[ale] [OT] Please Help me with my homework

[Lightner, Jeff]

One benefit I find to using GPS even for trips I've done a thousand
times (like those to visit family in Chattanooga) is that it will route
me around major backups on the freeway as they are reported.

Also on occasion it has shown me highways I didn't even suspect existed.
When I was coming back from Vermont a couple of years back and needed to
stop in Dalton (GA) I assumed I'd need to go through Chattanooga since
it was routing me through Knoxville where I-40 and I-75 come together.
Having driven to Chattanooga several times when I lived in NC I was
quite familiar with that route.   The GPS kept trying to get me to get
off the freeway after we stopped to eat in Knoxville off of I-40 and I
assumed it was simply just trying to keep me on the back road I happened
to be on so ignored it and got back on the interstate.   After the 2nd
or 3rd time it told me to exit to the left I finally did and found it
put me on a US route that went straight down into Dalton and bypassed
Chattanooga to the east for which I was thankful as otherwise we'd have
gone through there during rush hour.   The I-75/I-24 split at the TN/GA
border is often quite harrowing at rush hour.

If the GPS had never done anything bizarre I'd probably not ignore it
the times I do.   Once in Dalton it directed me to drive about 5 miles
down a freeway, exit, get back on in the other direction, exit where I'd
started and make right rather than simply telling me to make the left
from where I'd started.   Another time in NJ it didn't tell me to exut
but the line showing the route of travel went down an exit ramp and
disappeared for a mile or so as if that was where I was driving then
came back up an entrance ramp and rejoined the actual route I was on.
Most of the time it seems spot on but those odd examples are the reasons
I sometimes think it doesn't know what it is talking about.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Paul
Cartwright
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 11:14 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] [OT] Please Help me with my homework

On 4/1/2011 10:59 AM, Geoffrey Myers wrote:
>> I wonder how the advent of the map direction GPS is influencing
spatial 
>> > ability? (And lets not guess, research only...)
> Just like calculators have let my mental math skills get rusty, I find

> that although I used to be really good about remembering directions 
> after one visit to a location, I now find I dig out the GPS for
multiple 
> trips to the same location.  I now, consciously note the directions
the 
> first time, and then don't use the GPS after that.
Unless I haven't been there before, I rarely use a GPS. For long trips,
where I have been there before, I use it to find gas stations, food,
etc..
My wife has bad night vision, so it is beneficial for her to use it
every time she drives at night.  My Garmin is going on 5 years old, so
new roads & new points of interest are really lacking.. What I did for
my LAST trip to New Orleans, was, I googled the restaurant I wanted to
stop at ( cracker barrel ) to plot out where they were along the route
so I could better plan my meals:) . There is like 140 miles of barren
highway on I-65 south, between Montgomery & Mobile..

-- 
Paul Cartwright

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