Expedition
Expedition
[Cueball is at a computer.] February 4th: Departed the mouth of the Lena River, heading south. It has been nearly half an hour and still no sign of civilization. The scroll wheel tempts me, but I will not cheat. Click click click
[Caption below the panel:] My hobby: Getting lost on Google Maps satellite

Google Maps is a service provided by Google that offers a map of the world including satellite and aerial imagery for free. Using the scroll wheel , the user can zoom out to see a larger area. Lena River is a river in Russia, flowing into the Arctic Ocean (with a large delta ).
Clicking on the comic leads to an online Google Maps page showing the satellite imagery of the Lena Delta . Travelling south up the river will lead to the city of Yakutsk and eventually to Lake Baikal .
It appears that Cueball is simply trying to explore the world without leaving his laptop or purchasing an expensive game.
Alternatively, he may be playing Mapcrunch , this 'game' randomizes a street view location with the goal of finding the airport.
The title text states that he apparently somewhat still treats it as a game and that he has been on it for at least a decade.
In the years since, a game called GeoGuessr has been released, with the user being put into a random location in Google Street View and asked to guess where they are in the world by analyzing clues in their environment. This often necessitates the user making their way from the middle of the wilderness to some manner of civilization, exactly as in the comic.
[Cueball is at a computer.] February 4th: Departed the mouth of the Lena River, heading south. It has been nearly half an hour and still no sign of civilization. The scroll wheel tempts me, but I will not cheat. Click click click
[Caption below the panel:] My hobby: Getting lost on Google Maps satellite
