Bio

Software engineer in Mount Olive, NJ. I wanted to use OSM for a work project and was a bit depressed when I saw how neglected my area of the map was. So I decided to bring my area up to code.

While I mainly will be focusing on micro mapping my home town, don’t be surprised if I pop into random areas of the world that I hear about and add a few details.

Strategy

I only have a loose one.

Utility

I really am trying to make the map more useful. But I don’t really know who is using the map and how, so I mainly focus on GPS Navigation. I spend the most time on the areas of the map where I drive the most. I am trying to make sure anybody using it for GPS navigation has correct information. My area of the map has a lot of turn restrictions and accident prone areas that I try to include to reduce possible accidents.

Autonomous Vehicles

In the case of AV use, I do try to get all the stop signs added to the streets.

Efficiency

For efficiency sake, I am batching a lot of large edits together. I tend to keep most of the changes to local areas, but I often scroll around the map randomly improving alignment to the aerial maps.

Anything that I think I may be doing wrong or controversial I try to do in small edits.

Aesthetics

Lastly I do try to make the map aesthetically pleasing. There is a beauty to consistent abstraction of an area.

New Jersey

This state is absolutely maddening to try to figure out. It’s like a giant small city, so streets love to change names where they grew together. There’s also many large trees in my area it’s difficult to map a lot of features from the aerial views, but I am still trying my best.

Splines

Nothing in NJ is straight for long, so I really wish I had splines at times. I found out JOSM has splines, but they’re a bit awkward to use.

Nail Salons

Why are there so many nail salons in my city?

Cartography

I find weird timeless connection to history by contributing to this map. Maps have been so important to understanding history, so I wonder if my changes will help future generations understand my time.