Live data from Hacker News

North Paw

sensebridge.net

1–10 of 142 posts

Re: North Paw

#2
> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.

Re: North Paw

#3
I thought about building something like this about 20 years ago, but decided not to.This is actually a skill you can teach yourself if you just start paying attention. It works pretty much everywhere except for in labyrinth-like buildings. The last time I couldn't figure out which Way North was was in Lord Leicester hotel in warwick 5 years ago.

Re: North Paw

#5
I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it.

I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired of questions/comments :)

Re: North Paw

#6
post #5

I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it. I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired…

> Because of the plasticity of the brain, it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings.

So you would say that this quote isn't exaggeration?

Re: North Paw

#7
post #2

> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.

I wonder if any smart watch apps can reliably achieve something similar. I looked briefly for an Apple watch app that did it but no luck.

Re: North Paw

#8

I thought about building something like this about 20 years ago, but decided not to.This is actually a skill you can teach yourself if you just start paying attention. It works pretty much everywhere except for in labyrinth-like buildings. The last time I couldn't figure out which Way North was was in Lord Leicester hotel in warwick 5 years ago.

Agree with this guy. Never tried Lord Leicester hotel in Warwick though, but looks like it's too late. Shut down.

Re: North Paw

#9
I had this same idea when I was in university and built one in my embedded systems class. It was pretty cool to use when I was on my motorcycle.

In addition to a north facing mode, I also added a location mode which would always point to a specified lat/lon location. This was cool for just randomly exploring while always knowing where home is.

Post reply on HN