Ridwan

Maps are useless when the data doesn't exist. In Nigeria, Google maps will confidently route you to a wrong place or simply not have direction or information to where you want to go even if its a real or popular places millions go visit daily. This can be a real problem for navigation, logistic etc. So I started building MapLocale. The idea is simple: hyperlocal map data, collected on the ground, for the places the big platforms ignore. This thread is the full build log. Every decision, every line of code, every route collected will be documented here in real time. If that interests you, follow the replies.

Keep asking "why" in mathematics long enough and eventually the smartest person in the room has to say: "Because I said so." Axioms are not discovered truths. They are agreed-upon starting points. That's the foundation your equations sit on.

Russell and Whitehead built the most rigorous mathematical system ever written. 18 years later, Gödel proved it was incomplete. Any system powerful enough to do arithmetic will always contain truths it cannot prove from within itself. You cannot build a self-justifying mathematics. Period.

In 1910–1913, Whitehead and Russell spent 300+ pages to formally prove that 1 + 1 = 2. They didn't do it because it was obvious. They did it because mathematicians had entered a nihilism crisis, nothing felt grounded. So they built a logical fortress strong enough that no one would ever doubt again. Religion for mathematicians.

Pi is infinite: 3.14159265… NASA used 15 digits to land men on the moon. The rest of infinity was irrelevant. Math doesn't demand truth, it demands enough precision to function. That's a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

Egypt, Greece, China, India, different civilizations, different estimates of pi. None were exactly right. All of them built great monuments, wheels, and weapons anyway. The math was the same. The value was subjective. The results were identical. "Works" and "true" are not always the same thing.

Pi proved that mathematics is chaotic underneath. The "perfect shape", a circle, requires an infinite number to describe it precisely. Math didn't solve the chaos. It just built a formal system disciplined enough to tame it.

Take one drop of water. Add another. You get one big drop. In the "Wet Universe," 1 + 1 = 1. Now tell me: what exactly is 1? Because the more you divide any single thing toward infinity, every piece is still "1" of something. "1" is not objective. It's relative to context.

Mathematics is just philosophy that got too useful to stay philosophical. We made it rigid and structural so we can think less and achieve more. That's it. That's the whole trick.

We treat mathematics like it fell from the sky, objective, eternal, untouchable. But what if it's just a very disciplined way of thinking? My latest note unpacks why math might be philosophy in disguise and why that actually makes it more impressive, not less. Read it here open.substack.com/pub/theridwana…

Then this is what I got back. I went outdoor in open space, then it got more chaotic. Honestly, I don't even understand what's going on around here. Again the the red trace is what I have mapped and the blue is the GPS trace. So my discovery now is going in open space doesn't really help here. I can agree that the issue is is GPS and network coverage. Or another issue is my phones GPS device, yeah am using a phone. That's what the console is for github.com/theridwanade/m… So if the GPS is the wrong component, I have no idea what to do now. Let me think!

What's my next approach and what did I learn? Next approach is that I will update the github.com/theridwanade/m… to ingest and validate the path layer from the layer files am currently tracing. One major thing I learn is why its almost impossible to have accurate maps in Nigeria is that new buildings can literally spawn up in days. As I was tracing i have it in mind that some paths are been actively blocked right now.

Right, I went ahead aneed studied QGIS and here is what I came up with. Now I can overlay different maps, and use my own personal ground knowledge to trace the right roads and paths. Now this is just a test tracing, and I think its working. What to do now is to define missions, segments, zones, and figure out thr metadata that needs to be injested and update the maplocale_core accordingly.

Now new problem here, actually not a big problem but a creative problem but this is also one of the foundational problems with popular maps. And that problem is functional label and data, right now i can say I no the name of every major building on this campus, but what do we agree to call them, how do I decide the label I will give a particular road, or building, or intersection. I need ideas. 🤔

Maps are useless when the data doesn't exist. In Nigeria, Google maps will confidently route you to a wrong place or simply not have direction or information to where you want to go even if its a real or popular places millions go visit daily. This can be a real problem for navigation, logistic etc. So I started building MapLocale. The idea is simple: hyperlocal map data, collected on the ground, for the places the big platforms ignore. This thread is the full build log. Every decision, every line of code, every route collected will be documented here in real time. If that interests you, follow the replies.

@GithubProjects Very honest developer

Name the app?

Who was the first person that decided that bathing is neseecary? It took the prehistoric human time to discover fire, so when did they thought that their body is dirty and needs cleaning with water?

@kapilansh_twt Indeed a premium real estate, why just wait for the AI to think when you can watch a couple of ads

trillion dollar startup idea $$$ ads in the terminal every time Cursor generates code every time Claude thinks every time Codex runs you stare at a loading screen for 10-30 seconds that's premium ad real estate nobody is monetizing you're welcome

@CuriosityonX Well, that funds do be diverted soon. Space war will begin, I mean real space war

NASA if they had the U.S. defence budget:

@Akintola_steve Interesting, let's just keep building anyways

When a white-hat hacker gets their hands on your “very secure” app, you’ll rethink your whole life as a software engineer.

This is still slow internet compared to others, but this is joy 😁

If you compare this two images, left is layer from Open Street Maps and Right is Satellite image from ESRI. On both maps is my tracing in red color, notice how the main asphalt roads are correct, since they are real visible. My tracing add one tiny difference at the intersection to the University Library Park, and that's exactly what am doing, there are just a lot of walk able paths, that are valid both not on popular maps.