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Detroit, 3:34 PM
Thu Nov 12
33 posts in the last 24 hours
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*rimshot* #streetview
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10/14/09
Sure, a map is in the glove box but unless absolutely needed I don't pull it out.
Sure, sometimes I'll do a quick glance on the PC before heading out to get some bearings.
I learned the surrounding area I live in that way. I can remember being Sixteen and had a full tank of gas. Someone told me there was a great Bar 25 miles away that served underage for carry out. I didn't have a map. Maps cost money and the Twenty I had was for the Beer. I scribbled down some half ass directions and off me and the guys went after school on a Friday.
I think it was two hours later we found the place out in the middle of nowhere. Then it took forever to get home. (Cold Beer you know) and life was good.
What happened to our sense of adventure? Or is this it? Hoping the technology we trust so much actually works correctly. Or that the roads haven't been upgraded or changed since the last 2.09 download.
And all that said I know what I'll end up getting for Christmas this year, a Garmin, not that I want it, the wife wants it. She so hates when I tell her, "Let's just head that way and see what we see."
10/14/09
10/14/09
This is how my wife and I have traveled the NA continent over the past four years. Pick a turnaround point, usually only because of convenience, head there, or not, and eventually return to the starting point.
It's a neat way to see the world, honestly. We have all the travels mapped on a PC in MS Streets & Trips by using GPS and an antenna, but that was just so we could see where we'd been.
Referencing a paper map would have been quite useful in avoiding the dirt National Forest Service road, at night, in Idaho. We travel in a 40' diesel motorhome, and at the time were pulling a '99 Suzuki Grand Vitara, so 'bout 58', total.
10/17/09
10/14/09
My wife uses Google Maps in a way that would make a 300 mile drive into a 4 hour virtual drive video. She punches in the destination, punches in the starting point, and prints out turn by turn directions from our driveway to the destination... on the other end of the state. Printing a map is secondary to those turn by turn directions.
This works fine until you take a wrong turn, or ignore the directions 'til you get close at such time as you've forgotten which turn you're on. You end up hopelessly lost on some logging road, roaring through someone's hunting camp at the intersection of nowhere and Timbuktu because you didn't have the information you really needed.
Here's what I do: If my journey is 5 miles of driving from my house to the freeway, 300 miles of freeways, and 5 miles from the freeway to my destination I don't need 310 miles of turn by turn directions, I need 6 to 8 miles of map surrounding my destination. Google Maps has a great feature after you've looked up your destination. You can pan around 'til you find a freeway or familiar landmark, right click and select "directions from here". It gives you the 5 miles you weren't familiar with and skips the 305 you could drive with your eyes closed (figure of speech... don't drive with your eyes closed).
A virtual drive would be less help to me than a plain ol' road map. But then, I'm an engineer and Eagle Scout... spacial awareness and navigation aren't really a problem for me.
10/14/09
I use MapQuest almost exclusively when planning a trip to anywhere I haven't been. The text directions can be sometimes turn you in the wrong direction, so comparing it to the map is a good idea.
This seems like the logical next step in the evolution of online mapping, but I'm not sure that it adds enough functionality to justify its existence. Not that an amalgamation of Streetview and MapQuest is a bad thing, just unneccesary.
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10/13/09
Seriously though, with those hoses coming out of it, I'm guessing it had a running air compressor or something in it that had some mechanical and/or electrical issue that started the blaze, the fact that no one seems to have noticed yet is the most puzzling aspect to me...