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Paper map sales are booming

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Re: Paper map sales are booming

#221

Post by mongol »

kimbernator wrote: post #45

This is a little tangential, but last year me and my girlfriend went to Greece for the first time. A few days after we purchased the tickets, a book came in the mail. She had ordered a tourism guide for Greece that had some recommendations about what to see, where to eat, where to stay, etc. My first reaction was along the lines of "why would we do this when we have the entire internet? Each section is written by onl…

Look out for printed information, it can age quite fast. I remember travelling in China. It turns out the airport we landed in when flying domestic was a completely different one than the book described. That one was shut down, despite the book being quite recent, and a new one built, not mentioned at all. But then again, construction in China seems to happen at 5x the speed, at least, as in Europe.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#222

Post by Turing_Machine »

floren wrote: post #66
Kon-Peki wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea! Old marine maps had various landmarks on them, along with their height. This allowed you to get angle and distance, giving you the opportunity to calculate position with pen and paper even if you only had a single landmark in view.

Not just old marine maps -- modern marine charts have the same. They mark radio towers, grain silos, etc. because although GPS is widely-used, the old navigation techniques are still important.

I believe the U.S. Naval Academy actually stopped teaching old school celestial navigation for a while, then someone with a bit of common sense realized that there were scenarios (particularly in a war situation) where the GPS constellation might not be available, and started teaching it again.

You can't just pull over at a gas station in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and ask for directions. :-)

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#223

Post by fooker »

dudul wrote: post #178
fooker wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just need to "map" what you see to the map to be able to see where you are and where north is. Well, you have provided a neat definition of map reading. :)

I know lol that's why I'm not sure how it is difficult or something to learn really. I guess your mention of representation of elevation made me realize that you at least need to learn the conventions and the key to a map.

>I know lol that's why I'm not sure how it is difficult or something to learn really.

Imagine how easy recursion is to grok for most of us and absurdly painful for most people trying to learn programming.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#224

Post by eternityforest »

tuatoru wrote: post #216
nemonemo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two types of maps are targeting different groups -- paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users who know the basic navigation and have little need to consult the legend. The electronic maps target much wider audience and can be dumbed down since people can interact with the map. Sure, the electronic maps probably can stuff more info to be shown at a glance, but my impression is that they chose not to.

> paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users Since when did using a map become an "advanced" life skill? Is "Idiocracy" becoming a documentary?

Since it became unnecessary for most people? Phones can break, so it's always good to know the paper skills... but it's definitely not an everyday thing anymore.

Besides, even before phones, it was somewhat advanced, they were never easy, as shown by how often people got lost, and still get lost with perfectly functional GPS just by making one bad turn because their memory failed since last time they checked the screen.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#225

Post by eternityforest »

dmurray wrote: post #194
kortilla wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these things are too annoying to do at scale so they just skipped it rather than choosing to intentionally dumb it down. Making the call on what is a “scenic route” isn’t something you can just pull directly from highway department data.

You could predict it from Streetview data though! A small bit of computer vision would go a long way here. Actually this seems like a fun project for someone inside or (if the API is not too throttled) outside Google.

Or better yet, when someone drives anywhere, predict if there was a faster way they could have gone, and take that as a candidate scenic view.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#226

Post by brightlancer »

reader_x wrote: post #199

A cartography professor of mine once advised me to take another career path because cartography was dying; he added, “Google Maps has terrible maps- but no one seems to care.” It heartens me to see in HN comments that some are noticing. A pet peeve of mine is when water bodies go unlabeled. An old-fashioned paper map like the kind inserted in National Geographic mags when I was wee included a breathtaking amount of i…

At least in the US, folks seem extremely sensitive to direct prices and are consequently penny-wise and pound-foolish (not in a Vimes's Boots way), where they could've spent an extra 5% or 10% on a better product or service and been happier for it, perhaps even saving more in short-term indirect costs. Even against a "free" product or service, spending $30 or $50 might save multiples in time -- but IME folks are really bad at pricing indirect costs.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#227

Post by Turing_Machine »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #160
kimbernator wrote: post #45

This is a little tangential, but last year me and my girlfriend went to Greece for the first time. A few days after we purchased the tickets, a book came in the mail. She had ordered a tourism guide for Greece that had some recommendations about what to see, where to eat, where to stay, etc. My first reaction was along the lines of "why would we do this when we have the entire internet? Each section is written by onl…

When Lonely Planet guides were popular, there was a trend of investors buying popular hostels/attractions from the guide and running them into the ground before the next Lonely Planet was published and warned of the demise. I haven't seen this as much lately (maybe due to rise of online reviews), but cross-referencing Lonely Planet with TripAdvisor is the sweet-spot.

You have to take TripAdvisor and similar sites with a very large grain of salt.

I recall a low-star "review" of a nearby (and excellent) bird sanctuary where the text said something like "It would be okay if you like birds, I guess". Left unstated was why someone who didn't like birds would go to a bird sanctuary in the first place.

Now, in that case, the poor quality of the review was apparent, but it's not always that obvious. Others from the local region:

A (very good) seafood restaurant got panned because "the tilapia was frozen, not fresh". Given that this is Alaska and the closest place to get really fresh tilapia is, like, Louisiana, that's not overly surprising, is it? Why the hell did you order tilapia in Alaska? Have you heard of salmon? Halibut? King crab?

An (excellent) old-school dive hamburger joint (in business since 1964) got slammed for not having a "vegan option". Yes, and?

And so on.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#228

Post by eternityforest »

navane wrote: post #191
dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

Most innovation sells you an inferior product for a lower price. It is almost never better than what was available in the past, just cheaper. Life becomes a series of more, but lower value experiences.

It makes life easier at the expense of some indescribable sense of "quality" or connotations of "wealth", the feeling that the product makes a statement about the skill of the maker and the user, that there's real skill involved not just a technological cheat code in real life.

Which seems to be very culture specific, it's important to some but not others.

I don't have much doubt that people get lost less with phones now. It's reliable and available on demand at any moment. Basic utilitarian trips might even use less gas because if dynamic traffic data.

The main thing we lost is the sense that things are real and solid, rather than unearned power ups in a global scale video game, but by technical engineering measures, it seems like almost every single product outside of the arts has improved, year after year.

Old analog stuff is cool, but if I only had room in my bag for one, I'm probably going to take the latest new version, every time.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#229

Post by tuatoru »

eternityforest wrote: post #224
tuatoru wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users Since when did using a map become an "advanced" life skill? Is "Idiocracy" becoming a documentary?

Since it became unnecessary for most people? Phones can break, so it's always good to know the paper skills... but it's definitely not an everyday thing anymore. Besides, even before phones, it was somewhat advanced, they were never easy, as shown by how often people got lost, and still get lost with perfectly functional GPS just by making one bad turn because their memory failed since last time they checked the scre…

Next you'll be telling me that people don't know how to darn their socks any more.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#230

Post by green-salt »

dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

Ended up using this once for a short trip, but about a year later ended up getting a satnav device.
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