Given time enough before I have to go somewhere I am unfamiliar with or on a long trip I go to Google Maps and put in the addresses, if I have them, and then study the options provided or create my own variations. when I actually make the trip I may find GPS taking me different directions and at times I say nope to a GPS direction knowing from my earlier study of the map that I want to go another way. Often times, after the GPS stops trying to get you to go back to its way, it comes around to where I wanted to go. Sometimes I just follow the GPS. But I like to visualize the route before going as often as I can. I'm a visual person.
I really like this one. Good food for thought... and, having had a father who was a cartographer (albeit, one who worked on computer maps and international mapping standards and therefore, helped to bring GPS to life!), I always had a great love of maps, and started off with a very healthy mistrust of the GPS! But that was mostly because the early ones did not make it easy to see the larger map. They lacked context. I am going to be thinking about this one for a while...I must confess to using my phone GPS quite a lot these days. Maybe it's time to break out the old maps again? Or, look at where someplace is on the GPS-provided map - and then, figure out how to get there on my own. :)
I didn't know that about your father. How cool! I think there's a time and a place for it, for sure, as I said in the piece. I also think I default to it for convenience when, as you say, looking at the map on the app and then figuring out the route on my own is probably a better choice. Technology is not a bad thing, but using it blindly probably is. :)
Yeah! When Dad retired, people in his own department (he was the professor that taught GIS - Geographic Information Systems - at VCU, in their Urban Studies and Planning Dept) said they didn't understand what he did. I felt better, having said 'Urban Studies and Planning' all my life... and not really knowing how to explain what he did there, either! ;-)
And I agree! There are lots of ways that we can choose to maintain more independent thinking and physical embodiment in time and space in the world. And these things (if seeming small) are maybe even more important now to exercise.
Given time enough before I have to go somewhere I am unfamiliar with or on a long trip I go to Google Maps and put in the addresses, if I have them, and then study the options provided or create my own variations. when I actually make the trip I may find GPS taking me different directions and at times I say nope to a GPS direction knowing from my earlier study of the map that I want to go another way. Often times, after the GPS stops trying to get you to go back to its way, it comes around to where I wanted to go. Sometimes I just follow the GPS. But I like to visualize the route before going as often as I can. I'm a visual person.
I really like this one. Good food for thought... and, having had a father who was a cartographer (albeit, one who worked on computer maps and international mapping standards and therefore, helped to bring GPS to life!), I always had a great love of maps, and started off with a very healthy mistrust of the GPS! But that was mostly because the early ones did not make it easy to see the larger map. They lacked context. I am going to be thinking about this one for a while...I must confess to using my phone GPS quite a lot these days. Maybe it's time to break out the old maps again? Or, look at where someplace is on the GPS-provided map - and then, figure out how to get there on my own. :)
I didn't know that about your father. How cool! I think there's a time and a place for it, for sure, as I said in the piece. I also think I default to it for convenience when, as you say, looking at the map on the app and then figuring out the route on my own is probably a better choice. Technology is not a bad thing, but using it blindly probably is. :)
Yeah! When Dad retired, people in his own department (he was the professor that taught GIS - Geographic Information Systems - at VCU, in their Urban Studies and Planning Dept) said they didn't understand what he did. I felt better, having said 'Urban Studies and Planning' all my life... and not really knowing how to explain what he did there, either! ;-)
And I agree! There are lots of ways that we can choose to maintain more independent thinking and physical embodiment in time and space in the world. And these things (if seeming small) are maybe even more important now to exercise.