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by danielsf 2570 days ago
OP here. This idea was from looking at this map. https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/music/products/u-s-...
2 comments

Huh, it looks like the author of that older map might not have realized that "Pennsylvania 6-5000" is about the telephone number of a hotel in New York City (whose telephone exchange was named after Pennsylvania Station, which was named after the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was named after the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_6-5000_(song)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEnnsylvania_6-5000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Pennsylvania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(1910%E2%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad

I'm amused that in the blowup of New York State, Canajoharie is called out.

I lived in upstate New York for about 15 years and would not have been able to identify the town -- until a few years ago when They Might Be Giants wrote a song with that title.

http://tmbw.net/wiki/Canajoharie

And Wyoming, the state, is named for Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming

This is also the reason the well known 1940 swing song of the same name recorded by the Glen Miller band - after the phone number of the Pennsylvania hotel on 8th Ave whose ballroom they regularly played.
"Washington Bullets" isn't about Washington state either, which seems like a thing he'd be likely to know, so maybe he wasn't trying to be that strict.
The map was designed to make money, not to be a historical record.
It’s beautiful, and reminds me of an idea that I had ... hint ... hint.

I live in Melbourne, Australia. Idle Googling led me to the discovery that someone had rated – as in on Maps, with stars – a tram stop. A municipal function, a concrete slab, a place you must necessarily and unavoidably go if you want a tram. Rated. People! Crazy.

So I want a map that, at the level of ‘Melbourne’, aggregates the Google review for everything in view and gives the entire city a score. Then as I zoom in, eventually to the tram stop, I see the ratings of individual things.

Ultimately I suppose you’d be able to zoom out to the world and see its Google review score.

> Ultimately I suppose you’d be able to zoom out to the world and see its Google review score.

“Music, a mode of creative expression consisting of sound and silence expressed through time, was given a 6.8 out of 10 rating in an review published Monday on Pitchfork Media, a well-known music-criticism website.” [1]

[1] https://entertainment.theonion.com/pitchfork-gives-music-6-8...

That would probably just end up being a map of economic conditions in any given section of town. The seedy parts will be lower rated overall (even if there's a highly rated ethnic food joint or whatever), while the swanky parts will have nicer things. That's my guess, although I think you should still do it, because I might be totally wrong. And interesting patterns might still appear even if I'm right.
Even if it is just a map of economic conditions, that's a useful thing to have.

I could imagine it being a great way to find "diamonds in the rough" too where certain places are much higher rated than the places around them.

If it's based only on Google reviews I think it'll be static. For example, the taco Bell in my hometown has 4.5 stars on Google because it's one of the only restaurants in the area.
> Ultimately I suppose you’d be able to zoom out to the world and see its Google review score.

Mostly harmless?