Most gas stations don't sell maps anymore.
*looks at current count of lost trucks tearing up stuff at my job, remembers age spread of most drivers being 20’s to 50’s, reads article*
No comment.
When I was in the Navy (1979-1983) I think most Quartermasters were also trained in Celestial Navigation, or using the night time stars and constellations to guide your vessel. I believe some have returned to this old method. It may be along with more modern methods. I was a Supply Petty Officer. No way was my math or sense of direction good enough to be a Quartermaster.
I have no problem reading paper maps - and I imagine any millenial who can use the map display on a car GPS can figure it out as well. But I don’t miss the old paper maps I used to get down at the AAA - unfolding them, finding your destination and figuring out a route, then folding them back up again. Maybe if they’d ever once folded up as neatly as they were before I used them.
Mrs. L and I can both read maps and use a compass.
Getting to be a lost art.
L
My dad, Roger Easton, invented GPS. See my website www.gpsdexlassified.com
I think most people can read them. What’s been lost is the ability to properly fold up a map you just used.
I worked with Brad Parkinson for a couple of years when he served on an advisory/review board that I was shepherding. Freaking brilliant and the quickest critical and analytical thinker I have ever met. He could zoom in from a general problem description to the key root issues in minutes and be right 90% of the time. He probably still can, for that matter ...
“Can’t read maps”, Atlas shrugged.
One of my first jobs was in the Mapping Department of a city in pre-CAD days. I was “just a secretary”, but did a lot of the technical work to help out, and it was so interesting. Mylar. Rapidograph pens. I love maps.
My 55 year old son just got back from Italy. He made a gorgeous map of his trip with the plane flying in...his stops....and his plane leaving. When my daughter saw the map, she wanted a copy, too. We're a whole family of map lovers.
Some truth to this.
I had to unfamilar lands cross town yesterday. Pulled out the old sextent but forgot how to use it.
Whoa
Col Brad Parkenson USAF
Not me, I love maps. I collect old ones. Works of art.
I can read maps, what’s GPS?
Not only can I read maps...I can also tell time on an analog clock and figure sales tax and tip amounts without a calculator.
“...transmit positional information and precise timing to receivers around the globe.”
GPS also provides elevation above mean sea level.
“The older generation can still read maps. The younger kids are hopelessly lost.”
Not my kids. And by the way, the Rand McNally Road Atlases and paper maps are still MUCH BETTER for large-scale navigation than smart phones, or even computer screens.
But yes, GPS and other advances are great for local driving, or even walking - particularly in other countries!