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Why is my GPS so terrible?! (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago

I’ve a friend who can’t follow directions to save his life.

Every time, it’s just a migraine trying to figure out how this guy manages to get through life.

Like once he was taking his kids to the MN zoo, from north west of the twin cities.

“Okay, so you’re gonna to want to come down 94, take 494 south to 35W south, go to McAndrews Road- you’ll see the brown signs for “zoo”, so you can just follow those, but’ll go left on McAndrews and the zoo is on the left a bit down the road- you’ll see the big signs and tiger and stuff.”

He takes 694, instead of 494, goes around until it becomes 494, and around some more until he’s back on the north side before he decides to call.

He’s back where 494/694 on that side do the merge thing and go to 94 proper.

We get him onto 694, which would also connect him to 35w, he’d just go through the city is all.

He panics or something and gets on hwy 100. Okay. No big deal, take that to 494, take 494 to 35W,

Somehow misses the 100/494 interchange despite literally working at that exit for 3 years…

Gets dumped onto Normandale BLVRD, and instead of realizing maybe something’s wrong, (gee not a higway anymore…) he gets angry because my instructions are “too complicated” and “they keep changing”, and “why did I give him directions if I don’t know the roads?!”.

Meanwhile his GPS in the background has given up giving him directions.

He’s pissed because his kids are frustrated they don’t actually get to the zoo, because he can’t follow directions through an area he should actually know because he’s lived here is entire life.

[-] Hikermick@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

There's an anxiety that takes hold when people are lost. It can make people very irritable and cause them to rash things because it feels better to do something even if it's the wrong thing. I've found this out from years of backpacking using a map and compass. GPS software is a great thing but I can understand why some people don't trust it, it's not without it's faults. You can't trust it explicitly. IMO because of this technology we are losing our ability to know where we are in a space. Following the linear directions from a GPS app we don't picture where we are in relation to our destination. Your friend probably had memorized how to get to his job at that exit by arriving at it from a particular direction. Deviation from the norm threw him off. It's interesting how technology changes us and we become dependent on it. I grew up reading maps before GPS having had delivery jobs, still have the county map books. There was a time when people navigated by stars at night and by following flowing water.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

He doesn’t get to blame GPS… he started driving before that was common; and in any case, these highways have been where they are for even longer (so it’s not a map issue on navigation,)

These are the largest interstates in the area and the interchanges literally have signs telling you they’re coming up for a mile or more.

We’re talking about a guy that fucked up going to Kansas City when it’s literally just a matter of jumping on 35 (either works,) and going south. (He got lost going through Des Moines. Ended up on 80 in Iowa city. That was when his wife stopped letting him navigate cross country.)

[-] androogee@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

Send this man to the store for milk, block his phone number, and let him lose himself to the road. I'm frustrated just hearing about him lmao.

[-] rustydomino@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I too grew up navigating with paper maps. The one thing I hate hate hate about GPS navigation systems in cars is their insistence that up=forward instead of up=north. I know you can change settings for this but sometimes you forget to set it and when going to an unfamiliar location the constant rotating of the map is more disorienting than anything.