Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, May 27. 2018

Driving directions: The big picture

Sure, we've all had experiences when the voice on the GPS thing directed us poorly. Mrs. BD and I have especially had those experiences in Europe. It can waste a lot of time, but sometimes can be serendipitously interesting anyway.


One time, in Sicily, we were directed through miles of dirt roads in lemon groves because the Euroland thing was set for "most direct route". Yeah, it was an "as the crow flies" route to some obscure place we wanted to hike with the Christian tombs carved into the cliffs.


I like maps for the big picture, and the driving tech for the details. Just last weekend, driving home from a fishing trip, I kept wondering "What town are we in?"  I felt like "Where the heck are we, on a map? Where are we, on the planet?" We didn't have a clue, but WAZE got us home.


I think a combination of a map and a GPS voice are a handy combination - one for the practical and one for curiosity.


 Why GPS will never make the road atlas obsolete

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:47 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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About a week ago, some friends of the wife from California were stopping over for the night on their way to Iowa.

The GPS told them to take a dirt road to our house. The only problems were there was a better route and it had just rained an inch.

When they turned on the muddy road, the wife said, "This doesn't look like a good idea.", but you know how husbands are at taking wives' navigational advice.

Yep. He got stuck and it took us half a day to get him out. All because they followed the GPS instructions.
#1 feeblemind on 2018-05-27 16:40 (Reply)
The other day my niece stopped by and saw a gift card for an online bookstore she had given me for Christmas still lying there unused and she asked why I hadn't used it yet. I told her that it's hard to shop for books online because you have to know what you're looking for in order to find it. Browsing in a real bookstore, you find stuff you didn't even know you were looking for.

It's the same thing with an atlas. If you just want to get from Point A to Point B the GPS is fine but an atlas can tell you that on the way to Point B, if you detour a few miles south, there's a Point C it might be interesting to check out. Good luck getting the GPS to tell you you're 20 minutes from the World's Third Largest Ball of Twine if you didn't already tell the GPS where the WTLBOT is. But if it's only 20 minutes away, why not stop and see it?
#2 Jerryskids on 2018-05-27 18:16 (Reply)
Did you forget your compass? Still can't convince kids it is important to know N/S E/W and where the sun comes up and where the sun goes down.
#3 Apple Pie on 2018-05-27 19:58 (Reply)
It all depends on the nature of your trip. If I'm driving for business or on an errand, I want to get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of fuss and in the least amount of time and mileage.

I love the WAZE app. It not only gives excellent directions, it has a crowd-sourced notification system for police, accidents, road construction and hazards (right down to dead animals in the road). It has rescued me from numbers traffic jams and other problems.

On the other hand, if I'm out for a pleasure ride in my car or especially on my motorcycle, the journey is far more important than the destination or expediency.

I love "getting lost" on my motorcycle. I leave home with a vague idea of where I want to end up and head in a general direction which will take me there. I'm often leading a group while doing so. The group members know my style of navigation and leadership and god help the rider who pulls out a cell phone to see where we are or worse, offers to tell me where we are.

The only problem is that over the years, I have developed a detailed knowledge of almost every back road within 100 miles of home. I am blessed (or cursed) with a strong innate sense of direction and a photographic memory of roads traveled and towns/villages passed through. But I can still manage to get lost on occasion. That's when the fun starts.
#4 Galway Boy on 2018-05-28 10:04 (Reply)

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