[ale] [OT] Please Help me with my homework

[Lightner, Jeff]

Real world:  I know a woman that freely admits she has the poorest sense
of direction ever.   When she lived in France she said that her
coworkers/roommates forced her to tell them where she was going any time
she left and sent out search parties if she didn't make it there because
she was so well known for getting lost.   She has lived in same medium
sized city in the US for nearly 20 years and when I'd be with her she
could not tell me how to get from point A to point B and was often
surprised when I'd end up at the right destination just by going in what
"seemed" to me the right direction.   Once years ago she asked me to
come and pick her up at her daughter's house but other than the address
had no clue how to get there from where I was.   Since I had no GPS and
was already in the car I did use a map.

Once she saw the GPS in my car in use she immediately went out and
bought one of her own and now seems to get to places without getting
lost and has much more confidence in going places on her own.

By the way - yesterday I went to Chattanooga and saw two backups on I-75
NB.  The first one was up around Cartersville (I think) and was the
first time I'd seen a helicopter on the highway - there was an
overturned vehicle and I haven't seen the news to find out what
happened.  (Not being a rubbernecker I didn't exacerbate traffic by
slowing down to see more detail.)   The second backup was right at the
TN/GA border and my GPS successfully navigated me through to where I was
going.   The route it took was quite circuitous and I doubt I'd have
made it as quickly if I'd had to look at a map to figure that route out.
(On that one I never saw the accident itself - with the GPS I now get
off the freeway at the first exit I can whenever there is a backup that
appears to be standing still.)  I used to do that with maps but only as
a last resort.   Often I find a severe slow down rather than a dead stop
you end up still making better time on the freeway than on back roads.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Tom
Freeman
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2011 8:24 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] [OT] Please Help me with my homework

On 04/01/2011 04:11 PM, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>
> Being an old fogey doesn't mean the same as being an old dog - you can

> learn new tricks. I have a road atlas and usually stop and get the 
> state map for whatever states I'm going through and I used them often 
> for various trips. However, once Mapquest became available I didn't 
> feel I'd dumbed myself down any for using nor do I feel that way using

> the GPS built in the car I bought 2 years ago. For my last few major 
> road trips I've printed Mapquest AND used the GPS mainly to see what 
> the differences were. They do tend to pick slightly different routes. 
> On my Saskatchewan trip Mapquest had me bypassing Wisconsin and going 
> into Minnesota but my GPS put me through western Wisconsin.
>
Sorry if I gave the impression of not learning new tricks. I do have a 
GPS, I do use a GPS, and I do use online maps. I also irritate the girl 
friend by not stopping and asking questions early enough for her to be 
comfortable.

Best use of a GPS to date for me has been has been giving it to an older

female relative. She gets fascinated by our position crawling around a 
map, and stays quiet and happy while we get to our destination.

The inner city of Atlanta strikes me as a nice place to have either GPS 
or a navigator, with a navigator being prefered. Like the city of 
Boston, blamed place was laid out by drunk cattle... (And yes, I've had 
to navigate both cities solo by car. Both can be interesting
experiences.)

What my original query was, is there any information known to this list 
that suggests GPS modules are a help, or a hinderance, to people in 
general learning to navigate the real world. So far, a lot of blather, 
and I'm guilty also, and not a drop of data.
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] *On Behalf Of

> *Drifter
> *Sent:* Friday, April 01, 2011 3:28 PM
> *To:* Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> *Subject:* Re: [ale] [OT] Please Help me with my homework
>
> Aha, you might have been able to vote in Australia. :)
>
> Sean
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Friday, April 01, 2011 02:17:05 pm Tom Freeman wrote:
>
> > Back in the day (old fogey here) we had that capability. Called a
map.
>
> > 8-) Some of us even learned how to fold them up nicely.
>
> >
>
> <<snip>>
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