XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: YourName@YourISP.com   
      
   In article , John F. Eldredge   
    wrote:   
   >   
   > Several years back, something got royally screwed up in the Google Maps   
   > database.  If I recall correctly, going from one particular town to   
   > another in Scotland showed, correctly, a land trip of about 20 miles.   
   > Going in the reverse direction showed a trip of several hundred miles,   
   > passing through three different countries and involving two trips across   
   > the North Sea.   
      
   There are lots of those sorts of things on Google Maps, GPS systems,   
   and other similar mapp software.   
      
   Sometimes though the weird looking advice might actually be correct.   
   Someone in an office was was working in used one of the online maps   
   (might have been Google) to get directions to somewhere on the other   
   side of the city centre in the middle of the day. It gave two sets of   
   directions. The "shortest distance" one was to go across the city   
   itself through all the traffic lights. The "shortest time" one was to   
   go up onto the motorway, across the main Harbour Bridge, off at the   
   first off-ramp and over the motorway, back on opposite on-ramp onto the   
   motorway again to come back across the Harbour Bridge (luckily not   
   tolled), and then off at the first off-ramp on the original side of the   
   harbour.  :-)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)