nah, didn't really expect it...

[cellio]

It was unlikely, but it would be cool if MapQuest (or some similar service) provided a path-finding option that minimizes the expenditure of kinetic energy. For, y'know, pedestrians who want to take hills into account. The only customization option I see is "avoid highways", which I was going to do anyway. :-)

Oh well. I will just have to rely on my innate knowledge of the topography involved.

Comments

[cellio]

Heh. I'm not even taking the curvature of the earth into effect and asking if the map distances are "actually traversed" or "as the mole digs". Even a flat earth would have some topography like Pittsburgh's. :-)

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

Nope. It's entirely and completely planar. Barring excavations and other displacements, there are no "local disturbances," no curvature. Nothing. No "ups and downs." Nada. Totally flat.

Anything you perceive as up or down, or "topography" (whatever that means) is entirely in your head.

Lake and river beds and stuff is just an artifact of surface tension - and if somebody tried to spread you out on an infinite plain, you'd be tense too!

:)