Car Navigation systems

Post #221,479 by tjsinclair 8/29/05 4:19:51 PM Reply	Car Navigation systems My wife and I went to Cleveland this past weekend and on a whim I decided to get the Hertz Neverlost GPS system for my rental car. I was a little nervous at first, since I had no experience using one of these things. But it was very easy to figure out and worked brilliantly. That being said, my experience got me to thinking and I wanted to throw some questions out to the community: - Does anyone have one of these gadgets in their own personal vehicle? - If so, why did you decide to get it? - Does it perform to your expectations? - How has it not performed to your expectations? - Are these things good for cross-country driving or do they have to be programmed for a particular area? At any rate, I plan to make this an option for all my future car rentals. Tom Sinclair "They took the 'civil' out of civilization and put the 'cult' into culture." - Me
Post #221,484 by Yendor 8/29/05 4:45:32 PM Reply	Re: Car Navigation systems Yes, NeverLost is a very nice addition to a rental vehicle; especially when you're in an unfamiliar area (as we were unfamiliar with Orlando a few weeks back.) I know that they are sold for personal vehicle use; cost is reported to be around $300-400, plus annual software upgrade costs. Personally, I wouldn't want to use it all the time -- at least, not with the given input system. Typing out addresses with that knob-thing that's provided is a PITA. If I were to get one for personal use, that's how I would envision myself using it -- for addresses; not destinations. There's not a "Disney World" local, for some reason. Note that I don't have one for my home car, and I don't necessarily see the need for one. I'm not a traveling salesperson...In fact, I work out of my basement. One thing to check for before purchasing is to make sure that all areas that you're likely to travel to often are covered -- I'm not sure that the entire country is covered yet... -YendorMike "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #221,486 by pwhysall 8/29/05 5:03:46 PM 8/29/05 5:05:29 PM Reply	I Love Sat Nav But there's a but. And that but is that if you become dependent on these things, you end up being unable to navigate by yourself. You become so conditioned to following the instructions that you don't build a mental spatial map of your surroundings, and thus if the satnav should for any reason fail, you're at square one. Peter [link\|http://www.ubuntulinux.org\|Ubuntu Linux] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes! Edited by pwhysall Aug. 29, 2005, 05:05:29 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #221,491 by tjsinclair 8/29/05 5:34:46 PM Reply	Re: I Love Sat Nav >And that but is that if you become dependent on these things, you end up being unable to navigate by yourself. That is exactly what I was thinking as I used it. With my previous system (printing out maps and directions from the Internet) , I was forced to pay closer attention to my surroundings and look for landmarks to help guide me. With a nav system I just listen to the nice lady telling me where to turn. I suppose it's just another in a long line of innovations: - writing meant that we didn't have to memorize long odes or prose. - speed-dial and 411 meant that we didn't have to know anyone's phone number - Google meant that we didn't have to know anyone's Web site address. - Spotlight/Google Search means that we don't have to remember where we put that folder or file. It's a trade-off and I haven't figured out whether it's a good one or not. I can see having one in my own car, if only to help me navigate downtown Denver which is a maze of one-way streets and roundabouts. However, my wife and I enjoy cross-country road trips so I wondered if these things work well outside their native area? Tom Sinclair backronym: n. [portmanteau of back + acronym] A word interpreted as an acronym that was not originally so intended. This is a special case of what linguists call back formation. Examples are given under recursive acronym (Cygnus), Acme, and mung. Discovering backronyms is a common form of wordplay among hackers. Compare retcon. - The Jargon File
Post #221,498 by drewk 8/29/05 6:18:26 PM Reply	What's the fallback? I don't know anyone's phone number. They're all entered on my mobile. But if for some reason I don't have it handy, I can look up anyone I need with a phone book or 411. If the navigation system goes down, can you stop at a gas station and buy a map? Usually. For now. Will they disappear as nav systems become common? Maybe. I agree that you don't build that mental model, though. There are places that I only go with my wife -- her relatives, the craft store, etc. If she's not there giving me directions, I have no idea where I am. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #221,549 by tjsinclair 8/30/05 1:34:36 AM Reply	What I do right now If I'm going somewhere (even local) where I've never been, I look it up on Yahoo!, get directions, print them out (maybe load them onto my iPod for backup) and head out. This technique got my wife and me to LA last year without incident. However, the downside is that we were on a fixed route and really didn't feel confident enough to stray to see interesting stuff. The upside of a Nav-Sat system is the freedom to explore. Tom Sinclair "The effective programmer is keenly aware of the limited size of his own head." - Attributed to Edsgar Dijkstra
Post #221,575 by boxley 8/30/05 9:43:21 AM Reply	huh? didnt feel comfortable enough to explore? you were going to LA which roughly entails driving towards the setting sun and asking whether LA was north or south when you hit the ocean. How hard could it be? thanx, bill "the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #221,579 by tjsinclair 8/30/05 10:27:17 AM Reply	Chalk it up to timidity in strange environs A personal fault. Plus, along the route we took (across New Mexico, Arizona) there are long stretches where there aren't a lot of places to pull over and ask for directions. Tom Sinclair "This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here." -- The Bursar is a man under a lot of stress (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
Post #221,557 by Meerkat 8/30/05 6:30:21 AM Reply	As someone who's perpetually at square one... I like the idea. However, I don't have in-car satnav. I take the cheap-arse approach and check www.whereis.com.au for directions before I head somewhere new. And I always have my street directory in the car as a backup. Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #221,623 by drewk 8/30/05 12:57:46 PM Reply	Can you fit street maps for all of Oz in one directory? If you want a complete street-level map just of L.A. for example, you might need two or even three large maps. Putting it all in one book makes it a fairly thick book. The entire state of Oregon, on the other hand, fits all interstates and street-level maps of most of the major cities all in one folding map. I know Oz is much more sparsely populated than most of the U.S., and now I'm curious how big a map you'd need for the whole country. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #221,734 by static 8/30/05 9:21:48 PM Reply	No. The Sydney street directory is over 400 pages just of maps. But if you search hard enough, you can in fact locate the same thing published as a folding map. The UBD website gives the impression it's one map, but when I last saw it, it's actually in three parts. OTOH, Adelaide fits on one folding map. Just. Us Oz city-dwellers are used to thick books for street directories. Wade. d-_-b
Post #221,508 by inthane-chan 8/29/05 6:41:58 PM Reply	My dad has one. Used it while I was in Washington DC this summer. Great little toy, and it didn't mess with my PizzaDeliverySense one bit at all - I only used it when I hadn't been somewhere yet, then didn't use it after that. What it needs, however, is a realtime link to the city traffic flow maps, and to use that info to route you around accidents. I'll consider getting one then. apt-get install godlike-powers
Post #221,550 by tjsinclair 8/30/05 1:35:49 AM Reply	Great phrase, PizzaDeliverySense. Now explain, please. Tom Sinclair "What's the earliest date by which you can't prove you won't be finished?"
Post #221,628 by inthane-chan 8/30/05 1:29:42 PM Reply	Simple. I delivered pizzas for two weeks. Since then, I haven't gotten lost. Ever. Oh, I've definitely missed the destination a couple times, but I've never gotten so lost that I had to stop and ask for directions OUT of wherever I was. apt-get install godlike-powers
Post #221,630 by inthane-chan 8/30/05 1:30:56 PM Reply	I also always know which way North is, instinctively.
Post #221,656 by ben_tilly 8/30/05 2:55:45 PM Reply	I'd like you to test this ability out in Boston, MA :-) I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #221,663 by drewk 8/30/05 3:23:36 PM 8/30/05 3:23:46 PM Reply	Easy You're in your car. You need to be going North. Look behind you, there it is. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com] Edited by drewk Aug. 30, 2005, 03:23:46 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #221,690 by ben_tilly 8/30/05 5:16:51 PM Reply	You forget... Boston is the city that for a long time had a sign saying that you were going North, East and West (on 3 different routes). The sign was correct. Boston navigation is..interesting. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #221,699 by Ashton 8/30/05 7:01:12 PM Reply	Concur Using friend's car (trying to get to a service place for same) - stopped near a queue, with the general Q {sotto voce, H.T.F.} ..do you find Anything around here? (Was rxpecting the typical 'tourist smirk' dismissal, of course.) But Nooo.. all nodded vigorously ~ Yup this place really Sucks / I know whatchamean! etc. They helped. I made notes. Was still hard to get to this small shop, near some overpass with snake-roads meandering about. So it isn't just us aliens what find Boston to be beyond the pale (the pale is located NWE of the fork at the EWN turnoff).
Post #222,011 by lister 8/31/05 6:58:28 PM Reply	Especially after the big dig I was in Boston and northern Mass last week. A friend living there got a new car with one of them nav computers in it. Fancy stuff. It worked practically flawless everywhere except certain parts of Boston where streets and exits have changed or disappeared. On our way to No Name on the south side for dinner one night we couldn't take an exit that the navcomp wanted since it no longer existed. When we surfaced the car jumped from one road to the other running parallel to it. Quite funny. :-) One thing neat is how after programming a route in, if you go off it, the computer would automatically readjust the route to get to your destination. Sometimes the route would get rather interesting depending on what weights you use for highways, tolls, roads, etc. I was anticipating the female computer voice to finally say "WHAT...THE...HELL...ARE...YOU...DOING?!?!" after it readjusted over 20 minutes of ignoring it. Heh. When I buy my next car it's definitely going to have one of them things despite being able to read maps well and have a good sense of direction. lister
Post #222,102 by ben_tilly 8/31/05 11:54:02 PM Reply	Good point! How well does Inthane's sense work when navigating through underground tunnels? :-) Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #221,768 by tjsinclair 8/31/05 1:01:48 AM Reply	Great! I actually started to get like that in Chicago after taking public transit for a few months. That, plus the fact that Chicago is very logically laid out. Tom Sinclair "This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here." -- The Bursar is a man under a lot of stress (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
Post #221,510 by imqwerky 8/29/05 6:44:00 PM Reply	A funny anecdote: We used a nav system a couple of years ago. It was quite handy. When we got to our destination, however, we stopped using it for navigation and started using it for entertainment. How, you ask? Well, we would program a street we had just passed into the thing, then listened to it as it kept telling us we were "going the wrong way." "Please make a legal U-Turn at the next available intersection." We just wanted to piss it off. We imagined a cartoonish end to our Navi-Friend... it would start to shake and smoke incessantly, then start shouting,"Turn around, Dumbass! You're going the wrong way! Why the hell don't you listen to me! Goddammit!" and then it would burst into flames. It don't take much to entertain the Critterites. :-D Peace, Amy " I tend to believe the great voices of peace throughout history {were} right, and this voice from this little hamlet here in Texas is absolutely wrong. The world is watching what you do here. It is important that you be calm, that you be peaceful, but you be firm. My grandmother {used to} say, \ufffdFight them \ufffdtil hell freezes over, and when hell freezes over, fight them on the ice.\ufffd Dallas Reverend Peter Johnson, former staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Post #221,511 by Another Scott 8/29/05 6:54:09 PM Reply	:-)
Post #221,551 by tjsinclair 8/30/05 1:37:32 AM Reply	My wife and I joked about that The voice is so calm and pleasant as long as you obey orders. We pondered just how pissed off we could make it. I did find out if I turn too early, it doesn't say a thing. Tom Sinclair "At the IFIP congress in 1971 I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Eiichi Goto of Japan, who cheerfully complained that he was always being eliminated." - Don Knuth
Post #224,615 by a6l6e6x 9/13/05 5:24:53 PM Reply	I have a Garmin iQue3600 PDA/GPS system. [link\|http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3600/\|iQue 3600 link]. It uses Palm OS and is portable being just a bit thicker than other PDAs. It has the standard Palm applications. The particular unit has both advantages and disadvantages relative to a vanilla car GPS system. For one thing you need to buy an "auto kit" to supply steady power and provide a more decent speaker for the Navigator's voice. The built-in battery would last only a couple hours if the screen remains lit. Also, the built-in fold out antenna needs to be on the dashboard to pick up the satellites. I plug in a separate antenna so that the unit can be placed in a darker interior of the car. On the other hand, I have a larger higher resolution screen and I could take the unit hiking. But, these are buying decision factors. I got it because, having purchased a motor home, I expected to find myself in places I had never been to before on a regular basis. There is nothing like having local information at hand, especially in more urban areas. For the most part it has it has performed well for my needs. My first real use of it was last September in the LA area when my wife and I flew out there to visit the factory where out motor home was to be built in Montclair. We also got a chance to meet up with Ben Tilly at a restaurant in Santa Monica and meet Andrew Grygus at his house in La Crescenta. The unit did fine navigating the Freeways, one-way streets, etc. I did screw-up Andrew's address and had to do some head scratching for a while. Heck, I used the unit on the airplane to see where we were including altitude during the flight. But, that's not navigation. There was serious use of the unit after we picked up our motor home and slowly headed East. Need groceries? Look for a supermarket. Need a laundromat? Search for the nearest one. Etc. Need to get off the Interstate which has become a parking lot and try to make headway on secondary roads? Well, it will continue to navigate you to your destination. As the voice (that I call Destiny) says - "Re-calculating!". Problems? You bet! They mostly have to do with missing, obsolescent, or bad data. Looking for a Costco store we were directed to one that was 15 miles away when there was a new near-by store. Many campgrounds are not in the data base and alternate information sources are required. We had been directed to stores that had moved or been closed down. We have seen local details e.g. streets be off a few hundred feet! In New Brunswick, Canada being navigated to a campground we found ourselves in rush hour traffic in Moncton, NB and eventually in a neighborhood with family homes and small apartment buildings! Again, using alternate information, we did find the campground many miles away. Turns out we had been navigated to where the owner of the campground lived! Again in New Brunswick, on the map display, we found ourselves moving in open fields with the Trans-Canadian 2 some half a mile away. The new road had been built some distance away from the old one. On the recent trip to Michigan we wanted to go to [link\|http://travel.michigan.org/detail.asp?m=4;5&p=G10169\|Van Buren State Park] on Lake Michigan. When we got close to the park we found ourselves at a concrete barricade. WTF? Well, if you followed the link and looked at the picture, you get a clue. Those white buildings are a nuclear plant. The South entrance to the park is no longer in use. It's GIGO, of course. So, you have to take directions with a grain of salt and use your head at all times. Data updates for a fee, in my case $75, are available every year or so. How much area is covered depends on how much storage you have. In my case, I have a 1 GB SD module which can cover close to half the US. The data available is broken up in variable sized geographical "tiles" (my name for them). You get to select the tiles you want be included in your set of data. As you might imagine, a part of Manhattan may have as much data as half of Wyoming. For longer trips, I re-build what goes on the SD module. Some GPS units have hard drives or DVD readers and can contain everything. YMMV. For cross-country, I would make sure I had all the data and an overall plan and then use daily target destinations. I would preview the selected path as well. Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #224,616 by tjsinclair 9/13/05 5:37:21 PM Reply	You bring up a benefit I didn't consider More than once on a cross-country trip we would run into road work or accidents that brought traffic to a standstill. Since I had no way of recalculating the route, we were forced to stay on the road and wait it out, rather than take a side road and let the GPS unit recalculate. Tom Sinclair It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military manoeuvres, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of. -- The City Watch takes action (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
Post #224,669 by a6l6e6x 9/13/05 10:48:07 PM Reply	Well, you do have to ignore the initial attemps... to return you to the interchange you've just exited. You do have a map to look at to make reasonable choices. If the destination is far away it does take a while for it re-calculate a route. Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #224,685 by tjsinclair 9/14/05 1:45:55 AM Reply	We usually have maps for the states through which we are travelling. However, for me, it's more of an emotional issue. The possibility of getting lost in an unfamiliar part of the country generates a lot of stress for me. Now some of you may consider me a wuss for this, but a lot of my anxiety is that I travel with my wife, who is disabled, and I don't want to put her into a position where we can't get assistance if we need it. Tom Sinclair "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." -- (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)
Post #224,731 by a6l6e6x 9/14/05 11:29:21 AM Reply	No you don't. The maps you have are not likely to show streets, county roads, etc., that are available on a GPS system. You would need a book of detailed maps all along your path to match a GPS system. Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #224,737 by jbrabeck 9/14/05 12:42:35 PM Reply	Maps + local gas stations == cheap GPS A good friend will come and bail you out of jail ... but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"
Post #224,747 by a6l6e6x 9/14/05 1:13:34 PM Reply	Yes, when local gas stations present. :) Alex The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #224,805 by tjsinclair 9/14/05 4:36:50 PM Reply	Point taken Which is why my usual process is to map out the route in detail before we leave home, using Internet resources. Tom Sinclair "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends, I read somewhere." -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)
Post #224,886 by Ashton 9/15/05 6:59:46 PM Reply	Yep - that got me through some pretty arcane off-ramp "side roads" 'twixt Sonoma CA and the well twistificated locus in Flagstaff AZ: first try! (I did, however; pull off to peer closely at the Insets I'd had the good fortune to notice I'd Need! -- a few miles prior to 'town'.) I'll have to stay with this model, heartwarming as is the idea of Sophia Loren's sultry voice cooing, You're so Masterful.. get ready to turn off in 3.14159 miles.. Big Boy.. Besides - Use the little grey cells often and imaginitively.. or risk becoming regressively Repo-like; grey cells jelled into concrete.

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