My weird new hobby: Wandering around Tokyo on Google Maps(ahmedhossamdev.com)
417 points by ahmedhossamdev 21 days ago | 175 comments
tl;dr: The author's new pastime is wandering Tokyo via Google Street View and using the historical capture feature to see how neighborhoods have changed over the years. They noticed a Nissan 350Z parked in the exact same spot across every capture since 2009, and after posting about it, a Reddit user visited the location to find both the car and the entire house had since been demolished—making Street View the only remaining record.
HN Discussion:
  • ↑Shares similar hobby of virtually wandering Tokyo or other cities via Street View or videos
  • ↑Values Street View's time-capsule/historical feature and hopes Google preserves it
  • ↑Shares personal anecdotes of getting obsessed with tracing specific things via Street View
  • ~Prefers actually walking Tokyo in person to virtual exploration
  • ↓Criticizes the article's writing style as AI-generated and off-putting