Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:03:28 -0500
Reply-To: Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Maps vs GPS
In-Reply-To: <9f4608e90910101715x48fd2ddqc387f8350e57d969@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I love maps. I make half my living doing maps. But here's the deal:
Maps are more fun to look at, and let you think you know where you are.
GPS: less fun, but you know where you are.
Jim
On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Al Knoll <anasasi@gmail.com> wrote:
> In MY vanagon the right seat driver is mostly a go to here, turn, go to the
> next here, turn, go past the alligator hide nailed to a stump then turn left
> at the end of the fence.
>
> The left seat driver uses a more arcane go north 5.1 miles to y
> street...then east 3.4 miles to x..... Descartes would be proud of that.
>
> It's merely a relative and and absolute comparison. Back in the vector
> graphics days one had the concept of current position and pen up, pen down
> and move. The results depend on the accuracy of the previous move. The
> minor errors accumulate, the major errors are disastrous. Miss one turn and
> the whole sequence is invalid.
>
> An absolute method does not accumulate errors along the way. The Descartes
> goal seeking GPS method although distasteful to many as too geeky does not
> accumulate error. It's absolute vector based rather than incremental
> position based and lends itself to long distance routing without the danger
> of accumulated error and having the additional feature of easily correcting
> course errors along the way. Charlie Trimble is my friend from days at HP
> Santa Clara Division.
>
> Back to the warm rock.
>
> Pensionerd.
>
> On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Robert Fisher <refisher@mchsi.com> wrote:
>
>> Different wiring produces different results. I've read several times that
>> women navigate more by land marks rather than by directions, number of
>> turns
>> etc. which is more in the way that men do it. If she can see the Lane
>> Bryant
>> and the 7-11, she'll have confidence she's in the right area, at least.
>> A friend of mine from high school became her class valedictorian and went
>> on
>> to be one of the first women in the world to get a PhD in her field. She
>> basically made it through Geometry and Physics because of my help (we
>> worked
>> in groups); she couldn't think in 3-D or deal with vectors and so on at
>> all.
>> On the other hand, I made it through (physics, anyway) because I foolishly
>> got into it without the required advanced math, which she did have. She
>> wound up with the better grades too, of course.
>>
>> I think maps are a developed or taught skill for most people. I've seen as
>> many men as women get completely flummoxed by a map. Despite their (former)
>> ubiquity, many people just don't know how they work, and god forbid they'd
>> read the instructions, since they're usually lost/in a hurry and therefore
>> under pressure to boot.
>> Then there's the aforementioned ability to reverse left/right and
>> top/bottom
>> in your mind when you're driving south and so on- I don't know how well one
>> can learn that.
>>
>> A lot of the popularity of GPS is in the same forces that drive the
>> popularity of Toyotas and diet pills; most people have neither the interest
>> nor the time for bootstrapping a problem the hard way. That's not
>> necessarily a bad thing in of itself, considering how often those same
>> people have trouble even with the easy way. On the other hand, it once took
>> me 7 hours to make the 2.5 hour trip home from L.A. (with three kids in the
>> car) because of an overturned tanker on the 405. I would've given a
>> port-side accessory for a GPS that afternoon, and I wasn't even close to
>> lost, just ignorant of the alternative routes. I had to stop at a HellMart
>> and sneak a look at a Thomas Guide. : /
>>
>> Cya,
>> Robert
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
>> Rocket J Squirrel
>> Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 11:11 AM
>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>> Subject: Re: Maps vs GPS
>>
>> Hi Jim,
>>
>> Interpreting route directions, like the sample provided, is not difficult
>> for Mrs Squirrel, although the directions she gets from her women friends
>> often contain extraneous detail like, "Turn right on 3rd street and after
>> a while you'll pass a gas station on the left, then a big red house after
>> that. You'll come to an intersection with stoplights, go straight through
>> that, then turn left at Concord, which has a Lane Bryant and a 7-11."
>>
>> "Why not just say `Go north on 3rd for 2 miles, then left on Concord'," I
>> ask.
>>
>> "We like to make sure we're going the right way," is her response.
>>
>> So despite different styles, Mrs Squirrel can follow route information
>> fine. Reading a map, however, does cause her considerable confusion.
>>
>> --
>> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
>> Bend, OR
>> KG6RCR
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/9/2009 5:59 PM Jim Arnott wrote:
>>
>> > I use GPS to get me from this house to that address. I use dead tree
>> > maps when I need to get from here to about there. Miss Lisa is a fine
>> > map reader/navigator. Though she and I differ on how to fold a map.
>> >
>> > Mr Squirrel, you need to spend a bit more time teaching your primary
>> > navigator how to interpret route instructions. Maybe see if there is a
>> > rally club in Bend. A couple TSD rallies under her belt and you'd never
>> > complain again. Nor have reason to. (of course, your marriage might well
>> > not survive....)
>> >
>> > Jim
>> >
>> > Sample:
>> >
>> > 0.00 1. Right out of parking
>> > 0.32 2. Left at stop.
>> > 8.91 10. Right at T.
>> > 9.42 11. Right after "Stop"
>> > 10.07 12. End odometer check at "35". CAST 37
>> > 13. Right onto Palm Ave.
>> > 14. Right after "State Rd 7". CAST 44
>> > 15. Right after State Rd 7.
>> > 16. "NW 5th". CAST 32.
>> > 17. Right onto unpaved.
>> > 18. Right on 2nd paved road.
>> > 19. Pause 30 seconds at TCL.
>> > 21.30 20. Left.
>> > 21. Pause 1.00 min. at stop.
>> > 22. Left.
>> > 23. etc.
>> >
>> >
>> <
>> http://www.tropicalsportscarclub.com/standard.htm#E.%20ROUTE%20INSTRUCTIONS
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Oct 9, 2009, at 3:46 PM, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>> >
>> >> Yeah -- what's up with that? Not to paint with too broad a brush, but
>> can
>> >> women within one standard deviation of the median read a map? None of my
>> >> three wives has ever known how to read a map.
>> >
>> >
>>
>
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