101010.pl is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
101010.pl czyli najstarszy polski serwer Mastodon. Posiadamy wpisy do 2048 znaków.

Server stats:

487
active users

#geolocation

0 posts0 participants0 posts today

I don't have time to go geolocate this right at the second, but I bet someone might recognize this postcard (1940's) -- labeled "Unidentified Californian Hillside"

Looks like an estate/mansion/castle, consistent with Lockwod Valley/Frazier Park/Gorman/Lake Hughes/Leona Valley/Acton (perhaps farther South), IMHO.

social.vivaldi.net/@Vibracobra

Vivaldi SocialCornovia Postcards (@Vibracobra23@vivaldi.net)Attached: 1 image An Unidentified Californian Hillside, c.1940 - Agfa Ansco RPPC https://www.ebid.net/uk/for-sale/an-unidentified-californian-hillside-c-1940-agfa-ansco-rppc-222894260.htm #California
Replied in thread

@beacondb

I agree that it's not a great solution, but it seems like the only thing we have at the moment. I use both in my SSID's. Yes, I know that my neighbors can see that I'd rather Google / Microsoft don't scan my SSID's, but I see that as a good thing and hopefully (according to their statements) it gets MS/Goog to skip my SSID's.

I wish there was a way I could give access to Beacon but not Google/Microsoft. Although I guess they can still use the Beacon DB, too as the license is more permissive than copyleft, right?

Replied in thread

The subtitle icons themselves function as buttons, which re-direct to a note that is generated via a template containing a geomap widget, and the coordinates as the note title, stored when either of the two ViewToolbar buttons is pressed.

Continued thread

Now the subtitle—in addition to showing the timestamps—contains a location pin icon for the origin GPS coordinates, and a globe icon for the last modified version GPS coordinates.

These are set manually, just to keep things more intentional and optimized, via two new ViewToolbar buttons: fetch current coordinates (for the most recent coordinates) … and set created coordinates, which will populate fields for a tiddler's origin coords.

Continued thread

A pool of govt #data is especially powerful when combined w/private-sector data, such as… #mobile-#phone #geolocation data…could make inferences about actions, activities, or associates of…anybody perceived as a govt critic or #dissident.…The govt’s current use of combined data in service of #deportations—& its refusal to offer credible evidence of wrongdoing for some of those deported—suggests the admin is willing to use the data for #political aims.

#Trump#law#privacy

Reverse Geocoding is Hard

shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/04/rever

My wife and I run OpenBenches - a crowd-sourced database of nearly 40,000 memorial benches. Every bench is geo-tagged with a latitude and longitude. But how do you go from a string of digits to something human readable?

How do I turn -33.755780,150.603769 into "42 Wallaby Way, Sydney, Australia"?

Luckily, that's a (somewhat) solved problem. Services like OpenCage, StadiaMaps, OpenStreetMap, and Geocode.Earth all provide APIs which transform co-ordinates into addresses. Done! Let's go home.

Except… Not everywhere has an address. Some benches are in parks. They typically don't have a street number, but might have an interesting feature nearby to help with location. For example a statue or prominent landmark.

And… Not every address is relevant. Some benches are on streets. But we probably don't want to imply that the bench is inside or belongs to a specific nearby house.

Let's step back a bit. Why do we want to display a human-readable address?

We have two use-cases.

"As a visitor to the site, I want to:"

  1. Read a (rough) textual representation of where the bench is.
  2. Click on a component of the address to see all benches within that area.

The first is easy to explain:

The second is harder. Suppose a bench is in Wellington, New Zealand. We want to create a URl like openbenches.org/location/New Zealand/Wellington/. That way, users can click on the word "Wellington" and find all the benches nearby. A user can also manually edit that URl to increase or decrease precision.

Both of these are problems of precision.

Let's take a look at how one of the reverse geocoding services deals with transforming 51.476845,-0.295296 into an address:

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Sandycombe Road, Kew, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, London, Greater London, England, TW9 2EN, United Kingdom

That is too much address!

Yes, it is technically accurate. But it contains far too much detail for humans, the postcode is irrelevant, and the weird-subdivisions are nothing that a local person would use.

Looking at the full API response, we can see:

{  "place_id": 258770727,  "licence": "Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright",  "name": "Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew",  "display_name": "Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Elizabeth Cottages, Kew, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, London, Greater London, England, TW9 3NJ, United Kingdom",  "address": {    "leisure": "Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew",    "road": "Elizabeth Cottages",    "suburb": "Kew",    "city_district": "London Borough of Richmond upon Thames",    "ISO3166-2-lvl8": "GB-RIC",    "city": "London",    "state_district": "Greater London",    "state": "England",    "ISO3166-2-lvl4": "GB-ENG",    "postcode": "TW9 3NJ",    "country": "United Kingdom",    "country_code": "gb"  }}

Aha! Perhaps I can build a better address using just those components!

Except… Not every country has states. And not all states are used when giving addresses. Not every location is in a city. Some places have villages, prefectures, municipalities, and hamlets.

New York, New York is a valid address, but Berlin, Berlin is not!

There's an address formatter by OpenCage which is pretty sensible about stripping off irrelevant details. But, to go back to my first point, not every map location on OpenBenches is a street address and - even if it is on a street - it probably shouldn't have a house number.

Well, there's kind of a solution to that! Most mapping provider have a POI function - we can find nearby things of interest and use them as a location.

Here's a bench in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The POI address is:

{…   "name": "Central Park",   "coarse_location": "Des Plaines, IL, USA",…}

I assume there's only one Central Park in Des Plaines. Do people know that "Il" is Illinois? Would "Cook County" be useful?

On the subject of localisation, not everywhere speaks English. Do I want to display addresses like "原爆の子の像, 広島, 日本"? How about "原爆の子の像, Hiroshima, Japan"?

We're an international site, but most benches are in Anglophone countries.

Of course, just because something is physically near a POI, that doesn't mean it is logically close to it.

Consider a bench situated at the edge of this park

The nearest POI is "Gay's Creamery" - across the river. Is that what you'd expect? Is there any way to easily say "if a point is inside an amenity* then use that as the address?

I don't want the users of our site to have to select from a list of POIs or addresses, this should be as automated as possible.

The Plan

For each bench:

  1. Use StadiaMaps to get the nearest POI.
  2. Get the data in English.
  3. Concatenate the name and coarse location.
  4. Save the "address".
  5. Wait for complaints?

Thoughts?

Terence Eden’s Blog · Reverse Geocoding is Hard
More from Terence Eden

🆕 blog! “Reverse Geocoding is Hard”

My wife and I run OpenBenches - a crowd-sourced database of nearly 40,000 memorial benches. Every bench is geo-tagged with a latitude and longitude. But how do you go from a string of digits to something human readable?

How do I turn -33.755780,150.603769 into "42 Wallaby Way, Sydney, Australia"?

Luckily, that's a (somewhat) solved …

👀 Read more: shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/04/rever

#geolocation #geotagging #OpenBenches

Terence Eden’s Blog · Reverse Geocoding is Hard
More from Terence Eden

Been a while since I've posted an #osint #geolocation challenge. This one might be a little hard but we'll see.

1) Where was I? Be as precise as possible but I'll take guesses with any level of detail from continent to exact intersection. Curious how much folks can pin it down.

2) If you get the exact location: What was the most likely cause of the heavy traffic seen here?

Please CW guesses or solutions to avoid spoilers.

Continued thread

Just for the heck of it, geolocated that vehicle. The owner of this truck lives in White Plains, New York. Incel-Inside vehicle was the courthouse. White Plains City Court. Parked at 41.0299,-73.7722, maybe filing a complaint with the police (police station across the street). #geolocation