Comments on: Near-this-user outside the US, please?

Near-this-user outside the US, please?

Mitheral — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:25:11 -0800

Matt how hard would it be to add the near this user to people outside the USA? Assuming the code just uses a proximity match on zip code a similiar thing could be done with postal codes in Canada and I guess the UK.
All our non-US members, does your coutry have a similiar code?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:35:00 -0800

Or just allow GPS coordinates.

By: GleepGlop

GleepGlop — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:52:53 -0800

you can search users for the name of your nearest city if that helps...

By: tracicle

tracicle — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:15:26 -0800

GPS coordinates makes most sense, especially given us Antipodeans who barely have a need for postcodes.

Yes, just send mail to the house with two chimneys and a brown goat, New Zealand.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:21:35 -0800

The coolest pony would be a world map with little clickable points on it where each member was. I know, entirely too much work, but still...

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:33:17 -0800

It's not that hard. timeistight wrote some conversion code to move it all to long/lat instead of zip, but I never got around to doing the big conversion job of all 17k users and the UI work. I'll come back to this and finish it once the current block of work is done.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 03:32:49 -0800

vaguely related - what happened to geourl? they seem to have been down a while now.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 04:25:17 -0800

yeah, joshua took it down ages ago due to spamming I think.

By: twine42

twine42 — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:11:14 -0800

I assume GPS co-ords are just long/lat readings, yes?

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 06:23:03 -0800

I assume GPS co-ords are just long/lat readings, yes?

Yes, more or less, but be aware that there is a dizzying variety of ways to express longitude and latitude. It all stems from the various types of mathematical models of the globe that there are, giving us a wide array of projections in which to express what is, essentially, an x/y coordinate value. eventually, we'd have to bring all that GPS data into one global projection. Shouldn't be hard, but it can be complex.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 06:24:04 -0800

Shame geourl was spammed to death, I liked it. :/

By: MzB

MzB — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 06:58:43 -0800

Hitmaps are nice, but not exactly what we want. Something similar maybe?

By: .s

.s — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:05:51 -0800

in re: GeoURL -- 'yeah, joshua took it down ages ago due to spamming I think.'

We are genuinely curious why it is that when We utilize the marvelous little friend Ping-o-Matic, GeoURL is not only included in the list, it also returns an 'OK!'.

Is there any purpose in pinging our antiquated acquaintance, or is it simply a remnant floating about the Ether?

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:30:05 -0800

I was hoping he'd bring it back... I guess so was ping-o-matic.

By: timeistight

timeistight — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:34:21 -0800

Announcing A2B GeoLocation Support

We've replaced the defunct GeoURL with the new A2B Location-Based Search Engine. If you use geographical coordinates in your blog, check it out and add your site. They're going to be adding some new features soon, so be sure to check back with them to keep up with what's new.

By: svenni

svenni — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:35:26 -0800

I think using postal codes for smaller countries is not really necessary.
If someone is in Iceland at all, they're just about next door anyway.
Co-ordinates could work, if you can chose your co-ordinates from a map. Alternatively, i'd be fine with just mapping users in all but the biggest countries just by country.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:49:45 -0800

I suspect the airline industry is standardized on a single format for lat/long coordinates. That'd be the best one to use, especially as it provides a "pretty close" guesstimate for those who don't have a GPS.