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Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

theguardian.com

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Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#41

Post by isostatic »

myroon5 wrote: post #7

"the sun rises in the east, sets in the west and moves through the southern sky" That last part is dependent on your latitude, correct? If you were far enough south, the sun would move through the northern sky, wouldn't it?

Yes, and in the tropics it depends on the time of year. For instance I've just been reading this thread on the walk from the hotel to the office in Nairobi. It's about noon, and the sun was high on my right shoulder, so as it's May I was walking West.

When I did the same walk in February at the same time the sun was high on my left shoulder.

However assuming the sun does rise (i.e. you're not in a polar region near the solstices), it will always rise somewhere to the east (even if it's south-south-east) and set somewhere to the west.

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#42

Post by syvanen »

mcgreevy wrote: post #38

"Look for satellite dishes. They all point towards the equator. In London, that is roughly south-southeast." If by "roughly south-southeast" you mean "south" and by "in London" you mean "in the northern hemisphere" :).

Well the direction depends which satellite is been tracked on the geostationary orbit.

So depending where you are on Northen hemisphere and which satellite provider are you using your satellite dish points to anywhere between south-west to south-east.

For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_(satellite)

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#43

Post by JepZ »

During my time in London I used similar tricks (looking for the sun or finding the BT tower by looking for some window reflections) to find my way after leaving the tube, but then I was taking a vacation in Rio de Janeiro and when I was walking towards to sun to reach the south facing copacabana I had to learn that in Rio the sun is north :-/

At first I felt kinda stupid but then I realized, it was my first time on the southern hemnisphere and until that point the sun was always south of me ;-)

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#44

Post by euske »

Fascinating article. I love getting lost in Tokyo too. Here are a couple of tips I could add in case of Tokyo...

* All the TV antennas point at Tokyo Sky Tree.

* All the regional train tracks (except Yamanote) are radial. They're all going toward Yamanote Line.

* Major named streets (except "Kanjo" or circular streets) go to the Emperor Palace.

* Tokyo is a city carved by rivers, so it has many ups and downs. Pay attention to town names that are typically indicative of its configuration, e.g. -yama (mountain), -oka (hill), -tani/-gaya (valley), -saka (slope) etc.

* Beware of subway lines and subway exits because their shapes are very unpredictable, with confusing station names.

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#45

Post by elcapitan »

seer wrote: post #39

Once I was travelling through Morocco and the general advice I got from other turists even before the trip was “don’t trust the gps”. It turned out the medinas (old towns) themselves were so densly packed, that you could not see much of the sky to get any lock on satellites, and the internet coverage was very spotty. And you “had” to learn how to read paper maps, because otherwise you’d fall pray to the many “tourist…

> It turned out the medinas (old towns) themselves were so densly packed, that you could not see much of the sky to get any lock on satellites, and the internet coverage was very spotty.

Instead of a paper map I usually use Openstreetmap (OsmAnd client) for that - you download the map beforehand, and then just read it like a paper map in case you have no satellite. Switch on landmarks etc for recognising places better. It also has much more footways and small streets than google maps.

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#46

Post by usrusr »

mcgreevy wrote: post #38

"Look for satellite dishes. They all point towards the equator. In London, that is roughly south-southeast." If by "roughly south-southeast" you mean "south" and by "in London" you mean "in the northern hemisphere" :).

Geostationary satellites occupy specific spots over the equator. If you want to catch a satellite from the edge of its reception area, you point the dish quite noticeably eastward or westward. Since the Atlanteans never put up TV satellites, in the UK that means all the dishes are either pointing south or southeast, never southwest. You can often take a surprisingly educated guess at the immigrant ratio of a building just from looking at where the dishes are pointed.

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#48

Post by [deleted] »

navs wrote: post #32

Amusing how we let go of some technological item to suddenly re-discover the world. When I gave up smartphones for a period of time I found myself wondering what I could do to spend the time on my ~1hr commute home. I remember being excited when an old acquaintance caught the same train as me, knowing I could pass the time talking. I ended up getting to know a lot of the Train Transport officers because we'd talk abo…

[deleted]

Re: Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation

#50

Post by kalleboo »

reaperducer wrote: post #24
technological wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maps give you additional advantage such as , live traffic due to which I save time by taking a different route (may be caused due to an accident or other reason)

Cell phone maps are utterly useless in too many situations. A lack of reception being one. Or equally as bad -- too much reception, as in competing GPS and cell triangulation signals bouncing off buildings in a dense urban environment. People always make the excuse that you can just download the maps into the phone. But that wouldn't have helped me in the places I've been over the last two weeks when my phone repeate…

If you're going into a situation where you'll end up lost or dead, then certainly yes do not rely on electronic maps.

For the average GPS-using situation, the worst case scenario is they you to start reading road signs or stop ask for help. In these cases, a GPS navigator can be very handy, such as on a road trip I took last year through an area where an earthquake had shut down a significant portion of the road network. Either I sit for hours and pour over lists of road closures and construction dates and cross them off my paper map (the info changes monthly so there aren't any preprinted maps), or just use an app that already knows everything.

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