, your columnist is having a lazy couple of weeks, doing some thinking and planning before the silly season comes to an end.  I’m talking to lots of people, including Jami who runs a comedy club, and friends at CNN and Time Out—so watch this space for exciting expansion plans in the future.

In the meantime, to follow up the video above, here’s what I imagine would happen if Grandpa Fardel organized a water skiing day.

And here’s a video of a guy showing off on a jetski – and getting what he deserves.

 

Have a great weekend.

Technorati Tags: Google humor,google maps,china to japan,jet ski

Comments

[Ram]

haha...interesting !!! and I typed directions "china to taiwan" and it says "Swim across the pacific ocean - 165 Kms"... mmm :)

[Chamin]

I remember getting Kayak and Canoe too, as part of travel directions. Not bad :o)

[grandpa]

Those guy at google map are finally getting less stupid.
Last time we tried , we had to SWIM across the Pacific (which is still true between China and Taiwan

[eggie]

Search for 47.110414,9.235253 in Google maps, goto street view and look around in the sky. What do you see?

[grandpa]

"What do you see?"
Lift lurker's hometown?!?

[Nury]

Eggie, give us more information. I tried it and found a place with a mountain. But there was no "street view" option there -- that bit has been changed to a range of options, from webcam to photos etc. what were we supposed to see?

[Lift Lurker]

Maybe grandpa is right. I do not ever see my hometown from outside so I do not know.

Uncle Jam, if you see it correctly in the sky, your hair and face go like this:

=:-O

or if no hair:

(:-O

[grandpa]

It is an old story.
It happened last century...
At this time of the day, fishermen had already gone home, after selling their catch .
Cruise ships never came that far
Sailors did not know yet that we existed.
Tourism was not born , either ...
and the ship freighter was coming to our island only once a week.
"my airport" was busy three times a day, ten minutes at a time with the local airline
The airspace was mine , to share with my shadow only..
It was a kingdom, just for me .....

On this beautiful day, the swell was gentle.. the wind was calm.

My mechanic had just serviced my two seater, which was signed off as " in top shape".
What was the risk?
I did not know anything about risk, anyway .
Not yet.
I was young , inexperienced and I trusted in my good luck. ( I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a big 33' sailboat the year before, as a captain) what could stop me?

When I saw the beautiful turquoise water, I felt the urge to come down "to the deck" , to imagine my sailboat , crossing the ocean at the speed of an aircraft;
I was cruising at 90 knots , between 3 and 7 feet of altitude..

I was so close to the sea that I could feel the turbulence produced by the ripples on the water .
That was amazingly great

I felt like I was flying at warp speed , with the airplane vibrating on the light turbulence.

It was only after ten minutes of flying that I notice a circular ripple .
You know ! the one produced by an object falling in the water..
What could have fallen there ???

It took little time to think that in order to fall there, the object had to come out of there , first..
This object had to be called a fish;

My mechanic did not have a good sense of humor, and I foresaw him screaming at me if I had to send the airplane back on maintenance , just to remove fish scales from the propeller and from the engine cylinders...

This is when I remembered that , a few months before, in this same area , halfway between the islands, I had felt the skin of what could have been a manta ray.
What was I doing , swimming there, in the middle of nowhere ,anyway?
What was I doing now flying there , in the same middle of nowhere, any way.?

I could imagine the accident report i would have to file if things turned bad:
"Midair collision in an attempt to fly formation with a manta ray "

I climbed to a good safe 12 feet altitude,way above manta rays' airspace ..
If was fun still....

This beautiful day was in January....

Nobody had told me .... yet:
Between March and April , it was humpback's playground...

Sometimes, years later , I had nightmare..
I was in court , explaining why I had killed a baby humpback , because , we had , unexpectedly,been on collision course.

It was just a nightmare..
Now , years later , when I fly over this area, I have a smile and I always look down to the same spot..
The humpback were lucky

The whales were really lucky....

[eggie]

Mr Jam, did it bring you to Switzerland, along a highway marked (3) which is besides a road called Hauptstrasee? What you see is a blurry image of 2 figures floating in the sky; one of the figures look a lot like the Goddess of Mercy.

[sej]

I think I prefer the one on the left, it looks like a bottle of beer.

[TS]

Uncle Nury,

You are supposed to see a "mysterious" object in the sky.
12 year olds on the Internet have deemed it to be portals into another dimension. Religious people claim it to be angels. People with little or no knowledge of the physics ruling our universe insists that it is an alien space ship.

Rational people have settled on either bird poop or the splatter of an insect on the glass protecting the camera.

[rafanjr]

...Uncle, you'd have to search the skies...try turning your mouse pointer towards the back and up the sky... blurry images...clouds...one big mass of it...

...it looks creepy if you are the one shooting it, maybe alien ships don't really look like cookies...we'd have to re-invent a lot of our UFO myths then... (ooo i remember, Americans described it "circular")

[Lift Lurker]

Rational people have settled on either bird poop or the

IN this and life, I am always be guided by Ockham's Sledgehammer: the explanation that encompass ALL the hypothesis is the best explanation.

[Talknonsense]

Yeah sure it does... But why a PORTAL?