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Thread ID: 115040	2010-12-29 22:54:00	Latest in car gadgets	coldfront (15814)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1165555	2010-12-30 17:52:00	What did we do before these GPS map things were invented :lol::lol::lol: Listened to th' missus giving us the directions, then blaming th' missus when we got lost. Even so, SWMBO can be an equally dangerous distraction. :D	The Error Guy (14052)
1165556	2010-12-30 18:38:00	I drove from Napier to Taupo today. I was happy to be instructed, "drive 120 kms (or whatever) then turn right". Without a SWMBO or GPS, I surely could not have made it ... Easy enough - find State Highway 5 and follow it to Taupo :p	pcuser42 (130)
1165557	2010-12-30 18:50:00	Until I grow senile I won't have one. Not that they are a danger to the driver - as they talk - and even California with it's 'village mentality' hasn't seen fit to ban them. But Upsidedown Land is simple to navigate and our HWY 5 is 2,223 km long. Drive North until your feet get wet. Reverse direction and travel South until your feet get wet. Repeat for compass directions of East and West. That's roughly 1/2 tank in any direction so how can one need a GPS on an subducted tectonic plate anyway? Need to find one's way home? You can always follow the sheep when it starts to get dark.	SurferJoe46 (51)
1165558	2010-12-30 19:14:00	Easy enough - find State Highway 5 and follow it to Taupo :p Ever heard the expression, 'tongue in cheek'?	WalOne (4202)
1165559	2010-12-30 19:36:00	Think I'll just stick with my sexy co-driver, i don't need a fancy GPS to get around the South Island. I have always had a pretty good sense of direction inherited from my Dad who was a Paramedic	gary67 (56)
1165560	2010-12-30 19:47:00	I just spent 3 weeks in UK, travelling around by myself, and found the GPS invaluable - in fact I would have been lost without it. :D Without it, I would have been constantly stopping to look at a map, or ask directions, as I was going to places I'd never visited before. I did go round a couple of roundabouts 3 times before I got the right exit, and occasionally the map was out of date - but I suspect that was because the car rental company never updates them. I wouldn't have a use for one here, though if I was a tourist they could still be useful.	Tony (4941)
1165561	2010-12-30 20:40:00	Heck! Some of the best times I had I was lost!	SurferJoe46 (51)
1165562	2010-12-30 21:06:00	The biggest problem with reliance on a GPS is that if it fails or is lost/stolen enroute to some place, the user is stuffed and often has no real idea of where they are. When my kids were younger, as we drove around I always tried to ensure that they knew their general geographic location in Auckland, be it north, south, east, or west. When my daughter started driving I made sure she could read a map the right way up and how to find where she was if lost by stopping at a junction and locating that via the street index. She now drives anywhere (including to a remote Coromandel beach in the dark) by route planning and map checks. My son spent his youthful years in a spatial fog it seems, so he bought a GPS, relies on it entirely and has to phone when the GPS lets him down (as they do) and he has absolutely no idea where he has been, what direction he has been travelling or what to do if he gets lost. When he comes home, via GPS, he has no idea where he was other than the name of the street or place. He can't even find his way to places we have driven him to dozens of times over the years. We live on the North Shore, and I reckon the limit of his knowledge is that if he crosses the Harbour Bridge he is going South, and he has no idea of direction or distances after that. He is not dumb, he has just completed his degree with straight A's, but geographically he is spatially unaware. He can find his way to food in the fridge without any problems though, and knows where to find the beer in the garage fridge too! Cheers Billy 8-{)	Billy T (70)
1165563	2010-12-30 21:22:00	There are some places in Papakura and Auckland I can find without a GPS (and train stations don't count in this case :p), and I know that if I am lost and need to get home, I can find a motorway and follow the signs home. So I'm not always relying solely on the GPS, but it is helpful if I would otherwise have no idea where to go.	pcuser42 (130)
1165564	2010-12-30 21:30:00	@ Billy T::: Ever sit in a car while someone is giving you directions to some place they know and you don't?:groan: 'Turn left here' and then 'Go around the white house' and then ' just keep going straight for 20 klics' and then you hear: 'Here we are'. How did you get there? You don't really know since he knows and you were just depending on him to tell you when and where to turn, go, start and stop - and you paid no attention at all since you were consumed with just driving safely. See what I mean? How do you find the place again? You don't. You didn't pay attention to the turns, just made them on command and you cannot remember anything at all. That's what a GPS does to you. You don't actively navigate and you become more and more dependent on the GPS to get you out of bed and to the breakfast table later on if you let it take over. MEN OF UPSIDEDOWN LAND - STAND UP AND DEMAND THAT THE GPS BE THROWN OUT - IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!! It will make you stupid and will feed the already fiery insults that men never ask direction from SWMBO or your significant other - or ask any farmer. It'll be worse than asking that farmer how to find an address to another farm::: "Just go down this road here for about ten minutes to the brown dog and turn sorta left at the three-way fork in the road - not a hard left or that will take you the wrong way - but 'sorta' left and watch for the hubcap in the right ditch about three minutes down that road and look over your left shoulder and you'll see a short hill from there - it's behind the short hill, not the big hill, but not the shortest hill either. Look for the almost shortest hill - that'll be the one it's behind."	SurferJoe46 (51)
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