Author:
wexwiz543
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Date Posted: 19:54:37 10/14/14 Tue
Premptory!? Darn foiled by automatic spell check should be caveat emptor
Wex
>A GPS is only as good as the software that runs it is
>created. It sounds like the software doesn't know
>about small towns. Too many people have been misled
>when they rely totally on a GPS.
>Look at the strange instructions you get from mapquest
>to get between two points.
>
>I tell my students caveat peremptory. At least look at
>a map before you trust your GPS. There have been too
>many stories in the news lately about people nearly
>dieing because they were misled by a GPS.
>
>Wex
>
>>Another column picked up from the paper. I've
>>touched it up to de-emphasize the local angle a
>>little, but other than that it's absolutely true.
>>
>>-- Wes
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>-
>>
>>Someone recently gave my wife a GPS system. She’s used
>>it a little, but I haven’t very much, since I rarely
>>drive anywhere these days when I don’t know where I’m
>>going because I’ve been there before. Oh, once in a
>>while I will go to a race track I’ve never been to
>>before and I have to glance at a map, but that’s
>>pretty rare.
>>
>>The other day I had to drive her car up to a town I'll
>>call Flatburg. I was by myself, so I thought I’d give
>>the GPS a fair trial. Now, I know how to get to
>>Flatburg. I’ve known it for fifty years or more, so it
>>wasn’t as if I really needed the help. To get to
>>Flatburg, you drive north up the highway until you get
>>to the interstate, go west, and wait until you get to
>>the sign that says “Flatburg.” Very simple. Even a
>>child could do it. Right.
>>
>>I managed to get the thing turned on somewhere north
>>of town on the highway. That’s something I don’t
>>recommend trying to do while you’re driving by
>>yourself, by the way. Almost as soon as I had it on, a
>>girl’s voice told me to turn right on a small dirt
>>road.
>>
>>“You’re crazy,” I yelled at the stupid machine. “Why
>>would I want to go down a dirt road a mile out of the
>>way when where I’m going is right ahead of me on the
>>highway?”
>>
>>So, I ignored it. After I passed the dirt road, in a
>>rather snotty voice the machine said, “Recalculating,”
>>but in a tone I took to mean, “Why didn’t you listen
>>to me the first time, stupid?”
>>
>>In the next five miles or so it managed to keep from
>>sending me down every cross road I passed, but after
>>that it didn’t get a thing right. Not once. I would
>>have shut the stupid thing off, except I sort of
>>wanted to see just how bad it was going to be. The
>>answer was “not merely bad, but downright awful.”
>>
>>The dumb machine tried to send me off course at every
>>intersection we came to. Every one! Once it tried to
>>send me down a road that was abandoned when I was a
>>kid. You might have been able to get down it in a Jeep
>>with four-wheel drive and a chainsaw. Another time it
>>tried to get me off at an intersection that never
>>existed with a road that didn’t cross.
>>
>>By now, I was laughing at every wrong intersection,
>>sometimes shouting things like “You @#$%^&* idiot!” at
>>the machine. (Yes, I talk to machines. I’ve always
>>done it. Get over it.)
>>
>>It did get the exit from the interstate at Flatburg
>>correct -- but only because the dumb machine had been
>>trying to get me off the interstate at every
>>intersection from the highway onward. That counts as a
>>“little boy who cried wolf” problem. Even that didn’t
>>count, since as soon as I was on the side road, it
>>tried to get me to go back east on the interstate.
>>
>>It did miss trying to send me down a few wrong side
>>streets once I was in Flatburg, but only a few. I
>>finally hit a point at an intersection where my
>>destination was clearly in sight in the block to the
>>left. You guessed it: it sent me to the right.
>>
>>Now, my son-in-law has pointed out that the machine
>>may have inadvertently been set to the wrong
>>destination. I don’t think so; I had it set for a
>>destination that was already on the machine and there
>>weren’t a lot of choices.
>>
>>I will say the machine was pretty good about telling
>>me where I was. Telling me how to get where I wanted
>>to go, it was abysmally, hysterically wrong. So, I
>>learned something from that: don’t trust GPS
>>directions. I mean, I knew where I was going, so I
>>knew it was wrong. But what if I didn’t know where I
>>was going?
>>
>>I may be old-fashioned and cantankerous, but I think
>>I’ll stick with paper maps, thank you.
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