Google Maps Streetview

Actually it took about 30 seconds of Googling to find an unauthorised picture taken of my house with information about its exact location. And I assume it's been there for a while.

In attempting to argue with the Lex I've actually succeeded in weirding myself out now.

for stalking purposes, i'd be more worried about ilx before i worry about googlestreetview, to be honest.

What's really annoying about Google Streetview is that it actually restricts itself to streets so there are huge swathes of eg Hampstead Heath that you can't actually see. Including the view from the top of Parliament Hill I think.

i DO worry about ilx

It never phones, it never writes...

clubcards don't seem odd to me. i mean, you know what you're letting yourself in for, there's a specific reward, and tbh i couldn't care less about targeted marketing - it's not like i'm being forced to buy anything

if you saw someone outside your flat staring at and studying the building - not in a casual, walking-past way, but loitering and looking closely & carefully - would you not be creeped out and discomfited? if i saw that i'd be calling the fucking police.

I do exactly what you are describing AND then take photos AND then put them on flickr. As do quite a few weirdo creeps like me...
Modernist houses group on flickr
Post war houses in the UK group on flickr
No-one has ever called the police on any of us as far as I know. Usually people are intrigued that someone is interested in their houses.

many x-posts also there's other gaps like they can't drive down Oxford Street, and other places like in Kings Cross where they'ev just got fed up with one-way systems and miss out streets.

wtf are those flickr groups

apart from anything else that's just fucking impolite

Yeah, because no-one has ever taken photos of houses before. What the hell are you talking about?

are the google bikes they use for narrow streets motorbikes or bicycles? if it's the latter, they should def send them through the parks.

wtf are those flickr groups

More specifically they're amazing resource for anyone interested in domestic architecture of the twentieth century. Instead of having to buy really really expensive architecture books.

yeah who cares what the people living in those houses might think

are the google bikes they use for narrow streets motorbikes or bicycles? if it's the latter, they should def send them through the parks.

Blurred-out faces of irate (or smug, more likely) members of the Parks Constabulary in every frame.

I have taken pictures of random people's houses and put them on the internet before (like, every fucking time I go on holiday for one thing). I think that's part and parcel of living in an architecturally striking house, you accept that people are going to stop and look at it and take photos for ages.

yeah who cares what the people living in those houses might think

― lex pretend, Friday, March 20, 2009 11:15 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Well I care and if someone objected I'd take down their photo but I'd also point out to them that it's pretty pointless. You seem to be arguing against a whole history of photography.

lex if you were standing in the window with your willy out then maybe you'd have a point. but there's nothing private about the outside of a house unless you build a big fucking wall around it, always been the case for obvious reasons and google streetview does nothing to change that. Also I'm really worried by the idea that people walking down the public street looking at stuff (with their eyes!) should be arrested! That's the real big brother shit, not this.

By the way Alex you really shouldn't leave your rubbish piled outside like that.

if i could, i would definitely live in a house with a big wall around it

what if people take a photo of that big wall?

weird houses with big wall in front of it flickr group

you'd have to put another big wall around that one.

http://www.movieforum.com/movies/titles/labyrinth/images/labyrinth.jpg

oh no you can still see the house ;_;

no the castle at the top is just a decoy the house is somewhere behind the wall.

can still see Lex's willy.

Lex yesterday - waiting for those pesky googleflickr folk...
http://www.davethewave.co.uk/hector/book/hector-the-gardener-front.jpg

http://www.davethewave.co.uk/hector/book/hector-the-gardener-front.jpg

Hahaha Tomofthenest I got that one...

Hey - it's our old place in London! They've painted the outside:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=percy+circus+london&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.638819,79.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=51.529145,-0.114605&spn=0.007422,0.019312&z=16&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=51.52909,-0.114817&panoid=EeW8O191LOyEmyDxj-VmFQ&cbp=12,141.6283033276249,,0,5.000000000000001

And there's a Travel Lodge there now! That's definitely new.

Nice. Looks like half of it got bombed during the war or something? That crescent is quite difficult to navigate on this.

Yeah, it is hard to navigate. So cool to see now though and notice little changes etc.

they've found wally btw - he's hidden on putney high street, outside the o2 shop.

http://tinyurl.com/dyqqz6

This is the house near me that I have been raving about for ages. I want to live here.

Maybe there will be some uproar about local councils using this to see if people have done anything to their house fronts without planning permission or something.

That house is awesome!!! I don't blame you for wanting to live there.

My old office building.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=vauxhall+bridge+road+london&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.638819,79.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=51.488598,-0.129218&spn=0.007429,0.019312&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.488669,-0.129352&panoid=IECletTIxT8Vk6CNN_vmIA&cbp=12,102.61534147518684,,0,5

Was hoping I'd spot ex co-workers but no such luck.

Nice little green bit in the middle - I love the little squares/circuses in Islington.
At the bottom of Great Percy Street at the junction with Kings Cross Road there's a traffic warden(?-CPSO?) without her face blurred out!

xp to ENBB's original post about where she used to live, incidentally.

Ned, yeah I really loved living there. It was so central but so cute.

I didn't realize faces were supposed to be blurred out!

They have some software that is supposed to do it I think? It's a bit hit and miss though.

My old office building.

So, across the bridge from MI5 then eh?

I'm more concerned about having my telephone number and address available in a directory to thousands of people than google streetview.

x-post Yep, right across. I see the lady now!

you know what i'd love to see? photos of streets where i grew up, but from different eras in the past. you get some of these on the transport for london site, i guess. but its ace, to get a feel for how those areas have changed, especially the ones which are now pedestrianised shopping centre type areas, like my former ends of wimbledon.

they don't have to be 3d or nuthin.

The massive brutalist wonder that is Pimlico School appears to still be there and I thought they'd demolished that.

It's quite good to be able to check places like that out without having the haul my arse across London for it, I must admit.

The hit and miss-ness of the face blurring is obvious from the link to the Pagoda House Matt linked to - the mini in front of the house has it's wheels blurred out.

they blurred out the mural of bobby sands on the falls road too.

x-post Or across an ocean as the case would be for me right now.

What would be really cool would be if you could enter in a start and end point and it would automatically 'walk' the route for you.