alt Hacker NewsYou're right, "tell me which of these four preconceived routes is fastest" is much nicher than "telly me the fastest route"
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tptacek • yesterday at 2:03 AM
You get that this is a commute, right? Not charting a course through unfamiliar territory. A drive I've done thousands of times. I don't care if Waze thinks I should be on Harrison or Race. Fuck you, Waze. There's 4 reasonable routes; I just want to know which one.
It's an app with an audience of just me. That's the point. You're not supposed to want it. You have your own problems.
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It’s not the fastest route, because the algorithm is stupid as a result of trying to be smart.
It sees a small side road and thinks “I will take the user down here because there’s no traffic” But it doesn’t consider that the side road is empty because you’ll have to turn across four lanes of traffic in rush hour. So you get stuck for twenty minutes.