Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? 519
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Moran writes in the BBC News Magazine that Sat-Nav clearly suits an era in which 'map-reading may be going the way of obsolete skills like calligraphy and roof-thatching.' Sat-Nav 'speaks to our contemporary anxieties and preoccupations about the road,' writes Moran. 'More roads and better cars mean we can travel further, and so the risk of getting lost is all the greater.' But do real men use sat-nav? Moran says that men seem to recoil from being given digital instructions by a woman, and read the satnav woman's pregnant pauses, or her curt phrases like 'make a legal U-turn' and 'recalculating the route', as stubborn or bossy. Still we don't quite trust the electronic voice to get us where we want to go. 'Since before even the arrival of the car, people have worried that maps sever us from real places, render the world untouchable, reduce it to a bare outline of Cartesian lines and intersections,' writes Moran. 'Sat-nav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.'"
Re:speed dial (Score:4, Informative)
if our satnav breaks we will use google maps on a smart phone.... in the long run its just no big deal.
Except in the UK, The Land Of The One-Way Roads, Where Straight Lines Are Forever Banished.
Since Roman times, anyway.
What's more (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't going to get rid of maps, it'll just make it such that most people don't own them. There are still plenty of uses for maps like, say, loading in to GPS units. Also there are all kinds of maps out there for special things: topographic maps, boundary maps, right of way maps, etc. These are not going away.
Basically, USGS is not going to suddenly say "Oh well, people have GPS now so let's just close up shop." Nope, we'll continue to have highly detailed maps of all kinds. GPS just allows us to use them easier. Take a computer, load all the maps up, and then it can give you an overlay for whatever kind you want at your location.
Re:Sorry, which planet Earth? -sextants still in u (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I'd partially deaf to bullshit.
Contrary to popular belief, it takes quite a lot to interfere with telecommunications. Not only do geomagnetic storms NOT last days (that'd be a ridiculous amount of energy output, and a days long continuous geomagnetic storm has NEVER been recorded), but severe ones powerful enough to interfere with equipment for more than a handful of minutes recur on the order of once every few decades.
Severe storms, large enough to disrupt half the planet, like the Carrington Event, occur roughly every 500 years, the last one being about 150 years ago, but believe me, if one of those hit us, your GPS would be the least of your concerns. The Carrington Event reportedly lit up the sky at night when the solar wind hit the Earth's magnetosphere, causing aurora as far south as Hawaii, and disrupting telegraph communication over half the world. Nowadays, it'd cause electrical fires all over the place by overloading power lines and blocking pretty much all forms of telecommunication. And bear in mind, this, the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded, barely lasted a single day.
Re:Road signs (Score:2, Informative)
He didn't even realise there was a shorter route.
At least on a map an alternate route is generally visible as you have a larger field of view.
Personally I'm at the "I'll never have one" stage with sat-nav at the moment.
Re:We use them because they're better (Score:4, Informative)
It's also possible to update a Satnav with new data if roads change, or new ones are built. Most people's car-atlases are obsolete if more than a few years old - meaning we have to replace them regularly to keep up-to-date. While the cost is small, it adds up with a new atlas every couple of years.
"possible" doesn't mean it's done in a timely manner. The folks who provide street data for Google Maps, for example, take years to add new streets in my town, and even existing streets that've been there as long as I can remember show up wrong, or don't show up (despite being clearly visible in the satellite imagery layer), while dirt roads off in the jungle used only by the National Guard for training show up just fine.
In this town (and, I suspect, many others) local knowledge is still important.
must of - please remember (Score:2, Informative)
Please remember that "must of" should be "must have". I know that they sound similar when using contractions (must've - which firefox won't even accept) but the first one is wrong while the second one is correct. The second one also makes a lot more sense.
This message is FYI only, not meant to be disrespectfull or anything.
Re:by the way...how do you know the periodicity? (Score:5, Informative)
And the reason we know the frequency of major geomagnetic storms is because of ice core samples whose stratified layers can yield details about Earth's atmosphere going back thousands of years. And unlike you, I don't get my info from a site that looks like something geocities vomited up.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bracing-for-a-solar-superstorm [scientificamerican.com]
And I picture you as someone too lazy to do any actual research into a subject before making unfounded assumptions, especially since even a 5 second Google search yields more credible sources than yours, which contradicts most of your post, as I've explained. I'm sure I certainly wouldn't want to hire you to help me with anything relating to EMC if you do business the same way you post on Slashdot.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Informative)
I am where my gps told me to be
Then expect some surprises if you drive in the Alps (or the Rockies) in winter, with a GPS that tells you to go through closed off mountain passes. I hope you have good footwear, warm clothing and a week worth of food as you start to walk back from a stuck car...
Re:Real men use signs! (Score:3, Informative)
No, all roads lead to roam.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:3, Informative)
not every single time because local knowledge is limited.
i remember that once i used a navigation system on a way home from my parents' house i always drove without. when going from the autobahn to the city it suggested me a turn i never knew it was there and suddenly i was at home 5 minutes earlier than i thought and more relaxed than ever because the street the nav suggested was a much calmer one than the one i usually used.
in europe there is a service called tmc (according to wikipedia it is also available in some american cities as well) which sends traffic information on fm-rds radio. if your navigation system has got a tmc receiver it can very well route around traffic incidents.
Re:Road signs (Score:4, Informative)
I live in zone 3 and work in zone 4, so I haven't gone into central London at rush hour very often. I think it's fine -- nicer for cycling than most other cities in Britain. You'll have company anyway, apparently British bike stores are really struggling to keep up with demand this summer.
So far this year, I think all the cyclists that have been killed in London have been undertaking lorries that were turning left. Be sensible, alert and assertive and you'll be fine, even on the busy roads. The book CycleCraft has some useful guidance, but it comes down to:
- don't undertake lorries or buses (unless they're stationary and you're sure they won't move before you get past)
- don't ride in the gutter as cars will squeeze past and you'll hit drain covers. Ride close to where a car's left wheels travel ("secondary position"). Ride in the centre of your lane ("primary position") if you don't want cars to try and overtake, e.g. on narrow roads or approaching junctions with filter lanes.
It's easy enough to avoid the heavy traffic by taking back streets, cycle paths and parks. I take the back streets from my flat to the South Circular (cars don't have this option, as there's a "dead end" with a gap for bikes to get through in the middle). I go along the Souch Circ for 800m, then take back streets to the Thames Path (another 2 barriers means cars don't use this route much) which gets me almost to work. It's slightly quicker to take an A road more of the way (and I sometimes do, if it's raining and the Thames Path will be muddy) but, well, people cycle along the Thames for leisure, and for the sake of one minute I can take it every day to work :-)
Order the free TFL maps for the areas you need (link in my previous post). You can then look for a route using quieter roads, which are highlighted, along with routes through parks and along canals. For instance, the "car route" from Holborn station to Waterloo station is down Kingsway, round Aldwych then Strand, across Waterloo Bridge and around the big roundabout. Cycling, the nicer route (similar distance) is along Great Queen Street/Long Acre, down Bow Street/Wellington Street (and through the no-cars bollards), across Waterloo Bridge (in the wide bus lane), and then onto the car-free bit around the Royal Festival Hall to the station.
Good luck :)
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm speaking from personal experience as a trained blacksmith, although I no longer do this for a living. There was never any shortage of work if you had the right skills - by which I do not mean arc-welding bits of coat-hanger wire together and calling it wrought-ironwork.
Re:speed dial (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Road signs (Score:3, Informative)
Another London cyclist here!
I regularly cycle from zone 3 into central London, and would agree with everything xaxa has said. My two top tips are to try the TfL cycle journey planner [tfl.gov.uk] (it uses the same information as the maps, and gives the distance and timings for the route) and, if you're going to commute by bike, ride the route at a weekend first to get a feel for it.
The traffic around Holborn definitely is rather crazy, but there are a lot of side streets that avoid most of it, and in rush hour most of it isn't moving anyway :-)
Re:speed dial (Score:3, Informative)
Twas but a joke: Ngymru/Cymru doesn't appear to have 2 vowels. Isn't-it-though.