Sooooo, kids... what's the best way to get from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of this map?
I guess I’m confused.
I’m of the older generation who learned to use maps.
But, with GPS, at least GPS on my phone, and in my car, a display of a map shows up, and a dot shows your position on that map display. Don’t you have to know how to interpret a map in order to understand where you are according to the GPS designation?
I love maps. Learned to read them as a kid. Robert Heinlein once said that you can give a man directions, but he still doesn’t know where he is after arriving at the new location. Being able to read a map tells you where you are, where you’re going, and everything you need to know in between and all around.
***Predictable Alert***
I love to study a map before I go to a new place to get the general lay of the roads. Recently visited someplace we’d never been, and stopped in several places (WalMart, gas stations) looking for a map of the area. Nobody sold them anymore, and when I asked I got the “Bless your heart” look, like I’d asked to buy a floppy disk.
I wish someone could show me how my GPS works. I have one in my car and in my boat but haven’t a clue how to use it.
I’ve always loved maps. I am happy to have a GPS in my car, as it’s vastly easier to hear where to go and not have to look up. But if the GPS didn’t work, I could read the applicable maps. It’s like my former students shocking me by not being able to read the big classroom analog clock on the wall. No, the poor dears needed a digital clock.
Man how invented GPS talks a lot of crap, says man who knows how to read map.
I have over 100 topo maps, of mostly CA, and know how to use them.
That said I was an early GPS user and own some nice Garmin units, Magellan too.
Using a GPS absolutely reduces your ability to use maps because you use them so much less.
I have vacationed on a motorbike crossing the continent 3 times and never even touched a paper map.
If the lights ever do go out, everyone under 40 will be screwed.
So, if the electric grid ever goes down in America, the younger generation won’t be able to:
Find any location;
Do math without a calculator;
Read or write anything in cursive;
tell time on an analog clock.
I feel like a genius, I can do all those things, without electricity.
I too love maps, mainly because they give you the big picture. When I use GPS I want to see the entire route first, so I can 'approve' the route (If I know the area).
GPS is great, but anyone who doesn’t carry a map or maps (and know how to use them) is asking for it.
In frustration she said: " Never mind. I will just drive home, then go there from home. I know how to get there from home."
She lived in Hollywood (30) miles Northwest). Santa Anita is about 20 miles east of Hollywood. Reading a map is a good skill to have!
Sooooo, kids... what's the best way to get from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of this map?
I still remember map reading.
Tell me about it. As an Uber driver, last October I gave a traveling salesman a ride from Lexington to Pikeville, KY, a distance of 138 miles each way. The mountains of eastern Kentucky are a dead zone for my phone, and the GPS on my phone didn’t work, so to find my way back, I drove on little country roads in the dark, navigating the old-fashioned way — with a paper map. Since then, several people I have told the story to have said they wouldn’t have made it back, if they had been forced to use a paper map.
I can still read maps, but do you have an up to date one for your area of operations? Do people even make up to date gas station maps?
I saw a news piece about how young kids resent having to learn stuff because if they need to know something, they can just look it up online, and that being able to manage interpersonal relations is more important than knowing basic science, math and history. It explains why a lot of them think socialism is cool, but can’t figure out how a toaster works.
GPS is most times helpful, but more than a few times it’s told me to turn thru a block wall or fenced off area or end of cut de sac that has houses and no road that goes through to the rest of the same street on other side of houses.
I lived with my Thomas Guide when living in Los Angeles. Simple, easy to read and taught me all the side streets in the area.