Success! I Fixed A Google Maps Mistake. Now, For the Next One...

I got word from Google Maps today that they have accepted my correction to the location of the Judy V charter fishing boat. Google had shown it as a business located on the street outside our house, but it's actually based at the Indian River Inlet Marina, south east of here.

We live on Inlet Place, in Lewes. The Indian River Inlet Marina is on Inlet Road, south of Dewey Beach. Unfortunately, the road data that Google Maps has for Delaware doesn't include Inlet Road, so we tend to get identified as the location of things at the Inlet. For a short time, the offices of Delaware Seashore State Park were found (by Google, anyway) at our house. I think I sent a correction on that one as well.

I can't remember when I submitted the Judy V correction, but it's probably been less than a year. Back in April of last year, I gave a presentation on GIS and on-line mapping to a class of the Delaware academy of Lifelong Learning. I used my correction request as an example of what to be careful about with on-line maps.

It's not Google's fault, really. They are an aggregater of other data. They use state, federal or private sector aerial photography for their "satellite" view. They use crowd-sourced information for reviews of businesses and photos of places. And they use publicly available GIS data for roads, cities, waterways and the like. That Inlet Road is not on their maps yet speaks to a failure of what-ever mapping company they are using to provide road data to pick up Inlet Road.

For the record, the Delaware DataMIL, which serves statewide road data for Delaware, does have Inlet Road.

Now that the Judy V's place-marker has been moved, I see that Google identifies our house as the local headquarters of the Coast Guard.

I guess I need to get back into correction-suggestion mode.

Please Vote on Tuesday

It is terribly important that you vote in this year's election. It is always important, of course, but this year even more so. I won't pretend to be neutral; I hope you will vote for Barack Obama in the presidential election. I trust you won't be deterred by the many lies that are being spread around about him. If you are a Delawarean, please also vote for my friend Jack Markell; he's going to make a great Governor. (Not to mention Matt Denn. Vote for Matt too.)

Make sure that you have all the identification required to vote in your jurisdiction. Bring more than you need; don't be surprised at the polls.

Make sure you know where to vote. Google has deployed a Voter Info tool that uses Google Maps to geocode your address and relate it to your polling place. Don't trust this tool alone.

The image at right is Google's voter tool telling me that our polling place is the Department of Transportation building in Georgetown. It is not.

Our polling place is the old Lewes School building on Savannah Road, in Lewes. I know this because that is where we have voted in every election since we moved to this spot 14 years ago. I also know this because I checked the Polling Place Locator (at left) provided by the Delaware Commissioner of Elections office, which is a simple database look-up tool. It is not as cool and geo-techie as the Google tool, but it is accurate. I am a long-time geo-geek, but where-you-should-go-to-vote is too important to use only the cool Googly thing.

To their credit, Google is quite clear that you should always check with your local elections officials. And they have included a link to submit corrections. I did so, politely.

I will also note that I checked the Google tool using my parents' address in Maryland and it got their polling place right -- Bannockburn Elementary School. At least, that's where I went to vote in my first-ever election back in 1980, when I still lived at home. I assume Mom or Dad will correct me in the comments if I am wrong.

So make sure you know what is required to vote. Make sure you know where to vote. Make sure you vote for Barack Obama (and Jack Markell, if you can). Most importantly, please make sure that you vote.

Among the Many Things I Did Not Know: Why 88888 is So Interesting

Back in November, I posted about rolling 88,888 miles on my Prius. I thought it was just a way-station on my journey of obsessive nerdiness, but that post has had something of a life of its own.

The folks over at Delaware Liberal used it to start a "Guess Mike's Mileage" contest. That was cute. But I've also noticed a steady stream of hits on that post generated by Google Searches for "88888." The most recent, today, was by a web-surfer in Chahārmahāl o Bakhtiyārī, in Iran.

I've noticed that a number of the 88888 searchers are in that part of the world, so I finally got curious enough to follow-up and found two interesting facts about 88888 that may explain why that number is bringing readers.

First, the number 88,888 is a mathematical curiosity:

888888 is the only five-digit repunit such that the product of itself and all truncations of itself plus and minus one results in twin primes.

What? Don't ask me, I just work here. In any case, I've seen 88,888 referred to in several places as a lucky number. These two things are likely related.

More recently, 88888 is apparently the account number used by Nick Leeson for the speculative trades that led to the collapse of the UK investment bank Barings in the 1990s.

I just thought it was neat that my car's odometer had 8's straight across.

One of My Favorite Web Companies is Tweaking My Favorite Car

I saw a posting on the Official Google Blog yesterday that got me excited about what might be my next car.

In a posting called "A clean energy update," Google launched an effort to enable the development of a plug-in hybrid. As regular readers may know, I love my 2005 Prius and am waiting with some anticipation for the next really cool new green car. This might be it, though it's not yet at "regular product stage."

I thought about posting on the topic yesterday, but held off. This morning, however, I have found another write-up in the project. This one lists the grants that Google is making under its RechargeIT project. One of them will go to the University of Delaware's Will Kempton "for megawatt scale vehicle-to-grid research and implementation planning."

That's one of the cooler aspects of this approach; the idea that excess electricity from the hybrids could be sold back to the grid. And, it's neat to know that part of that work will be done here in the First State. And I think I probably have met Professor Kempton, somewhere along the line. (The name is certainly familiar.)

Too bad this wasn't on the market in time for Father's Day. Maybe next year.