Hello, and how do you welcome to another Adventures in Angular. My name
is Lissa Michael and today with us on the show we have Brooks Forces Hello,
Chris Ford Hello, and Brad McAllister. Hello. That great? Is
it mc allister or Mick Alistair either? Technically? Technically it's probably Mick Alistair,
but you know it just kind of goes again, well, welcome,
welcome. We are so pumped to officially have you on the panel, so
God to have you, Branda, Thank you very much glad to be here.
And our guest of honor this afternoon or morning, whatever time it is
for you, is Katerina. Katerina, can you tell us a little bit
about yourself? Sure? So, first of all, it's evening for me,
and my name is Catherine Scrumpello, So just an out there on the
pronunciation. I know it's hard. I'm a Google Ole blog expert for Anglar,
Google Maps and Bob Technologies. I'm a software engineer at Narwol and I
also round the Young. I also I'm the co founder and helped rom the
Anglo Autans meet up to me for anger here in appens. And I also
like to play around with new technologies for the webs, and I really really
like maps, as you will find out today. I know I heard our
our title our conversation today is working at Google Maps and Angular specifically, so
I'm super super excited about the topic. And I didn't know that you were
a gde and so many things. That's awesome. And today I learned that
I've been pronouncing your last name incredibly wrong. How are you how are you
saying? I don't know. Yeah, some some Greeks even failed to pronounce
it correctly. So yeah, that's good. Say it again. Say it
again so I can kind of cement it. Yes, okay, I will
do my best. You remember that from now you need to give us all
the test at the end of the episode. No, I want to do
that. You're like the Katerina in like the Angular and the community to me,
and so I'm like, yeah, it's like, just does she need
any other Like, oh my goodness, well, welcome to the show.
Let's die right and tell us what we're talking about. Eve though I kind
of spoiled it a little bit. Yeah, so today we'll we'll talk about
Google Maps and Angular. I've done a few talks in the past about the
subject, but today I was hoping that since we have a panel, and
since I may be getting questions from you, we can dive a little bit
deeper on some of the points, so you can ask me a few things
like what can you really do or these types of things. So I don't
know exactly how you would like to get started. Yeah, like what project
did you get started on with maps? So like what led you into the
whole maps thing? So thank you for the next question. So first I
was always into maps. Maybe a bit later I will tell you a cute
little story of how I got into Google Maps and Google Earth in the first
place. But when I was my first job was working for a research institute
here in Greece and we were working on some projects that needed us to have
some web maps where we would have to input some geocoding and some gelocation on
the map so us to control some some fleets for the fire service and also
add some security features of where, for example, some fire truck should go
if there was a fire, because it was such a project that was for
managing the fire service fleet, so we needed to use maps for that.
And it was my first ever job as a web developer, and it was
back then I was using Angler JS. It was Angler one point three or
one point four, I think it was a long time ago. So with
this tool I also had I had also started working with open Layers. From
Layers is the very, very complex and comprehensive library that you can use to
add maps to your web application. It's sort of like having a full GIS
engine on your browser. But it turns out that because of some permissions and
some other things that we needed to deploy this application, we had to switch
to Google Maps. So back then, the Google Maps Joss crept api had
a lot less things than it supports now, and we're going to see what
it supports later on. So I had to find a way to bring over
all the functionalities that I was implementing in open Layers, which was a complex,
comprehensive library, into Google Maps. So some of the functionalities was adding
annotations on the map, creating visuals, saving geojacent files, and a lot
of complex things that somebody can do on a jas software. So that was
the first thing that got me into using the Google Maps Joss creep api and
I it was a first deep dive into its back. I don't remember how
it was seven years ago maybe or six or seven years ago, which was
a lot simpler than it is now. So this interesting question brought up a
number of subjects like what is data annotation on a map? And what is
a g Jason file? And what is a gis software? So maybe we
can start looking into these things separately a little bit, if you don't mind.
What do you think? That was one of those I had one of
those questions ready to I know and I can just sit here and wrapped and
listen learn. Yeah, so there was one word question before that, before
Brad asked the question for me, there was a question what is a map?
So a map is a two dimensional Yeah, is a two dimensional representation
of a piece of earth. Right, It's just if you think about it,
if you look at the map, it can't be to scale, it
can be not on, not in scale, but it's still a two dimensional
representation. You can trust fare and it will be a two dimensional presentation of
a building. You can open the Google Maps application in your phone and you
see all these lines and all these dots, and it's a two dimensional representation
of your neighborhood. So a map is just that, It's just some lines
and some dots that represent data and the data represents the actual world, and
we have come up with some conventions to sort of educate our minds as to
what this data means. So a map is just done and gas software is
geographical information system software. This is what the acronym means. And some software
that is made to manage this information. This data that is connected to geographical
information and a maps engine, for example, is in a way a geographical
information system in a way in a much simpler way, for example, is
a map like is a webmap library. Then this data is represented on a
map. Is usually represented is some standard formats. A standard a very standard
than usual format to represent geographical data is Geodjason, which is Jason that is
made to represent geographical data. It's pretty what's the words, Yes, it's
a pretty obvious word. What it means other typical types of data. Of
ways to represent geographical data is a KML or GML, which is specific for
Google maps, and luckily Google maps as most geographical information systems support all these
types of data. Were there any other unknown words that I introduced in my
first part? Think I have a question based on what you said. The
GEO Jason is it is it like, is it actually just Jason or is
it? Yes, it's Jason, it is Jason. But it has a
specific format yes, okay, okay, cool, it has some specific conventions
of the different geometries you can describe using it. Okay. It sounds like
a good reason for another new lint. Yeah, apparently there is Geojason dot
org and it goes over that spec Yes, exactly. Then my question was,
can we please have the cute story of how you got into maps?
Because of course, so I must have been like fourteen years old when my
father had a work trip in banglandge right. I live in Greece, so
I'm an only child. So my attachment to my parents is borderline unhealthy already.
So my father being away in another continent for ten days, you can
only imagine how terrifying that was for me. So my uncle had come visits
me at home at that period, so he wanted to try and make me
feel better. And that was back in two thousand and two, I think.
So he told me, catter in a common here, I'll show you
something. I'll show you this new amazing application that you can use on your
computer that Google made that you can see the world from above. So he
opened up Google Earth. It was a totally new thing then. I think
it came up in two thousand and one, so you know, it was
pretty new then. I had never seen it before. And he zoomed over
in Banglund, Desh and he told me, there's your father. You can
always go there and see him from above if you want. So for the
whole of next week, you can imagine, I was just looking at satellite
imagery of Daka, for example. And from then I started being obsessed with
Google Earth and then eventually Google Maps. That's cool. Did you like call
your dad and like where are you in? Like zooman on him? Like
yeah, it was sort of that way, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I got yeah. I always felt ever ever since then, I always felt
a little bit of an attachment to whards, Google Earth and Google Maps.
So my obsession with maps started back then, and when I grew older,
I turned out my first my first degree was the start architectural engineering, and
I had to focus on city planning, and then I got my master's degree
in special data analysis and that's where I learned all about geographical information systems and
spacial data. And it turned out that I really loved drawing maps and putting
pins on maps and being aware of my position in space. So yeah,
so whatever, like what brought angular into that picture? Exactly? How do
you bring angular into that picture? So in my first work, as I
said, I my first ever actual contact with web development, like in a
working environment was at my first job at the Research Institute, and I had
a colleague who introduced me into Angular and it was Angler one point three I
think back then. And because we had to build this system that managed this
fire truck fleet, I and they needed my expertise for maps, and I
started using Angler for that because it was the only thing I was learned at
that point. I had to bring this two together. So as you can
imagine, that was like so many years ago. Was everything was so much
different and so much simpler. So when I moved over to two Angler and
Google Maps and working there, as the year passed and Angler evolved changed to
Angler, not Angler JS and Google Maps just with apik over with version three
and more and more APIs and more capabilities for to his toolbox. I never
I never wanted to stop combining these two because it was the first two technologies
that I started working with in my in the working environment obviously, because back
then Anglar was not in typescript and was a lot more different in all the
ways that it is now. It was just the library. The way to
bring Google Maps into Angular was very very simple. You just as as you
would add any library back then, you could just link it. You could
just add a link, an import link in index dot html, right the
same way as you would add any script. So when I started working with
Angular two point zero and on and I wanted to use the Google Map charts
with the API, it was a lot more complicated at first. When I
started with that, I think there wasn't a library I was aware of at
least, and I sort of googled don't get up Google and stack overflow of
course on how to bring over Google Maps your CPAPI in an Angler app.
And it was very simple. You just created a script looader. You just
added the service that would load the script in your in your dominant. Then
the script would load and you would add sort of a callback and just grab
the library whenever it was ready. So when I found that workaround, that
simple workaround, yeah, I was happy again that I would work with Angular
and Google Maps because of course, the new Angler gave me all the all
the more great capabilities like using the futureild and using the life cycle hooks and
everything to control them map because of course, in order to get access to
the map objects, you you need access to the dome and you need access
to the events that the user is doing, and everything was so much easier
with Angler. Now. The reason I so the thing is that maybe the
interesting thing is that I had never used a library, sort of a wrapper
library around Google Maps in Angler. And I know there are a lot of
libraries, and some of them are very good that take care of that.
And it wasn't that it was being snobbish or anything or saying that it's not
good to use a ropper library for the API, but it's that's because I
always needed to do something a little bit more complicated than the integration that these
libraries had. I always had to use some parts of the native joboscript API
of Google Maps, and I went with that way. If somebody needs to
do something simple with Google Maps, then I guess they should use a library
because it would make them, it would make their lives easier, I guess.
So that begs the question why don't you write one that does all the
things you need to do, all the complex things work, yet one more
library? Then Yeah, no, because I never thought of that, because
I thought that, I mean, the existing libraries are pretty good to do
what somebody needs. And I always felt that if somebody wanted to go one
step further, the native jobst with APIs grades, and they have they always
have a lot of greats code samples and the reference the APA references great.
So even if I did make the library that dropped that, then even newer
APIs would come and I would need cover that, and it would be,
like Jason my tails, Sure, Sure, it'll be a lot of maintaining.
Yeah, and not really worth it because as I'm saying, you can
it's pretty easy to integrate. It's not that you need much. And what's
pretty interesting now is that during the past i don't know, a couple of
months, they Google Maps have started putting out typescript examples which they didn't have
until recently. And yeah, I will give you a link. I had
so Yeah, because I really liked the Google Maps and I really liked Angler.
I had already created a lot of like code samples with typeescripts with Vanilla
typescript and with Angler, and I had made a couple of days most that
they were showing in Google Maps events, and I was very proud of myself,
you know. Yeah, and now they made obviously their own types with
examples to cover the whole of the API. Awesome type script for the wind.
Yes, yeah, there were they were already types. They're you know,
definitely typed had already created a pigat of types. Yeah, an Angular
ten, don't they just bring in? Isn't there a yeah? Okay,
because I was, I was using a library in Angular nine, a GM
was the Yeah, that's the one, and then Angler ten. It wasn't
updating Tangler ten because they said on the get up, like, well Angular
ten has a the module or whatever that they've made, right exactly. So
now the Google Maps is part of Angler components. Angler components, you know,
c the Angular material next thing, and yeah, Google Maps is a
part of Angular components now. And the Google Maps components makes everything so simple
because it handles the loading of the API like totally smoothly. You just have
the components, you just linked to the API and you have it there.
It makes everything simpler and luckily it does have a lot of wrappings around a
lot of parts of the API, and if you want to go one step
further, well you can still use that and combine it with the native jobs
Free API. So it's it's pretty useful and it's great. I was very
excited you still have found reasons to need the native jobscript API then, yeah,
because you so let's go over some parts of the job Street API.
So I don't know how familiar you are with the Google's Joy API, but
you can do a lot of things. Like the simpler thing you can think
about when using a map, I guess is adding a pin on a map,
right, I guess it's the most obvious thing that we're all familiar with,
Like you open Google Maps and it's full of pins there of businesses and
everything. But the when you're working with the API, you can also create
data visualizations. I am sure, especially now with the spread of COVID,
you have all seene maps where you have visualizations on maps that you have COVID
data, for example circles around hotspots or heat maps of where cases are are
more or the concentration of cases. So the Google Maps just with API does
offer libraries to help you visualize your data during heat maps or in other ways.
Yeah, I would already hear just like a list of things you can
do, because I personally have never worked with Google Maps. So like you're
saying that you can do heat maps, you can, can you do like
custom drawings on the map, or of course, so one or more things
that you can do. Of course, if you have data, and you
have data and you import it on the map. And as I said,
the Google Maps just with API supports most major geographical data types. I mean,
it supports the munch you will you will need like it it supports of
course you can always read a CSBN parton into adjacent. It supports Jason adjacent,
KML, GML, GRSS, so anything you may need. So if
you have data and you're important on the map Google Maps, it gives you
ways to visualize that either in heat maps or you can add points. And
because you can add your own custom markers or your own custom drawings. For
example, you can add points of different sizes to indicate a concentration of data.
As I said before, another thing you can do is animates points,
so you can create animations on Google Maps for example, a ship that is
moving or a plane that is moving. Another thing you can do. Another
pretty simple thing that you can do is that you can brand your map to
match your business or whatever you want. You can change the colors. You
can remove features from the map, so you can remove types of roads.
You can change the language of the places, or you can remove tiles from
places. You can change the color of geography. So geographies are like the
water or place or I don't know, role, I don't know what it's
called mountains, mountains, yeah, exactly, yes, So anything that is
grouped into taxonomy. Say, you can change scholar whenever I cannot think of
a word in English. I used it the Greek equivalent. I love it.
It's just Greek and it sounds fancy as well. That's what we do.
We use French words when we need to do that. Yeah, sound
fancy, yeah. So. Or you can also, of course ask for
the user's location and add it on the back, you know, the little
blue dog that you're seeing on your phone, to personalize them mapp for example,
all the location based services you can build your own because you have the
user's location, and Google Maps also offers you access to the place's library,
the Place's API. So the place's API is access to all the places that
you see on Google Maps. You know, all the businesses, all the
names, all the town. So you can build a search around that and
and provide service and provide yeah, with location based your users. With location
based services. Also you can use the address of a complete feature that you
cannot do in your applications. For example, if for users wants to input
their address, they can either start typing and then the address will be filled
out, or they can put a pin on the map and you can get
the address from that. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, so
there is billing. There is billing course, especially for the Yeah, but
the billing is is pretty it's not as expensive as you may think. I'll
find the billing page in the end after I've gone through the list of things.
But yeah, like the real world like real world costs of all this
stuff. Yeah, yeah, we will see. And there is also I
think a price calculator that you can use of course with all Google services.
So yeah, the Google Maps platform, Yeah, it's part of Google Cloud
platform. So if you have an account google Cloud Platform, or if you're
using any other Google Cloud services, it will be added into that bill.
Yeah, it's really really interesting because I worked at a place a number of
years ago where we needed like an address basically what you've described, you know,
an address finder thing as part of the application. And here in the
UK certainly at the time, there was like only one company that provided that
service, and so it was just astronomically expensive. It just it just prised
us out by the company. We just couldn't do it because it was so
expensive. Actually really interested that that's now part of part of the Google Maps
because just yeah, that was great. Yeah it is. Yeah, it's
it's very powerful if you think about it, because think of all the data
that Google Maps has accumulated. It's very crazy. So, yeah, what
else you can do. You can add your custom legends, or you can
add any custom batons do you want on your up to control it, to
turn it around, to change the direction the bearing or the zoom, and
other interesting things that you can do is you can calculate distances, like distances
sort of it either in real life, like you know how they're skirt and
it's sure are you sure? Sorry? No, I'm sorry no, I
mean it provides you with a distance matrix with a distance Matrix API, and
you can either you can either of course calculate distances taken from either taken from
directions or by by using a formula to calculate the distance on a sphere on
you on the spheroid. There's also data about the about elevation. So if
you want to build a walking application or a hiking application or a biking application,
elevation is the one thing you should definitely care about. So the Elevation
and Service gives you the elevation of each point on the map that you want,
I guess I think most points, and you can use that in order
to first of all, to calculate distances more accurately, and second of all
to provide the walker or the biker with the difference in elevation so that they
can take this into accounts and you can create more accurate applications towards that direction.
And you get the what's it called the contour lines that they show you
how steep something is like when they're when they're super close together, it means
it's really steep on it as well, I don't so there is the terrain.
So if you go on goal maps or you can also do it from
the goal. On API, you can switch the view to terrain, and
I'm pretty sure the terrain does show you sort of something like control lines.
But let me see someone from Google will listen to this and go, we
must add the contour lines. No, I'm pretty sure there is. I
want to check. We have these maps in We have these maps here called
ordinance survey maps. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so they they're they're
like a really really specific, very very highly detailed type of map. They
they are loved by you know, walkers and cyclists and things like that,
because they do give you that information about the contour lines and also where where
your nearest pub is and things like that, all the important information if you're
out, if you're out and about. Yeah, I mean I used when
I was so, I did my master's in London and my dream, my
initial dream when I was halfway from my masters was to work for owner Survey
at some point. Yeah, they're about about five miles away. Yeah,
that's absolutely well. Bonus points for catuli. Yeah, yeah, because I'm
telling you my first dream was to work for survey because when it was obviously
when I was studying the special data thing, all we would care about was
Ordnance Survey and their PERFORCT maps. I got bad news. So as I
see, the terrain does not have the control lines, but it does show
you how the terrain is, so you can say that in a way,
it's like it has the control lines. I accept that answer. So what
about geofencing? Can you I'm assuming you can do that? And can you
specify like how big of an area is the fence or how small? Yes,
so you can't. And if, for example you can. Also when
somebody is searching for an address or they want to move around the map,
you can. You can set the bounds of the area that you can allow
them to search in, for example. And I guess this can be.
It can one step further and if you want to restrict look at these services,
you can restrict it to a specific area by setting the map bound.
One more great thing that I really like about Google Maps is the drawing library.
The drawing library is what it is, it's what it says it is.
It allows you to draw on the map. So it can give you
a number. I think it has five different types of controls. And yeah,
so it gives you you can draw a marker, a circle, a
polygon, a poll line, or a rectangle. But you can adjust all
these and you can change their color, their opacity, their outline, or
you can change the type of marker, or you can change the type of
polloline. So you can pretty much draw anything you want on the map and
it appears as an overlay on the map, and it's GEO. It's GEO
reference, so you can pretty much save it and expert it as a g
adjacent or as a KML, or as whatever you want so that you can
re used. Or for example, if you're if you're trying to design,
if you're trying sort of to create a Derfin scenario, or if you have
a map and you want to draw over, like with a lay over it's
where you want some area bounds to be. Or if you're say organizing an
event in a big large area and you want to sort of understand where everything
you will be, Or if you have your satellite map and you want to
mark the locations of trees or some buildings, you can just draw over these
places and export them and you can have geolocate georeference so that you can have
them in your gas application, for example. And in a gas application,
then you can take this into whatever complicated thing bos developer does or an architect
as I guess what else and other things that Google Maps integrates well with.
Oh, you can also, of course, because you get access to so
the the Google street View start a API. You can also create some applications
that you click on the place and give you the street view of it.
Or you can change the of course, you can change the tilts of your
map and according to the view, you can I don't know, potentially you
can create some nice visuals. Yes, any questions so far, okay,
try me. This is I'm finding this absolutely fascinating. Actually, I realized
listening to speak that I've done. I've used mapping in like every job I've
had, probably since I entered this industry. I haven't really even thought about
it. I've used use Google Maps about my very very very first job,
like building just building websites, I had to do with Google Maps, and
I didn't know any JavaScript. I was just a HTMI and CSS boy then.
And I remember that I remember the config object for that being quite complicated
and all I all I really wanted to do was it was for like a
car rental place. I just I just needed to show all of their branches
on a map, right, And I remember that being quite complex. But
then since since then, I've I've used map box in one job and I
have used leaflet in another one, And I was just interested to know if
you had any opinions on is there any reason why Google I kind of feel
like you kind of answered this is that I was gonna say the only reason
why Google Maps is necessarily better than those but I mean sounds like Google Maps
does app so this is my understand as well. But I know that it's
it's been a long long time since I last used leaftlets, so it wouldn't
really be fair to say that I know what capabilities leaflet offers, because I
guess seven years ago Google maps would offer half of what it offers now.
But I do know that leaflet leaflets maybe for a bit some simpler implementations,
and I know map box offers of complexity handling, but I really haven't used
this in a long time, so I'm not sure. What I can't tell
you, however, is that if you want to go really complex, maybe
you should use open layers, because open layers really almost simulates JS software.
But I guess for the average and above average user, Google Maps can cover
pretty much everything. I remember one of them forced you to use bing Maps,
and that was enough for me to despise everything about it. Yeah,
so yeah. The good thing about Google Map, the Google Maps SHOSBI is
that you use Google Maps, which has everything on it, I mean,
and it's very familiar for your user as well, because chances are your user
uses Google Maps in their everyday life, so they will already be familiar with
it. That answers all of my one million questions. Thank you? Okay,
okay, so what's yeah, sorry, that's fine. So back around
to the geo fencing thing. That's cool that you could restrict the map like
that. But I was thinking about like mobile applications and when your device gets
into a specific area, is do you use Google Maps for that or is
there some other GPS API that you would use for that? I guess you
would use some other gp Okay, yes, so I know that the browser
offers the location API natively, so you wouldn't need the Google Maps API to
to get the location of a user. I know nothing about this, which
is why I asked the question. No worries, but what's to get a
little bit back an Angular for a moment, But I think the Tangular and
the way it handles your view and the way things are rendered, are loaded
and loaded really improves the experience of working with Google Maps. And also because
it uses typescripts, it really helps to have types and really understand It really
helps you use the complex API of Google Maps if everything is typed and everything
is within the context of Angular. Because once you load it and you grab
the elements, the elements that you want to use with the view child and
you use you use the user interactions and the the dom events from within Angular,
I think everything is a lot more smaller than using the the plane geoscrept
API on a plane geoscript application. So if it really improves the experience.
Have you played with this map style that with Google dot Com? Of course,
yeah, that's different. Yeah, it is a big thing. And
it wasn't there. It was there, It wasn't always there. It was
pretty recent. I think it's been like a year that it's been around.
Before that you would just have adjacent file and you would just play around and
real Yeah, so for those listening, it's like a wusywig for basically over
your options for styling the map. There would be a link in the show
notes, but then you can Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun just
to even mess around with and make a weird looking map. Yeah. Yeah,
it does what I described in the beginning, where you can change the
color of geometries or even remove geometries completely. And you can really use this
to the advantage of your business because you can brand your map to totally match
the brand of your business or your website or whatever it is that you're doing.
Yeah, and then you just take the jason and paste it in.
Yeah. Yeah. I've seen the dark one on some some psyche somewhere I
can't remember where, but I thought, oh, that's cool how they do
that. Well now we know. So now all the other panelists are building
their own maps. You broke the episode. They're like, oh, I
like the retro you the best. But anyways, Yeah, at the end
of the episode, I'll give you another link to try out. It's my
my sample for using the the drawing library where you can draw on them map.
This is very addict as well. I was imagining i'd be like drawing
in canvas, but the way you described it, it is not like drawing
and can. It may seem like it, but it's much more powerful because
it's it's scales as usuming and out its scales, and then you can export
it and reuse it and import it again. So that's awesome. Have you
ever seen the street new cars drive by? Never? No, never,
never. I've bought him I think three times in my life, and mean
and my husband always stop and we're like like trying to get on. I've
only seen them driving and wish I was being I haven't found I haven't found
a photo of me yet, but I try every time I see when I
try, I found out cars on various ones, and it's the funny thing
is because they don't update them very frequently. Like there's actually evidence of me
living in about half a dozen different houses on the same Oh, there's one
of my cars. I've forgotten about that one I did. I saw a
thing I think it was on Twitter the other day where a dog was following
the van. And so this dog, if you just moved down the street
in the street view, the dog was just in every single photo. It
was just enjoying following the van. I choose to believe that you didn't live
in those houses. I just choose to believe you scattered your vast car collection
across the house. Right, it's my car and absolutely exactly so in my
neighborhood. It has only passed three times as I see now, one into
two thousand and nine, one in two thousand and eleven, and one into
twenty fourteen. So and it's always do you see when it passes? I
didn't know you could see that. Oh you could know. You can see
when it passes. You can see the when is the imagery from? Oh?
Yeah, where where's that? So if you go and stretch you and
you go to and you open street you in your area, and you go
to the top right and it says your address and it says street you in
small letters and it's it has sort of a clock with I guess the consume
my screen. But if you click on the clock you can see nice.
Yes, I was guessing. I was like, I think this is around
this year, but winter, you know, let me share me is like,
where is it? I'm trying to find the car one of my old
houses. He misses that car. Mh oh. I have a new MacBook,
so it doesn't let me share until I close and open again, so
I won't be sharing my screen. That's alright, this is after all I
found it June two thousand and nine is in the top left, so they
they've gone past since I moved down, which is why my car is going.
You can go you can go back in time and see yeah, yeah,
oh that's awesome. Where is where is it that you got the dress
and the top left and then there's a little clock with like arrows on it
and you open that you think, so I can go back as far as
September twenty twelve. That's pretty funky. I have to say, yes,
Wait, why is it funky? Liken? Oh? Funky is We would
say that over here to mean, yeah, that's that's pretty cool. I
see because funky here is like that's pretty jnk oh okay, No, funky
is like, oh yeah, that's funky cool. Did you just use jink
to describe another word that doesn't make such sense? Okay? One that makes
sense is just like animation talk? Is there? Oh? I don't know.
I think like we would say, I mean, it's like gang,
but it starts with a J. Yeah, is it? Yeah? Is
it? Is it? James aldother meaning in America by just being like horrendous?
Does it? It's a silly sounded word to me. That's why I'm
laughing all over the crowd. Is he talking about that? Oh my goodness.
Well we are at the top of the hour. Is there anything else
that you wanted to cover about Google Maps in Angular before we hit to our
picks? Any other of your quest questions? No? Okod not for me?
Why is my lawn so green? In twenty twelve and now it was
climate change? All right? Raise your hand? Who's got the picks?
Who's got them? Anybody? Brant being here has broken the usual order of
things. I got picks. I'm ready do it. Brooks's kind of on
here. Yeah, two two picks. One is JavaScript related single spot dot
jazz and that is a framework that lets you is different front end frameworks on
the same single page application. So I had the request of converting a React
application to Angular slowly, so you know, keeping the reacts that going and
doing new development Angular. So this is what I've been looking at and making
up poc with. So it's worked out well so far. So talked about
that and then to bring in the maps. There is a documentary called Behind
the Curve on Netflix and it's about flat earthers and the whole culture and yeah,
why they believe in what they believe it and all of that. The
very Yeah, so excited. I love that thing. I have watched I
have watched that documentary. Yeah, it's good, it's good. I wasn't
convinced though, I don't think a point. But yeah, I don't think
they set out to convince you. I think they set up to show you,
just to show you what happens when you run a twenty thousand dollars gyroscope.
Yeah, and it's it's definitely interesting in today's age, conspiracies and stuff.
So yeah, yes, we should do a podcast, just one episode
about that show that would be amazing about Behind the Herb. Yeah, yeah,
just just a one episode movie podcast. Yeah. Spin off, well,
we spin off into like multiple episodes about it and pick a little piece
here and there. What are those called where it's like you they started doing
them on Twitch, like watching a movie and you're streaming watching it. Yeah,
I don't know the reactions video, it's just according to I never watch
them, but according to all of the thumbnails and YouTube, it basically get
involved this like all like this or this. Yeah, yeah, maybe,
Oh so Brad, Brad or Chris, anybody picks oh go? Since I
interrupted Brooks anyway to be so excited about his pic, I have one pick,
and it is the stool I'm sitting on. It's the Ergo stool from
Autonomous dot a I, and it is fantastic. It just I can rotate,
but I don't feel like I'm sitting on an exercise ball. So it's
kind of like helps your core and also helps your back hurt because the muscles
are being worked out, That's why. But it raises and lowers and it's
got a little like scooped the bottom so you can till. Does it have
artificial intelligence? And it doesn't. I don't know why you said. It
was named autonomous is by a company called Autonomous AI. Yeah they think.
If I remember correctly, they started on Kickstarter by doing sit stand desk kits,
so like you could do the legs. I want to know what artificial
intelligence is in this company. I yeah, anyway, the stool is great.
It fits in my little spot where my little makeshift desk is and I
could row take my core in. Looks really, he looks really awesome right
by the way he's doing something. Yes, I wanted to get that stool
as well. I got the chair by autonomous, but I want to charger
the stool as well. But it wasn't shipping to Greece. Yeah, that
sucks. It took me because I got it during COVID because then I need
somewhere to say. So it took forever, but I think a lot of
that stuff's been fixed. Now. How long can you do you stool for
like all day hours at a time or do you need a break from This
is such an odd conversation. How is your stool my stool? Is that
I'm not It's probably for the best that you're not to be fair for this
exactly, but I think that still stunds for something else as well or not.
It could It could, okay, in a in a medical context,
I suppose most usually that's what the doctors refer to your okay, okay,
gotcha? Yeah that also not for a few hours and then I'll have to
stand sometimes. And then I was like, because I feel like I would
get very tired. You do, you do? But it's it's still good
because it's nice, it's easy. Yeah, I enjoyed it so Yeah,
so that's my pic. I guess I could pick the desk to my son,
but one of the desk kits and built his desk and it's pretty awesome.
It's a great six day and desk at a good price. So yeah,
those can be very expensive. They can, and they don't have to
be Chris, Chris, where you got for us? Yeah, I'm going
to pick two things. One inspired by this episode is this app called What
Three Words. If you're familiar with that at all, I want to say
it's a British company and they basically came up with a new way of doing
mapping. They divided the entire face of the earth into nine square meter squares,
which is something in feet for the people using imperial measurement, and basically
assigned each square. So the entire earth hat is made up of these little
squares, and each square is assigned a three word combination. And so like
you're talking like quite small. I can't show you my hands because my arm's
on that long. But the idea is that it can be used by people
like the emergency services if you if you're lost in the woods, as may
happen, for example, and you like I have no idea where I am,
and maybe GPS you get that thing where you just get the huge blue
circle because it can't actually zone in and where you are. You load up
what three words up on your phone and it will literally be like you can
call the police and be like, what are your words? Be like a
camel, hippopotamus and chicken nuggets, and I'll be able to use that to
work out exactly which of these tiny squares you're in and go straight to you.
And I just think that is mental but also pretty awesome that somebody came
up with that. So that's a really nice idea. I had it on
my phone for a bit and then, to be honest, I got bored.
I don't get Lost in the Woods off, but I can imagine it's
really useful, and I thought, this is the second Frozen movie. All
I can hear is the in the Woods song. There was a Last in
the Wood songs. Every time I say it, I'm like Last in the
Woods like it. It's just I have two sons. The only thing that
goes on in my ass is Thomas the tank engine and cars, and that
is my life. Some of us watch things like Frozen and Disney Channel for
fun. But you know there's a no judgment zone. I judge, I
am, I have no judgment. My pick mile a pick. I picked
it a couple of weeks ago when it was a pre order. It's a
video game came out last week's called The Kingdoms of Amla Rereckoning. It's this
big RPG that was out maybe like seven eight years ago, and I loved
it. And I've just basically remastered it and chucked it back out and stuck
a full price tag on it. But I got it. I love it.
I was. I found myself up at like one thirty am this morning
and today I was. I was deeply regretful for that, because I'm kind
of too old on a Monday morning for that now. But it is a
great game. I really like it. So I also have two One thing
about your picks. I have something to say about everybody's picks. I don't
know how to jump in. Back in twenty fourteen, I was at a
conference in Leeds, the GIS Research UK just Rock conference and what three words
were presented and they were they were just starting to get their their words out
and it was an amazing presentation because you know the company that was just starting
and they were just explaining how everything that you described, and I was really
really amazed, and I always liked what three words? Since that night and
I've spent hours also looking at combinations of words and where they point to have
We searched camel, hippopotamus, chicken, nuggat chip dogies we called meggies and
my favor my okay, so my pick while they're looking up their three words
is U Wednesdays with Alyssa. Who's me? He uncoded live the Twitch channel.
Check it out. We do some fancyss challenges three pm Eastern every Wednesday.
Yeah, see you all, Katerina. What are your picks? Darling?
So I hadn't really understood what pickspur when I put these notes into the
Google doc that we have for preparation. Yeah, no worries, it's just
anything because I saw that you're in that is that how you're saying? So
I love sci fi fantasy books, love, but I've never even heard of
this broce of So can you give us like a rundown of who and what
and if we want to start reading, where do we begin? Because I
think there's a lot right like did you say are you talking about Isaac Asimov.
Yes, and you'd never heard of him. No, I'm very well,
I have I don't. I don't judge. This is no judgment zone.
I've never read I'm sorry, I'm in your pick. I've never read
either, at least I know honestly. I have a word with yourself.
Love. That's what we say. My gosh, so long. That's my
favorite part of like okay, go ahead, sorry, yeah, so yeah,
I really like Isaac osmov. Isaac Asimov is uh is a very famous
it was a very famous science fiction writer, and he established the Free Laws
of Robotics, and he wrote all these books about roberts and artificial intelligence.
And what's more exciting now is that I think started next year the foundation,
which he's sort of his mind of the mob is like he's great. One
of his great books and trilogies and whatever is being turned into a series.
I think it's an Apple TV. I'm not sure, and I'm very very
excited about that. And I'm rereading all the books now that I have of
him to get me going until the series comes out I think in January or
February. So it's one of the things that gives me excited these days,
which is totally not map related, but I love it. If someone wanted
to get started, is there a place like a first book they should read?
I would say that they could start with any books that have something to
do with Roberts. He has some. I think it's called The Late Robot,
which has all the short stories around robots. Or you could start with
I Robot for example. Nice, very nice. So yeah, that was
my pick. Thank you so much for coming on. Seriously, it was
wonderful having you learned so much about Google Maps and the jobscript api. I
had no idea it had that many capabilities, So thank you for coming on
and sharing your vast knowledge of the subject with us. Thank you very very
much for inviting me. It was very fun and it was a bit terrified
in the beginning, but yeah, you made you made the experience wonderful.
I was glad you were here. Yeah, yeah, it was fundulous.
It was super super interesting. And yes, there's no need to be nervous
because we're just all a bunch of idiots having a laugh, which is having
a laugh on a Monday evening. Am I supposed to laugh for it?
Really? Again, anything Chris says you just laugh. I ever laugh at
me because it just encourages me. Okay, awesome, Well we'll see you
on the next adventures. And thank you, thank you, Katerina, thank you.