The Computer Vet Weblog

Now I might be confused about this, but I thought maps were just supposed to reflect how things are laid out in the real world. If things in the real world are “too confusing”, the mapmaker just needs to buck up and draw it. It’s not their job to rename streets. But that’s just what the cartographreaks down at City Hall are trying to do.

Here in Carson we’ve got one street that starts at the north end of town, swings aroung in a big semi-circle, and meets back up with the highway right next to downtown. It dead ends at the college at one end, and the railroad museum at the other. Along the way you can stop to stretch your legs at an empty Kmart, the airport, the State Prison, and the sewage plant. Quite a grand tour of Carson City. But it wasn’t designed as one solid ride from end to end. The roadway was cobbled together in multiple sections over a couple of decades, and so the name of the street changes a few times as it winds its way around town. No big, you live here for more than two weeks and you get used to it. But it’s just unacceptable to the map jockeys downtown. “People will see one name when viewing data on MapQuest.com and gives Carson City a better presentation of itself.” Yeah. Screw the people who actually live here, gotta make it easier for tourists to find their way around town. Gotta make it easier for the people who aren’t able to grasp the concept of a street actually changing names as you drive along it. Heavens! What kind of chaos is that?

I think the guys down in City Hall just got bored and tried to think of some way to get their names in the paper. Because how could anybody seriously propose this? And why pick on just one street, when there are others in the same town that change like this?

If people stopped thinking absurdly, the world sure would be a boring place to live in.