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Supping with the devil
Jun. 14th, 2015 11:02 amWith the combination of waiting for JA rehearsals etc to finish and visiting my father in hospital, I managed to use the whole of my mobile data allowance for the first time. At least I did get a portable battery brick (more of a small blob) which helped keep having a phone for, gasp, calls etc.
Fortunately by that point I'd learnt a route I'd not have known about except for Google Maps. The journey between here and Warwick is easy: A46 to Leicester, a couple of miles of the M1, the M69, which becomes the A46 again to go around the east of Coventry, which is called the A45 to go to the south of Coventry for a couple of miles, then off onto the A46.*
Except that the roundabout + traffic lights where the A46 joins the A45 is being totally rebuilt to allow traffic going from the A45 to the M45 to go straight through. Going to Warwick isn't a problem, but coming back, the queue is even worse than normal and stretches back most of the way to the other junction with the A46. Pah, I thought going past it the first time, that'll add at least 30-60 minutes to the journey back.
Except that Google Maps knows there's a big traffic problem! It suggests a route turning off the A46 a junction or so early, going near Stoneleigh, past the sewage works, under the A46, going alongside the A46, crossing under it again, going through Baginton, past the Lunt rebuilt Roman fort, past the air museum and getting to the roundabout with the road works from the south rather than the west! Wonderful! I didn't know the road alongside the A46 existed!
There's a cost to this - as well as the amount of data to download the map and the traffic info, Google is tracking where users' are and how fast they're going. They know exactly where I am (or, rather, my phone is) and could probably work out who I've been seeing in hospital. But it's a price I'm prepared to pay because of the benefits to me.
I am rather less willing to have that handed over to Teresa May or anyone else she feels like letting have access to that info.
* I can remember 'the Kenilworth by-pass' being built when I was a child in Kenilworth - so in the mid 60s - there was a nice walk in some woods to the south that it cut through and blocked. It did make living there nicer though, especially if you were on one of the two main roads going through it...
Fortunately by that point I'd learnt a route I'd not have known about except for Google Maps. The journey between here and Warwick is easy: A46 to Leicester, a couple of miles of the M1, the M69, which becomes the A46 again to go around the east of Coventry, which is called the A45 to go to the south of Coventry for a couple of miles, then off onto the A46.*
Except that the roundabout + traffic lights where the A46 joins the A45 is being totally rebuilt to allow traffic going from the A45 to the M45 to go straight through. Going to Warwick isn't a problem, but coming back, the queue is even worse than normal and stretches back most of the way to the other junction with the A46. Pah, I thought going past it the first time, that'll add at least 30-60 minutes to the journey back.
Except that Google Maps knows there's a big traffic problem! It suggests a route turning off the A46 a junction or so early, going near Stoneleigh, past the sewage works, under the A46, going alongside the A46, crossing under it again, going through Baginton, past the Lunt rebuilt Roman fort, past the air museum and getting to the roundabout with the road works from the south rather than the west! Wonderful! I didn't know the road alongside the A46 existed!
There's a cost to this - as well as the amount of data to download the map and the traffic info, Google is tracking where users' are and how fast they're going. They know exactly where I am (or, rather, my phone is) and could probably work out who I've been seeing in hospital. But it's a price I'm prepared to pay because of the benefits to me.
I am rather less willing to have that handed over to Teresa May or anyone else she feels like letting have access to that info.
* I can remember 'the Kenilworth by-pass' being built when I was a child in Kenilworth - so in the mid 60s - there was a nice walk in some woods to the south that it cut through and blocked. It did make living there nicer though, especially if you were on one of the two main roads going through it...