Map weirdness

Right now, much of France is on thunderstorm alert, except Maine-et-Loire which is a rather conspicuous green blip in a sea of yellow.
Huh?

https://vigilance.meteofrance.fr/fr/orages

I don’t know what oranges has to do with it, but it looks mostly lemons, with outbreaks of limes.

Back when the BBC started publishing automatically-generated weather maps on its website, there was some sort of glitch that always placed a circular dot of rain over Romsey. They did eventually fix whatever was causing it, but it was there for several weeks.

If you put UK postcodes into Googlemaps, it’s usually pretty good at hitting the target. But you put our postcode in, you get directed to a hospital car park which is not very far away as the crow flies, but it’s over half a mile away by road, round three unobvious junctions. And the postcode only refers to our one short street.

Security by obscurity?

And the postcode only refers to our one short street.

In France the postcode, code postale, covers a much wider area, and really, as it includes a “town” name with the department number, only specifies a main postal distribution office.

So the French have really missed a trick there! House numbers have only recently been/are currently being introduced in rural areas. Additionally complicated by most roads not being named, and many communities having no official name and being referred to as “the placed known as,said to be …”, Lieu-dit … .

So Google stands no chance there with postcodes!

Wasn’t it France where streets were numbered, not named, in the past. I seem to remember a story about when the French took Cologne (Köln) in Germany, they numbered the streets there. The street that had a particular perfume company on it was number 4711.

only specifies a main postal distribution office.

That’s logical. My postcode is shared with three other towns, the biggest of which contains the post office where our post comes from. The postcode is of use to the post office, no more no less.

So the French have really missed a trick there!

Not really, every property has a unique INSEE reference.

House numbers have only recently been/are currently being introduced in rural areas.

In about as half assed a way as you could imagine.
Some towns are doing it right. Every road is assigned a number and houses are then numbered, so the eventual house number may be 1720, which is house 20 on road 17.

Me? I’m 9. I don’t know how as there are only three properties on the left (odd) side and two on the right. The little hamletlet at the top of the road ends with 6. But I’m 9. ? Shrug.

Anyway, where this fails is that I’m 9 on this route and this road. Going the other way? Well, there’ll be a 9 there. And another 9 or two in the remaining cardinal directions.
Essentially the number is useless as you still have to know where the property name is located in order to know which 9 you need.

Wasn’t it France where streets were numbered, not named, in the past.

I can’t speak for big towns, but around here there are four classes of road.

Motorway, obvious.

Route National: N-numbered roads, like a British A road. These are the major ones that aren’t motorways, but with sections that can be dual carriageway and 110kph speed limit, they can be very similar.

Route Départementale: D-numbered roads, like a British B road. Count on lines in the middle (mostly) and two cars able to go side by side in opposite directions. Speed limit usually 80 or 90 depending on location (some places reverted the 80 limit, others stick to it). Note that D roads through towns may have priority to the right. An oddity of D roads is that when you pass into another département, the number changes.

Route Communal: C-numbered roads. Usually no lane marking as they’re about wide enough to get a harvester down. Two cars can pass if they both pull over (my habit is to pull over and then stop as any accident is then entirely the fault of the other person). God help you if you meet a harvester. Two harvesters trying to pass usually involves arguing, several bottles of wine, and hand gestures to the other drivers who haven’t yet realised these two idiots have blocked the road for an hour and have no intention of moving any time soon. Technically the speed limit is the same as D roads. Some of them, you’d be nuts to go those sorts of speeds. C road numbering only exists with the boundaries of the town. Cross into another and the number changes.

My driveway is an adopted road that is unnumbered. It’s just the access to my property (and the fields around). It doesn’t have a name.

The primary difference between these roads, I think, is who pays for the upkeep.

The road that goes nearest to me is C5, or the fifth communal road. However Google doesn’t seem capable of understanding that these little roads are numbered and/or unnamed.

So being American they’ve done the stupidest thing imaginable. The roads have been split into many sections, with each section being named after the house that it is nearest to.

So instead of saying “Take the C3 in the direction of Villiers” it will say “Turn left into Belvue”. Five seconds later “Continue onto La Maison Neuve”. Twenty seconds later “Slight right to stay on Bel-Air”, and so on.

My driveway? Has the name of the house. So using navi to get to me will suffer the Google consequence of “the location is in the middle of the road”, which means Google will dump you half way up the driveway.
I’ve tried to get this changed, but the unpaid monkeys that Google use for tech support aren’t interested. FFS, one kept reverting my attempts to change the name and location of a local pharmacy until I attached a GPS tagged photo of the new location and one showing a bakery where the pharmacy used to be. W***ers.

While I’m moaning, another thing I hate about Google Maps is that often you’ll get a road closed report rejected if you fail to provide a date when the road will be reopened. So I’m driving by (or, before, with mom) and we have to detour because there’s a bloody big barrier, a digger, and half the road missing. So I report it so navi doesn’t take others this way. Oh, nope, no finish date, rejected. What the hell does Google think I’m going to do, get out, find a workman and ask? W***ers.

In civilised places there is a sign preceding the roadworks, “Work starts here on the 3rd January for 56 weeks” – I kid you not.

Wasn’t it France where streets were numbered, not named, in the past. I seem to remember a story about when the French took Cologne (Köln) in Germany, they numbered the streets there. The street that had a particular perfume company on it was number 4711.

Reminds me off the news a few years back of the last village village in Belgium to define street names. Before that the address was the name of the village followed by a number which increased with each new construction, which meant that the next habitation number could actually be located at the other end of the village.

We are used to A roads and B roads being numbered with the A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6 radiating out from London and roads numbered A1xxx, such as A10 and A11, clockwise from A1, B numbers similar. There are also C and D roads but their numbers are used internally by the council but not generally advertised. A1 (T) means a trunk road (maintained by government) as are the motorways.

C and D roads? Luxury! I’m up the U175 Cluny Road – bizarrely adopted by council, so it does get a gritter sent up it after every other road in Perthshire has been done.

While I’m moaning, another thing I hate about Google Maps is that often you’ll get a road closed report rejected if you fail to provide a date when the road will be reopened.

My sympathies are with Google here (argh!).

The road is closed. You report it closed. Google marks it closed. A week later the road is open. A year later you fume because you’ve been taking an un-necessary detour. No-one notified Google because no-one reports open roads.

My sympathies are with Google here (argh!).

You would have thought, given the deep I’m -so-clever recruitment tests that Google apparently performs, that it would be a simple matter of:

• If there is no end date, mark the road as closed for one month.
• Note the road as “possibly closed” when working out directions, and then see if you get pingbacks (like the traffic density stuff) of people actually going down the road.
• If ‘n’ people go down the road, mark it as open (again).
• If people go to the road and suddenly go somewhere else (detour), bump it for a further two weeks.

Rinse and repeat.

(unless, of course, the road is marked as permanently closed)

I’m a dunce and I can think of something like that. What’s Google’s excuse?

A year later you fume

Therein lies the problem. I’m not aware of any road closures around here lasting that long.

There’s an option for “permanently closed”. If it isn’t marked as that, don’t assume it is. Simple!

because no-one reports open roads.

Shouldn’t have to. How do you think Google is able to annotate the map with those yellow and red traffic condition warnings? If your speed is less than expected, it’ll ping the mothership. If enough pings happen in a given time, it’ll flag the warning.
So, if a car is happily doing 80 down a closed road, it’s either a Finnish rally driver or the road ain’t closed!

Well, we now have “yellow thunderstorm warnings”

This spawned a couple thoughts:

1. Does this represent some kind of French dumping of stuff they don’t want anymore?
2. Does a yellow thunderstorm warning have any commonality with yellow snow warnings

How dare the French dump their pisse stained thunderstorms on our sceptred isle – this is WAR!

Does a yellow thunderstorm warning have any commonality with yellow snow warnings

Yes. The four levels are basically:

• Green – nothing to see here.
• Yellow – something might happen, look out the window once in a while.
• Orange – it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen on your head.
• Red – pooping in your pants is optional, but highly recommended…as is getting yourself measured so they’ll know how big to make the coffin.

The things they’ll warn about is snow/ice, rain/flood, thunderstorm, fog, heatwave, zombies, and violent wind.

this is WAR!

Bzzzt! (the DEFCON scale moves to 3) Awooga! Awooga!

Yes. The four levels are basically:

Clearly missed that bit of “education” – Yellow snow warning: “Don’t eat yellow snow”

How dare the French dump their pisse stained thunderstorms on our sceptred isle

Surely that’s septic isle?

septic isle

Is that a Boomtown Rats reference, or is the phrase much older?

Sorry, should have realised that those brought up on The Beano may have missed the reference from Shakespeare’s Richard II. :^)

This article Interesting Literature explains the sentiment. Those of a French disposition may want to look away now.

I doubt anyone here missed the Sceptred Isle reference. I’m very sure the Boomtown Rats hadn’t.

may have missed the reference from Shakespeare’s Richard II.

Oh, it was pretentious enough to be quite clearly Shakespeare…

I’m very surprised that old Sir Sweary Bob was a fan of the bard.

I doubt he’s a fan, but you don’t have to be a fan to know quite a lot about him. In fact it’s bloody hard to avoid.

As Stuart suggested, the “Septic Isle” reference is older. I have no idea how much so, it was just one of any plays on words that occurred in my home environment while I was growing older¹
It’s quite likely that Geldof heard it the same way and used it.

People’s choice of occupation/income and the extent of their education produce so many mismatches you could fill libraries with one line listings. Things twist even further when those same people self-educate after the formal version failed to match their needs.

Exercise: Compare and contrast Shakespeare and Pratchett.²

¹ “growing up” never seemed to happen ;)

Compare and contrast Shakespeare and Pratchett.

That’s a bloody good English teacher, there. The kind the bloody National Curriculum and bloody tory (including NuLabour) governments want to squash.