Recently I was shown something really funny about how the "Get Directions" of Google Maps work. Performing a driving direction search from "Shanghai, China" to "Taipei, Taiwan" showed the following:
Observe the step 33, it says "Swim across the Pacific Ocean". Wow! Really?
So I was curious to find what other interesting transit strategies does Google Maps suggest. So I did a driving direction search from "Honolulu, HI" to "Taipei, Taiwan" which showed the following:
Observe step 6, it says "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean" and the distance is just 3879mi compared to 165km of swimming before. Awesome!
Performing the same searches on Yahoo or Bing will disappoint some as it does not provide any such adventurous routes or strategies.
This reminds of the following quote from Bertrand Russell:
"A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short."
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