No, Klaatu, I’m pretty sure you’re the drunk one here. From the OP:
What purpose does the phrase “these days” have in this sentence if not to distinguish ads of today from ads of Ye Old Days?
And I can navigate from maps just fine thankyewverymuch. But a GPS is a lot quicker, and it lets me see more patients in a day - maybe just one or two, but that’s $50-100, meaning the thing pays for itself in less than a week.
I do make my kids navigate from a map sometimes just to teach them how. Never know when the GPS is gonna flake, or not get a good signal, especially when you’re downtown with all that metal and glass for signals to bounce off of and confuse the receiver (I guess; I just know the GPS gets flakey downtown). Map reading is still a good life skill, perhaps even a lifesaving skill someday. But I don’t eschew modern convenience because of what might happen someday. I just make sure we can do it both ways.
No, it’s not the same fucking thing, because he correctly pointed out that you’re hilariously stupid for not only expecting tech stats/info in commercials, but apparently would actually think commercials would be useful sources of this information. COMMERCIALS? Oh yeah, that’s totally the first place any savvy consumer will go for accurate information about a vehicle!
Being a pilot I’m a pretty fair map reader, yet my GPS is invaluable. It’s portable, not in the dash, but it works quite well. When I’m out of town, on a strange freeway with other freeways crossing left and right, I really love that little voice telling me I still have 1/2 mile before exit. Ever try looking for a building number in a heavy commercial area? It’s much easier having your GPS tell you your destination is on your right. And there’s the fun factor, I like pushing some of the buttons and seeing my altitude and ground speed.
I was thinking about this the other day. I figure in this day and age, things like the brakes, transmission, engine etc…should just effin work. Anything they tell you in a few seconds in the commercials is A)not going to do the technology involved in all those things any justice and B)Most people don’t really care.
On top of that, you can go to the manufacturers website and learn all about those things. Now, sure, maybe Honda has a transmission that’s superior to Ford’s or Ford’s braking system is miles better then Toyota (I really don’t know), but as long as the both stop and go and will continue to stop and go for the next few years, most consumers are more concerned about things like this car having Pandora or that one having heated seats. The differences that they’ll actually notice.
Not to mention it’s nice to be in a strange town with a flat tire and know instantly that the nearest tire repair is 1/2 a mile to my right. Been there, done that.
Or where I can get some barbecue.
Or where the nearest hospital is.
Or gas station.
Or pharmacy.
Maps are nice, but GPS does not only replace a map.
Those maps weren’t cheap at something like $20 a pop and they didn’t show points of interest, traffic jams or have the latest info on, well, anything. Good riddance to 1970’s “technology”.
And you didn’t have to worry about the person in the passenger seat holding it in front of the window and saying “follow the blue road until it crosses the red thing then turn…down”
“Okay honey, I can do ‘turn down’ you just gotta tell me if we’re going left or right”
“Then YOU read the map”
Of course, sometimes that’s not much better then…
Make a right turn in a 1/2 mile
Make a right turn in a 1/4 mile
Make the second right turn
Make the next right turn
Turn Right
All happening within a minute. For a while I changed her “Some directions” to “Less directions” to calm her down a bit, and that’s fine for long trips on the freeway, but if you’re in an unfamiliar suburb with lots of quick turns trying to find a house, and you have it set to ‘less directions’ sometimes she just plain doesn’t say some of them. I mean, they’re still on the screen, but if you’re listening for them, you’ll miss them.
Mine’s a bit insane, to be honest. She sometimes, but not always, considers exit ramps to be worthy of mention…when I’m NOT supposed to use them.
So I’ll be going down the Dan Ryan*, an expressway with exits about every 23 feet (that’s a little bit of an exageration, but not by much), and she’ll keep stuttering…
“Keep left, Eye Ninety Eye Ninety Four towards Wisconsin.”
“Keep left, Eye Ninety Eye Ninety Four towards–”
“Keep left, Eye Ninety Eye Ninety Four towards Wiscon–”
“In two hundred fifty feet, keep left, Eye Nine–”
“Keep left–”
ARRGH!!! I’m not “keeping” anything, bitch! I’m just driving. If it’s not my exit, STFU!
(But for all her faults, I can’t break up with her. She completes me.)
*Which, having divided Local and Express lanes and close frontage roads parallel to it for most of its length, confuses the heck out of her in general.
I get it. You’re one of those “if it was good enough for past generations, it’s good enough for me” types. Are you against technological progress in general, or just GPS?
Nothing in your post tells us whether the car in question has adequate cup holders. If it can’t handle my 64oz Big Gulp Deluxe on curves, the car is shit. Shit, I tell you!
I get that too. Hop on the freeway and hear “Drive 6 miles, then keep left” Okay, umm, I know nothing happens in 6 miles. Then I get to that point, where there’s nothing of note and hear “Keep left, then drive straight 3 miles” I’m sure in her software, something happens at that point. Maybe in the interstate highway system something happens at that point or two maps are stitched together at that point, but whatever.
What I would like to see is a “Just shut up for a little while” button. For example, When I drive to my friend’s house in a city about 4 hours away, I know how to get to the city, what I don’t know is which exit and how to navigate from the exit to her house since I only do it about once a year. I’d like to be able to program it in and when I get about 5 miles outside of the city limits then hit a button to start giving me directions.
Normally what I do is program it in, hit GO, then hit CANCEL so it’s on my previous destinations folder. But that’s a PITA to navigate to, especially if the sun is on the screen and god knows I don’t want to listen to her for three hours. Though she is relatively quiet other then the handful of interchanges I have to deal with, but it can be a bit jarring when she cuts out the radio and starts talking. (You can skip this, it’s just a rant). My car (an Insight) is small, the roads are concrete, going 70mph on concrete roads in a small sturdy car makes for A LOT of road noise which means I usually have the radio up somewhat loud just to hear it clearly, especially if I’m listening to my old-timey radio shows which have really bad audio quality…then she comes in, turned up to 11…she’s just loud anyways and I’m scrambling for the volume button, which I swear only controls her volume half the time.
Sometimes I miss the old stand-alone Garmin. It took fewer button presses to do stuff.
As much as I like my built in touch screen, the UI really, really sucks and the voice control is all but useless. It understands what I’m asking it to do (literally) less then 10% of the time. Works great for controlling my phone, but that uses a different module.
Unless you have every road in the U.S. memorized, I don’t see what your fucking point is. You said you used maps back then too. A GPS is just a map as well with the smarts to know where you are on it and how to get from there to where you are going. There is nothing manly or admirable about using a paper map over a GPS. A GPS is cheaper and better that keeping updated maps of a whole region or the whole country in your car at all times. To prefer the old way in this case is just a symptom Oldtimer’s disease. A portable GPS isn’t even part of the car so I don’t see what your problem with it is.
It’s because of crap like this that I missed paying a toll. By keeping left like the @*$#!! GPS said, I missed the cash toll lanes that I had to use since I don’t have an I-pass gadget.
(With that said, I do agree with all the scorn that people are heaping upon Klaatu.)
Can there be a board rule about spamming posts for no fucking reason? This guy posts like 19 times with 7 words per post, most of them right after the previous one. I hate that shit.
I know how to get from my house to Point A. I also know how to get from my house to Point B, Point C, etc., etc. But if I have to go from, say, Point E to Point H, then Garmin is my friend . . . somewhat of a nag at times, but still my friend.
But as far as commercials are concerned, a built-in GPS may be their “hook.” After they’ve got my interest, there are many other ways to get info on the important stuff.
My wife and I were just talking about this yesterday. We took a drive to look at leaves, and it was nice to know that we could go down any old random road that looked promising and know that we could never get lost. We could always find our way home with the GPS.