this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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I wish there was a website where people can upload and view historic photos of roads and places on a map UI (lemmy.cafe)
submitted 10 months ago by solinus@lemmy.cafe to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Sometimes I go past an old looking building or see some traces of old signage on a store and wonder what they used to be, especially when those traces are hard to read or obscured.

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[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 47 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I have good news: It exists! http://retrographer.org/

A lot of them are unrecognizable, but here's an example of a good one: http://retrographer.org/photos/4215

The bad news is that's a bit limited. It was the senior project of a CMU student in 2010. It only exists for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you wanted to make one for another city, though, I think you could contact the creator, ask for the code, and then recruit people to get a ton of photos from another city's historical institutions, and then crowdsource geotagging them (which is what the guy did).

http://retrographer.org/learnMore

[–] DarkShaggy@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This should be a Google maps feature, how cool would that be.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 14 points 10 months ago

Isn't it? I get peoples photos occasionally in place of Street View for certain locations.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Doesn't Maps or Google Earth have a time-line for places now? Thought it started 4 or 5 years ago, so it's not everywhere yet.

Though I think that's just fairly recent images and such. Maybe it permits us submitting really old info/photos?

You could probably set this up on a shared map, getting people to help/contribute/not be a troll would be the challenge.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Out of all the things to be a troll with.......this one just seems too niche to be fun. Maybe I'd be wrong as the feature got more popular. I could see someone making a photoshop of the road layout being a penis. But until theres a sizeable userbase to see it, I don't see it being worth the effort for them.

[–] 200ok@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yep, when in street view you can look at old street views. It'll be cool in 20 years when the changes will be more apparent

[–] nerdovic@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On Google earth pro you can also look at older versions of the satellite maps, which is also very cool

[–] 200ok@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Cool!

[–] TheWeirdestCunt@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

The desktop version of Earth has had it since the early 2010s if not earlier, I remember messing around with it while being taught how to use the measuring tools in a geography lesson, tbf that’s only for maps though not street view

[–] solinus@lemmy.cafe 1 points 10 months ago

Thay's what I was thinking. Google maps/street view only goes back to the late 00s, but I'd like to go back as far as the early 20th century if not earlier

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 4 points 10 months ago

That sounds really fun! I feel like this is a very geocaching-adjacent idea; the geocaching community might be a good place to bounce ideas around to get a project like this started.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If I remember correctly, Microsoft experimented with something like this years ago. I tried to find a link but no luck. As I recall it focused on stitching together user-uploaded photos to create a panoramic view of a location over time.

[–] take6056@feddit.nl 4 points 10 months ago

Though, not the same thing. I really like the Dutch implementation for their old maps: https://topotijdreis.nl

[–] sachabe@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Also mapillary.com :)

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 10 months ago

I know you're asking for a single place to go, which isn't going to happen until "modern" places that were captured by Google and the like turn into the old places. Sometimes you can dig into old archives and find pieces of things that were digitized. Put enough of them together and you might get some answers. It's difficult and very regional dependent on what was done over the decades. Just finding an online copy of old highway maps is a challenge, and I figured that would be easy. But if you can find some sources, it's fascinating to try and overlay old and new and see just how much has (and hasn't) changed. I've found old roads in my area that were cut up by newer and by lots of development, but are still there, just not connected in the same way.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This any good for you?

https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/about

[–] solinus@lemmy.cafe 1 points 10 months ago

Very clunky on mobile and a bit unintuitive but I think it'll work