Real-Time

Getting real-time traffic readings from Google Maps:

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One can ask for location with GPS corrdinates (which will change ever so slightly from
day to day).

However, one cannot ask for a zoom level; one needs to scroll to it. However I aks for
downtown Montreal, the Starbucks at Place Ville Marie only appears at zoom level 18,
which comes after the GPS numbers.

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Been monitoring how GPS coordinates change somewhat at each call (usually on the
third decimal). chose the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars in Paris as the test
reference.

Made me read up on what the 'Champs de Mars' park is about. It's actually fascinating.
From its origins in Rome, a Champs de Mars during Merovingian and Carolingian times
is a military field. In March(... up to May), at a date when the field would be most green and capable of feeding horses, the King's military would gather. This would be the starting point for the annual raids that would enrich the kingdom. On their return, they would also gather there, for songs and stories about the valor of their exploits.

source: Wikipedia

In a Word

The first of the above works to get the zoom, the second does not. The difference?
the word var. The second creates a variable within the function, and not accessible.
The first - without var - is a global function.

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So this code, allowing one to access zoom in a continuous fashion, works as well:

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Little hack which allows one to save map information, on the fly. Can't really
create a database on a phone. And for security reasons, very difficult to link
with anything that might write to one's computer. So one could add an href
to a file on the computer, which would retain some of the information from the session.

User could then ask for map with center and zoom information.

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Form input, entirely local:

Unlike setting zoom, one needs to create a new google maps object to set a new center:

Libyan Model

North Korea seems concerned about the 'Libyan model' for what awaits them...

Le Monde

CTourism

Came across striking photos of  Chinese tourists taking May holidays.
In Gansu province,(where the Silk Road originated). And in Southerly Hunan
(the birth province of Mao Tse-Tung).

source: Der Spiegel

Distance

Been doing some math. Wondering what the true waistline of Canada -
the distance from Cape Breton NS to Tofino BC - would look like projected on
the terrestial globe at the equator. Not surprisingly, it is rather modest: roughly the
distance between Mogadishu Somalia, and Lagos Nigeria. My calculations so far:

Pretty rough, I am working from the globe as a perfect sphere. Not that there aren't
moult models of the reality, indeed there are too many. But at this point, just wanted
a rough estimation.

Chose the 49th parallel as the place to measure because - famously - it defines the
border between Canada and the US from BC to Manitoba. Personally, I live in the
southerly St-Lawrence basin, at the 45th.

For a perfect sphere, 49 degrees or .855 radians, has a cosine value of .6561...That
means that the radius of a circle - our 49th parallel - would be that proportion of the
circumference of the circle, or earth. The earth comes in at 40 007.86km so the 49th
would be 26 405km. And the longitude difference between Tofino and Cape Breton
being 65 degrees, the national waistline is .18 x 26406 = 4 841 km. Which is roughly
the distance between Mogadishu and Lagos.

The actual figures will be different when I get them, but we have an idea..

                  
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In point of fact, the dimension of these parallels is known. Below, from Wikipedia.
50 degrees is at 25 810, so 49 might be 26 300...

Mother's Day

Mothers are busy people. Just changed the zoom level utility
on my Google Map project. User can now see the current zoom level
by clicking on the map instead of on a button.

Given that information - like restaurants - will be on different levels from
one locality to the next, need to add the possibility of note-taking that
will be saved for the user. 'When in Regina, go to zoom 12 ...' Maybe
link to a screen-grab file!? Or just add a set center utility. One can do
anything with code, but making things straightforward for the user is
another matter.

🐱‍👓 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, NINJAS!!

Displaying Information!

Numbers from Wikipedia.

Trying to display information on country size for my (French-language) blog.
On Plunker...

https://plnkr.co/edit/bZ1tYuc30mE6FDGWP81q?p=info

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I was asked  - in reference to yesterday's post - if there was a fee
determining on what information level one' s business would find itself on
Google Maps. From my reading on the matter, no. There is, however,
some work to be done in getting complete and interesting information up to Google.
One needs to become a member of the Google business ecosystem, and that involves
a website, accurate and updated info , answering customer reviews and the like.

It is a confidential algorithm, kept that way to insure 'fairness'.

https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en&ref_topic=4854129

It is possible to place outright ads in Google Maps, as in many other places.
More information by clicking (top left) on the menu in GMaps, and gling to
consumer information.