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I'm used to take a look with Google streetview first before taking a trip somewhere, but sadly this is not possible in Germany 
The reason why is explained here: Totalitarian traumas - Big Think[^] 
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I thought it was because everything is a blur at 120 MPH.
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Americans need to take a huge lesson from this aspect of German culture. We give way too much away for "freebies."
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obermd wrote: We give way too much away for "freebies."
Unknowingly or on purpose? Are we putting too much trust in app developers? Knowing that information is worth more than all of the gold in Fort Knox, companies will do anything to obtain and retain any and all information.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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it is really surprised to hear this news
diligent hands rule....
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Nie Wieder Faschismus; that wasn't invented for privacy.
The explanation, is crud.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I did just the same in the past years before going to project meetings and had no problems with StreetView at all , at least for Berlin and Köln ... I am confused ...
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You are right Berlin has streetview, but as soon as you click outside the city perimeter ... no streetview 
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I can understand if street view would be done in places of interests, monuments and places of turistical value...
but I live in a residential area near the borders of a 25k people town... can you explain me, what big value would give you a street view of my neighbourhood where you could see my house from the walker perspective?
I am not even german, but I still agree and think that this kind of close sight is not anyone's ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ing business.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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You have a point, and the Germans too, it is just that I was surprised that streetview is not available in Germany, as in the Netherlands we take it for granted. As with all technology I guess it can be used for good or not so good purposes 
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I've had enough "fun" with delivery driver fails over the last year and a half, that I think integrating streetview into Doordash, etc would be a killer app. Bonus points if they'd let me add a custom annotation to indicate which door on the building is mine.
Other things I've used it for before include:
Doing virtual drive bys of places I've never been before (including friends/family members new homes) to find visual landmarks to supplement the GPS nav in my handbrain/make sure I'm going to the right driveway without having to slow down to a crawl to try and read house numbers as I go past.
Doing a look around of potential places to move to; checking for anything that the realtor/landlord wouldn't include in pictures because it wasn't flattering.
Answering "is that new"/"didn't there used to be something there" questions by looking at old pictures from a year or five ago.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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I don't say it might not be useful, I partially agree with your point.
But if something is not legal in a place... then, you better respect it or you might get problems.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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if it was illegal, they couldn't do it; once they added the ability to opt out it was legal. But they didn't stop taking pictures because of that - and the data they collected is still up - they just quit in a sulk when about 1% of German home owners in thei initial areas opted to have their properties blurred out.
I'm guessing the issue was less that they thought a 99% complete dataset wouldn't be useful than that they didn't have a scalable way to process the opt outs and it became too many to handle when stuffed into a human review system intended for the occasional bit of nudity/etc that leaked through their automated filters.
It's not that google couldn't've created an automated process to let people opt out either. It's just that their devs were more interested in creating new apps to be cancelled a year or two after launch when they parleyed their involvement in the Google Navel Gaze App into a very highly paid CTO job at a startup. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Are you sure it is an opt OUT? it should be an opt IN if I am not wrong.
And yes, you are right, only because they are not posting the pictures it doesn't mean they are not taking them and processing them.
It is the same as with normal internet or Android. You can say what you want, they do what they want too.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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From the article:
Quote: Google automatically blurs faces and vehicle license plates and, upon request, the fronts of houses. Fully 3 percent of households in the relevant areas requested their houses to be blurred. Faced with that unprecedentedly high level of resistance, Google in 2011 published the data already collected, but left it at that. No new Street View images have been taken since in Germany.
If Google got opt in vs out wrong, after a decade I'm all but certain they'd've been repeatedly fined a few hours of profit until they changed it.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Outside of your house is a public space. There is no promise of privacy in a public space. If you like walking around the inside of your house naked, close the curtains.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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MarkTJohnson wrote: Outside of your house is a public space. There is no promise of privacy in a public space. If you like walking around the inside of your house naked, close the curtains.
here... if someone makes a picture of me nude within my house and post it in the internet without my written consent... that's not legal, period.
I don't agree / I don't like some of the laws in the US, but are your laws so it doesn't matter if I like them or not as I don't live there. But if I ever go to the US, then be sure I'll follow them.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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In the UK, Streetview is available in most places (well public roads at least). Hilariously, some people complain and so Streetview is disabled for the public road outside their property. In my view this is rather a demonstration of the Streisand effect: It alerts potentially malicious viewers to the possibility that there might be something 'interesting' there.
Two examples near where I live:
Google Maps: North End Road[^] -- try to continue on up the hill and you'll see that Streetview is disable for a stretch of the road.
Google Maps: Frognal[^] -- try to carry on down the hill and a stretch of road is de-Streetviewed.
The above two locations are in Hampstead and if you look at the Hampstead area you'll notice several redacted stretches of road.
And an example from central London:
Google Maps: Ecclestone Square[^] -- try to continue onto the road beyond the junction and it is de-Streetviewed. I wonder who asked for this site to be redacted. The Passport Office is just to the right of this location but I can't believe they'd be foolish enough to want to block Streetview. It's not like it's secret or anything.
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I got the sense long ago that "form generators" and report generators represented "code-less" programming; which are mostly counter-intuitive and represent a steep learning curve (see Q&A).
I see the new wave of code-less programming as a lot of people putting data in, but not being able to get information out.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Plz sir, send codz urgent ...
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Nothing worthwhile can be done automatically.
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Quote: Nothing worthwhile can be done automatically.
I disagree; there are some very unique things that are better done by code generation tools. See Flex and Bison, for example (generates C). Or Antlr (Generates Java, C#, etc). Or CMake (Generates Makefiles). Swig (Generates everything)?
On the other side of the spectrum, there are some very stupid things that are automated; ORMs, for example, get you 90% of the way, but that just means that you need to know both the specific ORM syntax and the SQL.
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: I got the sense long ago that "form generators" and report generators represented "code-less" programming; which are mostly counter-intuitive and represent a steep learning curve (see Q&A).
Your "sense", young Skywalker?
CodeSmith. Years worth.
Gerry Schmitz wrote: I see the new wave of code-less programming
Until I see results, I refuse to acknowledge it as a wave.
Code generation grew nice over the years, up to the point where VS facilitates it.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: I see the new wave of code-less programming as a lot of people putting data in,
They attempt to generalize some problems that seem to have similarities. But the actual solution needed is actually different in each case. Obviously since otherwise there would likely only be one solution.
Thus the generalization fails because it can only account for the similarities and not the exceptions. And adding the exceptions becomes so complex that it overrides any potential savings that the generalization might have achieved.
And the problem becomes worse with time because more exceptions are needed at the same time the legacy system becomes more dependent on supporting the original use.
On top of that you then also have consultants/pundits that base their careers and promoting the specific solution and tout the claimed benefits without explaining or perhaps not even understanding the the likely pitfalls.
But you can often see the same thing happen in coding APIs. That is why, for example, if you need to use a 'new' database application layering technology the first thing you should always look for is how to do pass through SQL. If it is complex or even worse does not exist then you should discard it.
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Correct, such tools can only "address the low-hanging fruit" -- which is not the difficult part of the problem. We don't need help with that, we can do that easily enough ourselves, thank you very much.
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