Dead reckoning and cognitive mapping are skills most people have, take for granted, and assume everyone has.
However there are a whole lot of people out there without these skills that leave us scratching our heads wondering how they can get through life without them.
My wife would be one of them. She has absolutely no clue as to her general overall location at any given time. We live on the north side of town, we’ll be at a party on the south side, someone will ask where we live, and she’ll reply “On the other side of town” and physically point south. I’ll correct her and say “You mean that way” and point north and she’ll just brush it off with a “yeah, whatever.”
Even at our own house we’ve lived in for 5 years she can’t tell me which direction north is. Even after telling her where it is I can ask her to point in the general direction of downtown, Canada, the Atlantic Ocean, Chicago, etc. and she’ll have no clue.
It boggles the mind sometimes.
Ok, now I don’t want to start an argument or anything, but y’all being serious about this?
Maybe you should bear in mind not everybody has bajillions of dollars or the technical knowhow to do this stuff. They don’t have the resources.
The things you are talking about sound like Star Trek to me. If I need to get somewhere I ask directions, look at an actual, physical road atlas, or use Mapquest - which I’ve always thought was about as futuristic as getting directions needs to be.
The idea that typing - or speaking - to your car (I’ve seen it done in commercials) and getting what you want is a simple, everyday occurence is pretentious and insulting to those of us who don’t have money to throw around on gadgetry.
[inhale/exhale]
Sorry.
The Constitution does not specify the manner in which the President must sign legislation, you know.
No, they weren’t.
-FrL-
(Well, you can get directions from your cell phone, but you can’t (AFAIK) get directions by putting a phone number into a car. You can get directions from a GPS device in a car, though.)
(Anyway, everyone was kidding around. They didn’t really mean to say everyone should know how to do everything they mentioned–even the ones that actually can be done in the real world.)
Well, if they lived near Ithaca, specifying a natural wonder you leave near on the outskirts of town would not narrow down things a whole bunch 
(Okay, I never saw Ausable Chasm and would like to some day. But it can’t hold a candle to the four major waterfalls you can see just from the road near Ithaca. But it sure as heck beats anything you could see in Florida, although Rock Springs comes close, a spring coming from a frickin’ cave in the side of a hill.)
I agree that Mapquest sucks ass. Back in '99 my best friend and I were trying to get from Worcester MA to Plattsburgh NY. Neither of us had ever made the drive before although I had been a passenger many times. My mom had always gone through NH (now that I know better, I can’t imagine why). So, I tried to find directions from Mapquest. We were doing fine until we got to NH. Then, we spent 3 hours looking for a highway which we eventually found out didn’t exist. Ever. It would have also been helpful if even one person had said, “Um, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that particular highway”. Instead, everyone tried to direct us to a mythical place. Finally, we found a nice convenience store clerk who told us that it didn’t exist and that the highway right across the street would in fact take us to White River Junction. If it becomes absolutely necessary, I’ll use Mapquest just to get a generic idea of where I’m going. Then, I just figure the rest out for myself.
I’ve never been to Ithaca. I think I might have to make a trip there some day. I will admit that there are many things in this country more stunning than Ausable. But, I tend to like my natural wonders a bit on the smaller side. Too much of a good thing is, well, too much for me.
The first time I went to my friend’s house I asked her if her street was north or south of a particular landmark. She told me "it depends on which way you’re going ".
But I’ve told you whether to turn left or right so you can pick which way works best for you.
I get hopelessly confused if the directions don’t include north/south/east/west … if you only have “lefts” and “rights”, if you screw up one turn you can’t get back on track.
That’s easy, though. When you live in the north side of the Cities you don’t recognize the southside at all. If I’m outside I can point east - only because if I look through the trees just right I can make out some of downtown Minneapolis.
Heaven forbid I have to go to the southside - I’m completely lost. Let’s not discuss the difficulties I had getting to the last DopeLunch somewhere south.
I am guilty of doing what the OP is het up about. I invited some friends up to my cabin, giving them the “speedy” directions - IOW avoiding the busy interstate in favor of county roads. I told them to get off on a particular county road, go through the two stop signs, turn left at the T, then go west on Highway 55 (blahblah until you got to the cabin).
I forgot to tell them the distance between the exit and the T was approximately 25 miles. One friend, once she arrived, proceeded to screech at me about my crappy directions. However, I had told them the total drive would be an hour from my house. I don’t know what she expected.
I understand the frustration, but not the anger. I’m someone who goes out of state and tries to get lost, I’ll see a road I’ve never been down and take it just to see where it goes, my brother hit traffic on his way to visit our mother and called me, 200 miles away, to ask about alternate routes.
I have several maps in my car at all times, just in case… but I almost never use them. I kid my brother that he gets lost in the frozen food section of the supermarket. I know he doesn’t have any sense of direction as I know a lot of other people don’t. If someone can’t direct me to their house. I don’t blame them, I just get the address and look it up. I do assume that everyone knows their own address.
Heh. Here’s a natural wonder a few blocks from where I live: Painting the falls | terminusest | Flickr
Note that I live right in the middle of Ithaca.
I am atrocious at giving directions here, as I can’t remember the street names. Plus it’s generally insufficient to simply say “right” or “left”. You have to specify which right or left. Here are some typical Ithacan intersections: Google Maps
This is definitely one of my pet peeves. I fully understand that some people have no sense of direction. Fine. But don’t pretend you do by pointing in some random direction, and when called on this don’t try to act like the whole concept of direction is some annoying nitpick invented by nerds.
So I guess Obama or McCain could… ewwww! Never mind. (Although I wouldn’t have put it past Bill Clinton, now that I think of it).
I’ve generally found MapQuest to be pretty reliable, but just today it didn’t recognize the address of a local college. Not some ma-and-pa corner store, but a college, for chrissakes. WTF? Until I called a friend I was going to meet there and who could give me directions, I would’ve been misdirected away.
She also does not grasp the concept of “up” as being north when having conversations about travel plans.
We live in Minneapolis, her parents live in Chicago. She’ll be on the phone telling them “I think we’re going to come up there next month.”
I’ll correct her with “No, we’re going to go down there next month. People in the midwest fly DOWN to Florida for vacation. People drive UP north to go camping.”
I still get the :rolleyes: reaction from her.
I love to drive. Specifically, I love to drive up here. But, I was just doing a favor. I was in the same town as my niece and didn’t see the point in having my sister rush over there to get her after work. If that moron had just said that he was two miles down from the Chasm, heading towards the college, or towards Plattsburgh, I would have been there in minutes. Instead, he sent me in the complete opposite direction and even after repeated phone calls, he continued to insist he knew where I was and that I needed to drive through the town to get to him. That’s why I was angry. He could have just admitted that he didn’t know where I was and said he was between the Chasm and the college and I would have known exactly where he was. I don’t like when people waste my time and gas. And, when I’m going to go for an hour long drive, I prefer to see better scenery than downtown Hicksville. I also prefer to not have my 9 year old nephew in the car, talking endlessly about how THAT mountain is the same mountain we saw at the lake. He hasn’t grasped yet that we live in the valley of a major mountain range and not all the mountains are the same one. I also have lots of maps in my car and I actually enjoy getting lost, just to find my way again and to see new things. But, I prefer to do it either alone, or with a similarly minded adult who’s company I enjoy, not a kid I’ve been stuck with for a week straight.
Did you know you can edit the location Google maps returns for a search?
Google maps originally found my address about 300 feet down the road from where I actually live. But I moved it, so now a search will take you to the right spot!
When you search for an address, a little balloon pops up to point to the location. There’s now an Edit option towards the bottom of the balloon. Click on it and you can move the green location arrow to the actual location for that address. I believe you need a Google account to do this. You may need to be signed in to your Google account to make the Edit appear in the balloon.
Are you serious? Up=North is really arbitrary. I realise this comes from cartography, but you have to admit that the choice makes no sense to those who do not think in terms of maps. Upper Egypt is up the Nile (that is, South). Around here, “up the hill” means up the hill (that is, West). In Manhattan, Uptown is approximately Northeast. I totally support your wife’s :rolleyes:
I’m with your wife. If it is sunny outside and morning or afternoon, so I can easily see the shadows, I can figure out which way the cardinal directions are. If it’s cloudy or noon or nighttime? North could be anywhere. Sometimes, I feel that the rest of you are just making it up.
But I tend to drive places by feel, so I can’t give directions (“go down for a while, then turn left for a while, then go down for a while and you’ll get there” is not very precise. (I live in Seattle. There are hills. To me, “down” is a lot more definite of a direction than “west.”) And if I haven’t driven the route myself (several times), I can’t possibly give directions at all. Probably couldn’t find it myself.
Strangely, I can follow maps very well. I just forget to buy them.