Race Across America Without Leaving Your Bedroom

[John Funk]

Race Across America Without Leaving Your Bedroom

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If you were going to race across the USA from coast to coast in Google Street View, how much time would it take?

Driving across the United States of America is a pretty taxing venture. Not only do you have to deal with the cost of gas, food and hotels (unless you try to sleep in the car), you're spending days cooped up in a tiny box with your foot on the pedal, with nothing to do but chat and stare at the scenery. And there's a whole stretch out in the Midwest where the scenery ain't so scenic.

These two guys, on the other hand, found a way to see the US coast-to-coast without ever leaving their house, thanks to the wonders of Google Street View. Their journey from virtual San Francisco to virtual New York took them 90 hours, and required over 100,000 clicks to complete.

Interestingly enough, it takes about ~40-60 hours of driving (depending on route and how fast you go) to actually drive across the States in real life. Unless I'm misunderstanding something about how they calculated the hours or how much time they spent clicking, I wonder what makes this virtual journey take so much longer?

(Destructoid [http://www.demoslam.com/])

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[Tim Latshaw]

What makes it longer? You can drive down a street faster than you can pan down one in Google Street View.

A fun alternative to the Desert Bus charity run this does not sound like.

 

[Dirty Apple]

The geek side of me thinks it's awesome cool. The rational side of me wonders what these guys normally do that allows them to waste 5 days like this.

 

[Jark212]

Wow, at least you need to admire their dedication...

 

[BabySinclair]

Well I guess that's one way to see the country

 

[Silver Scribbler]

The reason it takes so long is that street view takes a ridiculously large amount of time to load each image.

 

[ArMartinez02]

Damn!, thats all I have to say.

 

[dragonslayer32]

I have flown across American in an F-16 before which took forever but this takes the piss. Those guys deserve a medal for dedication...

 

[Vorocano]

Yeah I suspect the difference in travel time is because of the "stopping and starting" nature of Street View. If you click the little forward arrow on the road it goes ahead just a bit and then stops, and then you have to click the arrow again. Given that it only travels a few meters at a time, I can see that taking a lot longer than actually driving.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

The rational side of me wonders what these guys normally do that allows them to waste 5 days like this.

This is the only thing I thought. Seems like a waste of time to me.

 

[tahrey]

I can add but 3 things here:

1. not wanting to be too overtly prejudiced, but my immediate reaction was "did they do this because starcraft marathons weren't boring enough any more?"
2. they've missed a serious trick - google streetview also responds to cursor keys. if you hold down the up-arrow, it jumps forwards at a fairly decent lick. mouse-clicking is more like the equivalent of 30-40mph on a very good day (if we assume they at least know to double-click as far into the distance as GSV shows a white circle on the ground, rather than just clicking the forward-arrow; then it's half that speed or less).
3. if you have a good connection through a lightly-loaded webcache, and take advantage of no.2, it can stonk along at far greater than legal speed, though it makes it difficult to spot what you're looking for under normal circumstances. this however could be useful under race conditions. a slow connection or congested cache and you'll be waiting around forever.