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.'"
Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:4, Funny)
PROBABLY.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It I were a network support guy I think I'd have a magic 8 ball sabotaged so it always says "OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD". When people came to ask me about email, I'd say "Well it's not magic! It's easy to check once you understand the basics of the technology" and make a great show of unpacking the 8 ball and shaking it and then show them the answer.
Thanks! Tip your IT guy. Try the cheetos.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What the grandparent is trying to say is "Yes".
Pretty much same thing happened when cell phones came around, all of a sudden, I couldn't remember anyone's phone number. I was used to look up the name in a contact list and click on dial.
Last year, my friend I went to a cottage , I reached first thanks to my tomtom, he got lost and called me for directions, I said "I dunno, the GPS got me here!". After struggling for an hour, he stepped into a big box store along the way in a small town and picked up a GPS, g
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Last year, my friend I went to a cottage , I reached first thanks to my tomtom, he got lost and called me for directions, I said "I dunno, the GPS got me here!". After struggling for an hour, he stepped into a big box store along the way in a small town and picked up a GPS, got there in about an hour after that.
To be fair to you and your friend, neither of you had any local knowledge to destroy-- that's why you both needed the GPS. What was missing that we used to use was a set of turn by turn directions on paper which you could read to him over the phone when he called.
Really, the question is silly. People who rely on GPS don't have local knowledge to destroy. In situations where they do, they ignore the GPS and use it instead. I use my GPS daily to find work sites I've never been to, but the ones I have, I spend a lot of time ignoring the GPS's instructions. "Make a left here onto the most congested street in the city", it suggests, while I retort "no, you idiot, I'm going to parallel that street on a small side street where there's no traffic". My GPS is good at reading a map, but it's a complete moron when it comes to actual local knowledge. Where the GPS shines is at giving accurate turn-by-turn directions based on your current position, which is a hell of an improvement over the kind of human generated guidance we used to have to put up with: "turn down the street with all the trees along it and turn left where the old schoolhouse used to be; when you see the big oak tree, you've gone too far". GPS isn't destroying local knowledge. It's just destroying infuriatingly bad directions generated by people with no navigation skills.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I second that emotion, man. GPS works great as device that reads a map aloud, maybe a slight step up from a passenger with a road atlas. Local knowledge trumps GPS every single time, however, because GPS devices can't make decisions based on information that isn't necessarily related to getting from point A to B. GPS can't tell you to avoid such-and-such street because it's a really rough part of town, nor can it tell you that Local Sports Team is playing a home game today at 5:00 PM, so if you drive too close to the stadium you'll be stuck in traffic for two hours. Also, from personal experience I can tell you that GPS doesn't always work accurately in places like Baltimore, MD or Washington, DC, places where the whims of urban development have created streets that are one-way during some hours of the day and two-way during others, and where a straight(ish) street will change names four times over five blocks, or where some streets are really more like paved alleys.
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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 th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your example shows that you didn't have any local knowledge of that road. You knew how to get from A to B and your GPS suggested a slightly different route.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:4, Interesting)
The turn-by-turn electronic voice is merely a crutch for people who can't read maps. People will continue to give horrible directions even with GPS. Bottom line: learn to navigate with a map and compass.
I can't even count the number of times some well meaning person tried to give me directions like, "it's on the right side of Foobar Avenue".
So then I ask "Is that the right side as you're headed east or headed west?" and they freeze up as their eyes glaze over. Sometimes I try to help by rephrasing the question like "well, is it on the north or south side of Foobar Avenue?", and of course they're still helpless. Too many people have no concept of cardinal directions and no idea how to dead reckon from one point to another without familiar landmarks. If these kind of people ever found themselves in unfamiliar territory they'd be screwed.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
The turn-by-turn electronic voice is merely a crutch for people who can't read maps. People will continue to give horrible directions even with GPS. Bottom line: learn to navigate with a map and compass.
I can't even count the number of times some well meaning person tried to give me directions like, "it's on the right side of Foobar Avenue".
So then I ask "Is that the right side as you're headed east or headed west?" and they freeze up as their eyes glaze over. Sometimes I try to help by rephrasing the question like "well, is it on the north or south side of Foobar Avenue?", and of course they're still helpless. Too many people have no concept of cardinal directions and no idea how to dead reckon from one point to another without familiar landmarks. If these kind of people ever found themselves in unfamiliar territory they'd be screwed.
And what if I'm driving by myself? Awfully inconvenient to have to pull out a map every half and hour to get the next set of directions. Or if I run into a road closure/construction/heavy traffic and need to make a detour. Or if I need to find something that is not on a map (the nearest parking garage in the city, the nearest gas station as I cruise along the highway).
Turn by turn navigation is a tool. It tells me when and where I need to turn. It means I can concentrate on driving instead of remembering that the turn I'm looking for is three blocks after Water Street. It means I don't have to slow down in traffic to try and decide if this is the turn I want only to find out that it's not forcing me to cut back into traffic like a madman. It means I am never lost even if I miss a turn. It just buzzes about recalculating and then finds me a route back. Is it perfect? No - it has more than once directed me to make an illegal left hand turn. But when I'm going somewhere for the first time I don't leave home without it. I'm a better driver with it in the car. I'm a safer driver with it in the car.
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Surely you can tear your eyes away from the road at least once every half hour to look at the map displayed on your dashboard-mounted GPS device.
If you can't be bothered to scan your instruments, why are you still permitted to drive?
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Well of course most people don't have a concept of which way a road runs in cardinal directions. Most local roads don't run in cardinal directions, or even directly between cardinal directions. They usually run something like "sort of south-east until they get to the church and then turns northerly curving around to full north to get around the lake, then turns back east".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair to you and your friend, neither of you had any local knowledge to destroy-- that's why you both needed the GPS. What was missing that we used to use was a set of turn by turn directions on paper which you could read to him over the phone when he called.
Very true.
Everyone should carry a Road Atlas in the car, and if they spend any significant amount of time in a certain city or county they should purchase a local area map. Most convenience stores carry them. The best places to find local maps AFAIK are truckstops, convenience stores, and the local Chamber of Commerce.
Having said that, when I get a call from a prospective client I do use Google Maps to find the address. Then the printout of the map goes into the client list folder with the client's info
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Excellent points... My fear is that GPS is destroying our non-verbal memory. But as you would say, only to those who rely exclusively on it. Case in point... (not just to the parent but to anyone) ... if you use GPS to get to a place you've never been before, can you find your way back WITHOUT GPS? IMHO the legitimate reason for a "no" answer is because you were too busy paying attention to the GPS to take note of landmarks. But after visiting that same place again and again I would hope that most folks wou
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Turn-By-Turn directions don't really help a lot unless you're already on the route. If you miss a turn (and don't realize until later), it's hard to recover.
There are two fundamental questions:
- Where the hell am I?
- How do I get from Here to There?
Without knowing where you are, it's hard to get (or give) directions. Similarly, a map doesn't help until you find some way to correlate your map to your current location -- whether that be a landmark, street sign, or other feature.
Re:Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:5, Interesting)
I started to use a GPS on our trips because when you need to get 30 bikes ready for a left turn, it's nice to know it's two miles ahead instead of waiting for the sign to show up. Plus, it's really hard to read a map while you riding a motorcycle, the wind tends to move it all around unless you use a tank bag.
I moved to Phoenix 6 years ago, and can now ride my motorcycle anywhere in this beautiful state or the Phoenix metro area without a map or GPS. The GPS and the mapping software on my PC have helped me to design routes much easier than I could have with a map. I can use Google maps to get a satellite view of roads and determine if they are dirt or not.
These tools have helped improve my local knowledge, not lessen it.
My wife has similar experience in her car. Her GPS has given her the confidence to go into areas in Phoenix with the knowledge that she will be able to get there safely. With that experience, she has gained a better understanding of the Phoenix area.
The above notes, while anecdotal, indicate that for some people, the GPS helps them learn the area.
Maybe it's all about how smart or observant the person using it is to begin with. Smart people learn faster without effort, and observant people notice their surroundings without having to work at it. I've always been good at finding my way back to a place after I've been there once or twice, even if someone else was driving. So maybe I'm just naturally more observant that those that don't learn their local area when using a GPS.
Road signs (Score:2)
'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.'"
Are there still signs on the side? If yes, you have everything you need to get anywhere. (Ok, it doesn't hurt to know the major cities you want to go through.)
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely accurate. I bought a gps the same week I got my license. Before that I'd always drive with my parents and they would navigate for me, just trying to be helpful.
Half the time when im out, I have no idea where I am. I am where my gps told me to be. This bothers me sometimes, but the tradeoff is that I can literally go anywhere I want. Now when people start to tell me directions I just tune out and know I'll just do what the gps says. I can and have driven across the state with no problem.
One drawback is I can't give directions at ALL, but thats minor to me.
But just a counter point to play devils advocate: you dont need to use turn by turn directions, you can just use it as a small backlit map that is constantly showing you where you are. Beats unfolding paper.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess a GPS unit is a bit like code generation tools (zomg a backwards car analogy!
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I guess a GPS unit is a bit like code generation tools (zomg a backwards car analogy! :P ) in that it's a good tool for experts, but it can hinder the development of expert skills by beginners.
Yup. The law of leaky abstractions. In order to use the higher level tool efficiently, you must be proficient in the lower level foundations [joelonsoftware.com].
Re:Road signs (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't actually agree because at what point do you stop learning "lower level foundations".
So say you use a GPS do you need to read maps? And if you need to read maps, don't you need to understand north, south, east, west? And if you need to understand NSEW do you need to understand a compass? And if you need to understand a compass do you need to understand longitude and latitude? And if you need to understand longitude and latitude what about true north and compass north? And what about...
What did you want to do? Oh yeah go from point A to point B! The problem I have with this lower level foundations is that they are completely irrelevant if you don't need to use them. After all the point of the argument is to go point A to point B. If you were creating the maps in the first place then well yes you need to know all of that stuff.
When I see Joel's illustration of string and strcat I just smile and think wow reminds of that old man saying, "why when I was your age I was walking through the snow and it was -150"
Again not to say that some people don't need to learn it, it all depends on what your day job is.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, of course, that you are entirely wrong.
Yes, you need to know every one of those things, except maybe the difference between magnetic and true north (unless you're close to the north pole, anyway) because GPSes are, get this, sometimes wrong. Or worse, they don't work at all.
I was driving the other day on an Ontario highway. I don't live in Ontario, so I was using my GPS. Guess what: the GPS had an outdated map, so it got lost. I didn't because I know how to use a map besides a GPS, and because I can read road signs.
What Joel says is exactly right - nobody gets to be a good programmer without having good knowledge of the underlying systems. Oh, you can be passable and earn a decent living, but all the really good ones know exactly how the CPU is going to execute their code and how all the different parts fit together. The same thing goes for any other part of life. You can get around fine without worrying too much about how your GPS works or about the finer details of cartography, but when it comes down to it, anyone who can use a map is automatically better at navigating than someone who can't because there are going to be situations where a GPS just isn't going to be good enough, and even if you never come across those, knowing how to use a map will make you better at following directions, anyway, much like knowing how the CPU works can help you even when you're writing in a high level language.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't drive, but I do cycle most journeys of under an hour.
I live in London. If you follow the road signs (the ones for cars) on a bicycle you'll travel a lot further than you need to in most cases, and be using the busy main roads and junctions, which are the least pleasant to cycle on (except at 4am on a Sunday). It's better following the cycle route signs, but they try and avoid large roads, so the route still isn't as direct as it could be.
If I have time I have a look at a map (one with the cycle routes marked, as they're free [tfl.gov.uk]), and plan a route like "follow the cycle route signs towards Westminster, until I get to King's Road since it goes too far out of the way then, but rejoin it after the park".
Every time I go somewhere new (or somewhere I've not been often) I pick up some extra local knowledge, like noticing I'm going across a street I recognise the name of, or seeing that going the wrong way down a one-way street (ahem) would have saved a large detour.
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: (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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If, at a higher zoom level, a twisty road gets normalised to a straight line to a destination, it may as well be a straight line. The twists and turns are immaterial.
Just like a statistical plot: the individual data points may fluctuate, but if there is a clear trend (if the fluctuations are less than the confidence interval), the fluctuations become moot in doing analysis.
Mart
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of a neat map trick I learned when I started riding a motorcycle. It's called the "String Test". It's a simple test: lay a piece of string along a road that has the mileage displayed on it, then measure the string on the provided map scale. If the printed distance is longer than the measured distance, that means the cartographer artificially straightened the road for the purpose of drawing the map. And that means it's a twisty, windy road, and will be a lot more fun on a motorcycle!
Th
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Interesting)
One drawback is I can't give directions at ALL, but thats minor to me."
That's wierd, becauseI can not only give someone step by step directions, I can tell them exactly how much distance to travel on each road before making a turn and lot's of other information, even if I don't possess personal knowledge of the route and/or destination ! . Hell, I can even E-Mail them a hard copy if they want. Allow me to introduce you to my magical secret [google.com] !
In other news, the existence of technologies such as refrigeration and gun powder have greatly reduced the abilities of most to survive as a hunter gatherer. This is a pretty huge concern, and somebody should really write an article to warn us of all the dangers!
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One easy solution would have been to ask Bo and Luke to take the General Lee in the opposite direction at high speed to distra
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"But just a counter point to play devils advocate: you dont need to use turn by turn directions, you can just use it as a small backlit map that is constantly showing you where you are. Beats unfolding paper."
I follow military practice (because it makes sense) and have both paper maps and GPS. Electronic devices die, maps are cheap and can stay in the glovebox. Each has its uses.
I print out Google Earth satellite views with road overlay (print screen caps) for a larger-than-GPS screen view of the building I
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...
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That's how that CNet editor died... his family survived by staying in the car.
I agree with you. The GPS is nice, it usually gives decent advice, but you have to keep THINKING.
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Most people driving cars dont think.
and yes I know this first hand, I ride a motorcycle and I see what most of you do to try and kill us on bikes.
Re:Road signs (Score:4, Insightful)
I know there are motorcyclists out there that ride dangerously, but you have to admit the GP is correct - plenty of people out there drive badly, and it's not vehicle-specific. If you don't believe that, then you're probably part of the problem.
To the GP - they aren't trying to kill motorcyclists specifically; they're trying to kill EVERYONE.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Funny)
As a motorcyclist myself I can say with some authority that while they are trying to kill everyone, most believe that they get bonus points for bikes.
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What's the difference between a motorcyclist and a soccer mom in an SUV?
The former only drives badly once.
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I started using a GPS two years ago when I received one as a present. As with many "old guys", I didn't inherently trust the female voice, figuring it
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Funny)
One drawback is I can't give directions at ALL, but thats minor to me.
My girlfriend can't either, but unfortunately that doesn't stop her at ALL.
Historical place names (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more than just the back streets. I often notice LOTS of fascinating details on local maps (such as the high-res ordnance survey maps) that simply aren't included in the likes of Google Maps, Microsoft's Live Virtual Earth Whatever, etc. Mapquest (or was it multimap) used to provide these, but when google earth and all came along, they switched to Live to compete, and lost all the details that made me use them.
There's a basic example of what I'm talking about here:
http://www.keith-dufftown-railway.co.uk/maps/Map3.gif [keith-duff...lway.co.uk]
Note the names of hills, local areas, quarries, etc. Often these local names are what give rise to street names and town names. More importantly, stuff like ancient pagan sites and ancient burial grounds --- the fascinating rich places of history and legend --- are often included.
The world will definitely be a colder place if these are lost in favour of being able to zoom in from a globe to pixelated overhead photos of cows, and low-res DEMs instead of intricate contour lines.
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Interesting)
I was way behind the curve in getting a sat-nav even though it fits the kind of tech-gadget market that should interest me. You're absolutely right that a sat-nav isn't vital for travel, but then nor were road signs if you have a map, a map isn't important if someone wrote the route down for you and writing it down isn't required if you just remember it in your head....
The point of a sat-nav isn't to make the impossible possible, it is to provide a quick and easy way to do something and a safety blanket if you go wrong. I must of used my sat-nav 50+ times now and the only time it has been really advantageous was when I got caught in a 5 mile queue of still traffic at a junction between motorways. I got it to plan an alternative that didn't use the next motorway and got home virtually as fast as originally planned. Yes it would be possible to get my map out and look for alternatives, but sat-nav does it quickly, optimally and can compare distances and times more easily, what's there not to like?
Re:Road signs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Road signs (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the utility of satnavs, but speaking for myself, I don't really see any need for one. Yes it could avoid my taking a wrong turn from time to time. But unless I was a gadget freak, would it really be worth my while carrying yet another piece of junk around in my car to save maybe 10 minutes a year finding my way back onto the right road?
As for maps (road maps that is), of course they are indispensable if you're going some place you don't know. If I want to get to Szekesfehervar I have to at least have an idea where the damned place is before I set out. By any stretch of the imagination, I don't see how using a map is severing me from a real place and reducing the world to lines on a piece of paper.
Real men use signs! (Score:4, Insightful)
Try spending a week driving in Italy with a broken sat-nav with a van full of in-laws flown in from all corners of the world, in particular try it when your *not* italian like me! The funny thing was that I never needed the thing, I mean seriously how many signs pointing to Rome do you need to see on the Motorway to know your on the right track?
Well having said that, on my previous trips to Italy when using a sat-nav on no less than two occasions the sat nav directed us onto a half constructed road! And I kid you not, one of those occasions the sat nav insisted that my fiancee and I drive off the edge of a half constructed bridge!!! It was the on-ramp to the motorway under construction!
This was Italy so that kind of thing apparently happens often, oh and before you ask there were none of the usually expected signs indicating that the road you are turning onto doesn't actually expect prior to the half built bridge!
The moral of the story is the usual rule of thumb with any system - garbage in garbage out, don't put all your faith in a machine!
Re:Real men use signs! (Score:5, Funny)
Why did you even look at the signs, after all, All Roads Lead to Rome :)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, all roads lead to roam.
Re:Road signs (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought a gps to get from Ottawa to Disney World. Got me there alright except the gps guided us to the staff's entrance and not the general public entrance. The man at the gate was wonderful and gave us pins, a bit of fairy dust a local map and then he sent us on our way. We ended-up with free parking on top of that. The lesson I guess is that sometimes it pays to get lost.
speed dial (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
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.
Re:speed dial (Score:5, Funny)
"Except in the UK, The Land Of The One-Way Roads, Where Straight Lines Are Forever Banished"
EITUKTLOTOWRWSLAFB
Good lord! I've heard of run-on sentences but a run-on acronym? I'm just glad you spelled it out for us - otherwise I would have been lost for days.
Re:speed dial (Score:5, Funny)
"Except in the UK, The Land Of The One-Way Roads, Where Straight Lines Are Forever Banished"
EITUKTLOTOWRWSLAFB
Good lord! I've heard of run-on sentences but a run-on acronym? I'm just glad you spelled it out for us - otherwise I would have been lost for days.
EITUKTLOTOWRWSLAFB, is that Welsh?
Re:speed dial (Score:5, Funny)
"Except in the UK, The Land Of The One-Way Roads, Where Straight Lines Are Forever Banished"
EITUKTLOTOWRWSLAFB
Good lord! I've heard of run-on sentences but a run-on acronym? I'm just glad you spelled it out for us - otherwise I would have been lost for days.
EITUKTLOTOWRWSLAFB, is that Welsh?
It's got more than one vowel, can't be Welsh.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Twas but a joke: Ngymru/Cymru doesn't appear to have 2 vowels. Isn't-it-though.
Meh. It's local knowledge for *everyone* (Score:5, Insightful)
With Nokia Maps/Ovi Maps, Nokia for example are making it possible to both know exactly where you are, but also where everything you are interested in round about you is, how to get to it and making it possible to share it instantly with anyone else you think might be interested.
It's the end of the locality of local knowledge. Not of the locality or of the knowledge itself. Or put another way, local knowledge goes global.
OpenStreetMap the future for local knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the digital mapping data misses out a lot of local features. Even the Tele Atlas data that Google maps uses is buggy and in Western Europe misses minor roads, and I've even seen it miss junctions between major roads. In Eastern Europe it often misses entire roads and cities (e.g. compare the capital of Albania on Google Maps [google.co.uk] and OpenStreetMap [openstreetmap.org] .
Even in Western Europe, the digital map makers miss stuff like cycle and walking trails. If you look at a detailed map like the British Ordnance Survey, which has been built upon local knowledge for hundreds of years, you'll see an amazing amount of information that is missed in the digital maps. I was surprised the first time I looked up my local area and saw that even the tiniest woods were named, and every hill was named and had elevation data. This is local data that almost no-one cares about anymore, but it still seems a shame to lose the history. I think the future is this kind of local data encoded in a modern digital open-standard format, and the only project I see doing this kind of work is OpenStreetMap.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have multiple GPS devices, one for driving, and one for hiking. Different maps, different devices... After all if you are driving do you really care about the name of a woods? Yet if you are hiking it is important, oh wait, it is already there...
Sorry that I slapping you around, but I wish people would inform themselves on the different types of maps, and gps devices that there are. The
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except speed-dial lists aren't subject to the sun's 11-year solar cycle. We've just passed through a solar activity minimum, during which everyone buying into this new gee-pee-ess tomfoolery is having a great time with their magic talky boxes that never guide them astray. Come a few years and the amount of solar radiation will return to its former values. We'll be seeing estimated position errors nudging the 30m mark, as opposed to the 5-10m we've been enjoying of late.
30m is more than enough to cause the o
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They want to send us (Score:2)
Switch your satnav (and mobile phone and PDA) off. And turn back on your brain!
Agree to Disagree (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Agree to Disagree (Score:4, Funny)
You need the one that doesn't tell you distances or names, just general time directions like "Its the road on the left 5 minutes past the other road"
Sounds like the wife: "no not that left; over there!, that way ... look out for the thing ..., it's just, oh hang on that's my phone {rummage} ... "
Ireland (Score:2)
So I don't think it is specifically a sat nav thing. People sometimes find maps to be intrusive. For me, I have a garmin etrex without mapping capability. I can follow a straight line from A to B. If t
We don't need maps... (Score:4, Funny)
Driving is Ireland is really simple because of the efficient layout of our road network.
The directions for anywhere you want to go in Ireland are simple:
1. Drive to directly Dublin
2. Drive to directly your destination
(Being from Dublin, I would suggest that step 2 is unnecessary - but I would say that)
Also, due to the voices, I doubt that we follow GPS at all. If it's English - we'll not listen to it, 600 years of oppression yada yada yada, and if it's Irish, we won't let some muck-savage/D4 ponce tell us what to do.
Although, well probably still end up in the dead-end 'cos that's where all the craic is.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
600 years of oppression Yoda Yoda Yoda you speak.
Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? (Score:3, Insightful)
*dons tinfoil hat and tinfoil accessories*
Amahgawd! mapmakers and backseat navigators of the world unite and sue these sat-nav people!
It's just like the buggy coach whip makers!
sat-nav makes it safer to be on the road, now all those idiots driving with a 4' by 4' map over the stearingwheel can actually see where they're going. (that is, if they would stop txting while driving)
I'm sorry to say, i really don't feel my masculinity threatened in any way by a female voice telling me when to turn.
It does, however, alliviate some of the stress of urban driving in cities i don't know.
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely spot on. It's just changing the usage & interface that we have of maps.
Soul-less (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, and taking someones picture will steal their soul as well. And now you can get a camera and a GPS in a single convenient package [gpsreview.net], so you can both take the souls of the natives _and_ conveniently avoid their local culture at the same time!
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, my GPS has brought me to more interesting places than I care to count, places I would never have visited without this handy tool pointing the way (or at least helping not to get lost). I'm sure the next generation won't even know what the phrase "getting lost" really means, just as being "out of contact" will have no meaning to them. A map will be about as useful to them as a sextant is to us (what? You sold yours on Ebay years ago? Shameful!). And personally, I wish them all the best with it!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, this. And while we're at it the entire premise is ridiculous because if you're capable of reading google maps you can read a normal map. I've yet to meet anyone, anywhere, that couldn't read a map that had a legend on it for whatever odd choice of symbols it used.
Sorry, which planet Earth? -sextants still in use (Score:3, Interesting)
One good solar flare and no GPS and VHF for a while. Did you realise that? Solar storms in the past have gone on for days, which is a long time to be without navigational aids. Your hurrahing for technology is misp
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:Sorry, which planet Earth? -sextants still in u (Score:5, Interesting)
In the parent's defense, events strong enough to distrupt GPS comms do not have to be on the scale of the Carrington Event that you mentioned. From
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm [nasa.gov]
In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes. That may not sound like much, but as Lanzerotti noted, "I would not have wanted to be on a commercial airplane being guided in for a landing by GPS or on a ship being docked by GPS during that 10 minutes."
The same article says
On Earth, power lines and long-distance telephone cables might be affected by auroral currents, as happened in 1989. Radar, cell phone communications, and GPS receivers could be disrupted by solar radio noise. Experts who have studied the question say there is little to be done to protect satellites from a Carrington-class flare.
Granted, recent the recent flare-related GPS disruption didn't last several days, but large flares do happen on a fairly regular basis (the article mentions 'huge' storms in 1942 and 1989). Which confirms the parent's main point: that backup tech (like sextants) is really a necessity when lives are at stake, simply on the basis of solar flares.
Obviously, backup tech is also needed to cover everyday problems like systems breakdowns while at sea.
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.
It's not the SatNav... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's destroying local knowledge is the video baby-sitters in the back-seat. When I was a kid we knew what our neighborhood LOOKED like. These days kids just stare at the screen in the headrest in front of them from the time they pull away until they get where they're going. I'll bet half of them couldn't find their way home if you dropped them off two blocks away.
Re:It's not the SatNav... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's destroying local knowledge is the video baby-sitters in the back-seat. When I was a kid we knew what our neighborhood LOOKED like. These days kids just stare at the screen in the headrest in front of them from the time they pull away until they get where they're going. I'll bet half of them couldn't find their way home if you dropped them off two blocks away.
You know, as much as I love a good ragging on TV, and as much as I hate the use of video valium for babysitting, this isn't really a new problem at all. I had to learn a lot of my community from scratch when I learned to drive because I used to read in the car.
But I wouldn't call any parent that got their kids to read a lot a bad one, would you?
Navigeddon (Score:2)
Summarized on the old blog. [wordpress.com]
everyone wave their arms in panic! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. (Score:3, Interesting)
At midnight in an unknown town after fighting 3 hours with a bike tire from hell I want to be knocking on stranger's doors and ask for directions instead of firing up Google Maps on my cell and find my way myself. (Wait, that's GSM-nav. Does that count?)
Incidentally, I planned my route with a good old fashioned map, because online resources for bike routes in Germany suck ass.
We use them because they're better (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why they are popular. 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.
The biggest problem with using a map is knowing where you are starting from. It does have a larger "page" than a Satnav screen, which means you get more context at once, but if you are lost it's impossible to work out how to get to where you want to be - as you don't know where you are to start with. Similarly, if you're alone in a car, probably the single most dangerous thing you can possibly do while driving is keep looking down to refer to a map on your lap, while trying not to shunt the vehicle in front if it slows down.
The point in the article about men disliking taking instructions from a woman's voice shows how out of touch the writer is (and therefore how completely lacking in credibility the whole article is). If you don't like one vioce CHANGE IT. If your budget Satnav only comes with one vioce BUY ANOTHER if it annoys you that much. So far as comparing map-reading with calligraphy or thatching - this is completely spurious: almost no-one in past eras could do either of these crafts, just like very few people have ever really had the skill to read a map (Question: do you know how to tell which way a river flows, by looking at the direction of the contours? Congratulations, you're in the top 1%)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The nice thing about a paper map is size. If you are suddenly confronted with new data, like a new road, or construction obstructing your route, a look at the map can give you a nice general idea on how to navigate, because you can see your current position and your goal in one look.
However, there's two downsides:
Real human directions (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't just satnav. I don't know many people who can remember how they got somewhere just after they drove with somebody dictating directions. My theory is that "left here... second right..." kind of directions turns off (or reduces the need for) the area of the brain that would normally be tracking where you actually are in relation to where you are actually going.
Au contraire (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that having a GPS makes it easier to learn the local streets, since it shows me where I am on the map at all times. Otherwise I have to spend all my time trying to figure our what that tiny street sign says and I miss everything else.
Real men don't use tools? (Score:5, Insightful)
Local knowledge is just that - local. If you live there, you have the knowledge. How can GPS destroy that? And you know what? The article does not argue how it does. GPS is used for new routes. It's new knowledge. Nobody uses Sat-Nav repeatedly for the same destination.
Sat-Nav and GPS are tools - the article poses a question akin to asking if real men don't use hammers. I wouldn't use one to open an egg, but I would use one to fix my stairs.
I am as much a psychogeographer as anyone who loves to discover a city by getting lost in it, but if I am crossing the country (in my case, Belgium) to buy something, I would like to be efficient about getting there.
Re:Real men don't use tools? (Score:5, Funny)
if real men don't use hammers. I wouldn't use one to open an egg
What's wrong with using a hammer for kitchen tasks? Maybe not opening eggs, but they work great for separating frozen sausages from each other!
Some disturbing truth to this (Score:3, Insightful)
This wouldn't surprise me so much accept some of these folks are supposed to be computer geeks, who have no illusions about the magical powers of computers and software. Are people lazy or what?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is quite straightforward. If the free information contradicts the earned / paid-for data, and they then go with it, they'll have wasted the investment in the non-free source. It's just human nat
Doubt it... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would rather posit that the constant (in)breeding of stupid people is 'destroying local knowledge'. I was brought up before (Not by much) the internet and 'wikipedia as a verb', and at least in my case easy access to information SUPPLEMENTS what I know, and doesn't make me RELIANT on such technology. Of course, as society gets dumber and lazier as a whole, I have little doubt that instant access to information WILL replace actually having to know and remember stuff... But that's not the fault of the technology, it's the fault of modern civilization's end-run around natural selection. :P
Laws Of Technology..... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Laws of Technology:
1) The more technologically advanced and/or complex a system is, the easier it will be to defeat or break.
2) As information retained by technological systems increases, the less information is retained by humans, thus progressively minimizing the need for a human working knowledge.
3) "Advanced" doesn't necessarily mean advanced.
Who needs to:
1) Learn how to read a map if you can use your GPS?
2) Learn how to spell, if you have spell-check?
3) Learn proper grammar, if you have grammar-check?
4) Learn penmanship, if you type instead of write?
5) Learn Morse code, if your cell phone cannot get a signal?
Unfortunately, people have become so reliant on technology that they have made themselves completely vulnerable to the most simplest of problems, particularly #1 above, which could be the difference between life and death if the GPS unit is damaged or the batteries are dead. Number 4 is becoming an increasing problem, since pharmacists are increasingly misreading prescriptions because the handwriting of the doctor that wrote them is so bad that they dispense the wrong compound, with disasterous results.).
Consider learning Morse code: If you are in a situation where you need it, like boating or hiking, chances are VERY good that your cell phone won't get a signal, and a 50 cent mirror or $2.50 flashlight will get a distress message out better. Even with a radio, basic radio operation skills are far more helpful that being able to text, since cell reception is not as widespread, powerful, or reaching as a signal from a radio.
Skills that are not dependent on technology are vital. Society has become reliant on technologies and gadgets that were intended to *aid* in accomplishing tasks, and not intended to completely replace hard skills.
If you need to live your life surrounded by gadgets, gizmos, and the latest tech, chances are you are already diminishing your capability to adapt and function should something happen and they stop working.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When you've learned to survive in the wild after being left without anything on your person you'll have earned the right to lecture society about its dependence on technology.
You are so accustomed to "old" technology (like textiles, knives, clean plentiful water, food everywhere) that you take it for granted and don't even realize it. You'd be dead in a week without all these things you take for granted.Yet somehow this new technology is harmful and turning us to vegetables.
You are exhibiting classic reacti
Don't know about Sat-nav (Score:4, Insightful)
But Google maps sure as hell increased my local knowledge. I like staring at maps. I like to pick a spot, and go there by bike.
I could see that a sat-nav on a bike will make one more courageous to explore the local area... and if you're one of those polluting road-jamming filthy bastards, you might explore the region by car...
If you look at it like that, sat-nav increases local knowledge. :D
Sat-nav is a menace (Score:3, Interesting)
One time we came home from holiday ro find the wall had been knocked down by a 5 axle lorry that didn't even realise what they'd done.
Much more steps should have been taken during the writing of sat-nav code so shit like this doesn't happen, Tom-Tom, Garmin etc. should have consulted gotten local knowledge so to avoid problems like this. I read of one village that has had some serious problems with lorry drivers treating it as a rat-run, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/08/satnav_menaces_somerset_village/ [theregister.co.uk]
Sat-nav creators should hold some responsibility for their actions, or rather inactions in forseeing shit like this happen.
Re:Sat-nav is a menace (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sat-nav is a menace (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how many more stories like this we'll see once sat-nav becomes something that almost everyone uses. For now, most people who have it don't have it on for most of their trips, but many people who "grow up with it" eventually will. This means that the magic voice will have incredible power in shaping urban traffic patterns. Some roads will be jammed while others will be empty, and all because of sat-nav. I wonder if cities will start adapting to sat-nav by widening the streets that (say) Gramin likes to recommend.
I can imagine a scene in a future movie where some old coot gives the protagonist a ride without nav-sat through the city - taking shortcuts, avoiding lights, dodging jams, and revealing hitherto unseen, decaying, abandoned-looking streets. The protagonist gets to his destination in half the normal time, but still thinks the old man is nutty for his luddite refusal to do things the easy way.
Real men (Score:4, Funny)
But do real men use sat-nav?
Of course not -- real men navigate the same way they do everything else; with a mixture of power tools and grenades
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
I wax nostalgic about smallpox... (Score:3, Funny)
Ahh the salad days when a man feared for his life that a plague might ravage through the countryside and kill all him and his neighbors. It really gave a man a sense of being alive and to value his life when he surived those great smallpox epidemics of yore. These days, with the fancy-dancy "vaccine" kids will never know this great wonder of nature.
Why is it whenever some new form of technology that relieves some burden comes along there's always these dumb articles about how it's going to ruin us, and how some aspect of -old thing- was really just great? Any positive aspects of -new thing- are ignored, any negative aspect is amplified and distorted, and anything else that mitigates the negative aspect are also ignored.
Getting back to reality, there's always going to be people who don't have sat-navigation, don't use it, etc. This isn't like a telephone or the internet where you're eventually forced into the technology because everyone else has it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I once had the following conversation with someone I was picking up that day:
"Where do you live?"
"I don't know the name of the road."
"Fine, how do *I* get there?"
"Well, you know the big roundabout in Exeter?" (Exeter is NOTHING but roundabouts!)
"No."
"Well, it's not that one, it's the next one."
That was it. Somehow, I found them in time.
I agree, learn to read a map (Score:3, Interesting)
In 2009, I find it amazing at how many people simply cannot read a map. Not only can they not read a map, they can't even guesstimate their orientation based on landmarks and/or the position of the sun. As far as orientation goes, out here in Phoenix, Arizona, most people seem to get that due to the way the metro area is laid out and the fact that everyone gets "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west".
SATNAV makes us lazy... VERY lazy, like most modern gadgets, it takes away the need to know the bas