User talk:Sleepyzoe

This is the user talk page for Sleepyzoe (talk) 16:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1
Right now, as weird as it may sound, one of my favourite things on the internet is Google Maps. I obviously appreciate "normal" maps' general usefulness of helping you plan journeys and redirecting you when you're lost, but as someone with a very poor sense of direction, they tend to disorientate me more than they help me. Google Maps' street view, however, is an enormous help for me. I soon have a job interview in a part of Edinburgh that I have never been to, and so I looked it up in Google Maps, and sure enough it's only a 8 minute walk with 3 turns from Waverly station. So I go into street view and "walk" it, and now I know what restaurants and museums and churches and other markers to look out for to know I am not lost, so that's one less thing for me to have to worry about that day. I also used Google Maps to see how much transport I will need to take if I wish to visit a friend who lives in Switzerland, and she'll only be a 20 minute bus ride and a 1 hour train ride away from where I'll be staying. I didn't go so far as to Street View that as I won't be there for another few months, but I am glad that I will be able to see exactly where we'll meet if we do.

But all of this useful stuff is not really why it's one of my favourite thing; what I like is the games. My current favourite is Geoguessr, where you are placed in a random part of the world, and you have to guess on a world map where you are. You can also play different modes like "famous monuments" or specific countries. Most of the time, you will be stuck in a country road that can pretty much be anywhere in the northern hemisphere, but sometimes you're at a beach, or in the middle of a city, or my personal favourite: mountain roads. The second game was really popular in 2011, particularly on tumblr, where you had to go to Map Crunch, and pretend you woke up in a random location and had to make your way to the nearest airport. The site has since updated, so if you do want to play this you need to go into "options" and select "Stealth" to hide the location. If you want to know more about this game you can find some information here, but there's not that much more to it. And if you're generally just not into games, my last recommendation is this collection of beautiful locations you can see on google maps. Since I'm too new a wiki account to upload images, I'm going to have to settle with linking you to some of my favourite screencaps in case you're still skeptical of my love for Google Maps. 1 2 3 4 5

Sleepyzoe (talk) 19:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I live by google maps. I have a shocking sense of direction, so the only way I don't get lost is by religiously following the route set up for me by the app. Unfortunately I've never played the games you've mentioned here, and I don't actually use street view! Once when I was visiting London with a friend, we got separated. The only way I managed to reach her location was by holding my phone in front of me and letting the map guide me through the streets of London. Possibly the most embarrassing and touristy thing I've ever done, but hey, I didn't get lost.

The games you've mentioned genuinely sound really fun, so I'm going to give them a try! Gnivs (talk) 12:56, 10 February 2016 (UTC)