51–60 of 326 posts
Additionally, having a weather proof map for wilderness trips is invaluable. I'd never rely on a digital device to provide what could be a life saving tool.
Something I find really fun when traveling in the car with kids is to give them a paper map and ask them to plan a route a for us to get to our destination. Then when you're driving ask them to follow along and give the directions. Obviously they can't be too young and they're not going to be perfect, but if you have a child around 7-13 they'll probably find this quite fun. Being able to use a map is one of those ski…
an interesting thought experiment is to ponder just how many skills are being lost due to technology. I know how to read a map and how to find rough compass bearings but i was never in a situation where i needed either skill. Could i manage without GPS - probably but i’m not confident. If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?
In general, I think our adaptation has significantly increased our ability to navigate at the minor cost of using either the map and compass or the new gps and advanced map data.
It is really exhausting to read those online reviews/guides and try to find some places to eat/visit. So next time I will buy maps with recommendations and follow them. If it's not good, I will buy a new map locally.
That's it. No more reading reviews on every top rated restaurants nearby and trying to guess if they are fake!
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an interesting thought experiment is to ponder just how many skills are being lost due to technology. I know how to read a map and how to find rough compass bearings but i was never in a situation where i needed either skill. Could i manage without GPS - probably but i’m not confident. If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?
I think people could re-learn they skill pretty quickly, but putting that aside, I wonder how well we could do with just ground based stuff. We’d still have triangulation via cell towers, which was widely used not that long ago. Also I wonder how well we could do with a modern cellphone using image recognition on the road signs paired with a really accurate map of the roads.
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.
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…
> His customers, he added, aren’t just looking to maps for directions, but as inspiration for future trips or even as art worth hanging. I think that alone accounts for the vast majority of this increase. The article throws that in as a minor detail but I'd bet money it's the only reason. Of course you don't get as many clicks for "More people are buying maps as art". 2 of the 3 examples of maps they give at the end…
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Just being able to know which way is "north" is probably sufficient.
There's a difference between geographic north and magnetic north that can get pretty significant (if you live in NE US, magnetic north about 10-20° west of north). If you're sailing the clipper route, for part of your journey, your magnetic compass now points as far as northwest rather than north.
Some of the most fun I've had while traveling is exploring a city without a phone. Just write down your home address and destination address on a card, and if you need a mulligan - a taxi can take you to either. Related: this reminds me of the "paper phone" concept from Google: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/paper-phone
I love this idea! Looks like Google either didn't launch it or shitcanned it after a year.
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an interesting thought experiment is to ponder just how many skills are being lost due to technology. I know how to read a map and how to find rough compass bearings but i was never in a situation where i needed either skill. Could i manage without GPS - probably but i’m not confident. If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?
https://www.gislounge.com/spatial-orientation-and-the-brain-... Studies have shown that people just cannot read maps anymore due to dependence on GPS apps in their daily lives.