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A30, B4077, M50 go!
Aug. 5th, 2008 08:29 pm(Inspired by well-wrought fulmination elsewhere.)
In-car navigation kit that uses GPS as a locator is still pish.
It'll remain pish until two interconnected problems are solved.
i) The mapping data has to be the OS. There are no other maps but OS maps (modulo Nicholson Streetfinder for those trapped within the M25 forcefield) because they show you where the road stops being a road, where the 1-in-3 hills are and where to find a pleasant riverside pub. (Usually next to a pleasant river)
ii) The voice-in-the-box is not a middle-aged man. It doesn't know the best way of getting to Yeovil from Bristol. Sure, it can have a stab at calculating it, but it doesn't effing know. It can have the voice of Cleese, Kitt or Clarkson and it's still going to point you down a lane that peters out into scrub after the cattle-grid.
I believe that the crucial test for GPS-located navigation is the ability to orbit Cheltenham in the opposite direction to the one-way system. (Or indeed any medium-sized town that's been cursed with urban 'planning' of the T. Dan Smith school)[1] Until that time, the things are as much a curiosity as a memo-taking biro or a calculator watch.
There is a technique for navigating country roads and it involves having lived in the area for a long time, keeping a shit old car, turning your lights off when approaching junctions (obv, if the other chap does that too, hilarity ensues. Ensure your passengers are relaxed by feeding them strong ale) and most important, diving for the hedgerow as a reflex. Getting the tracking fixed is cheaper than a new front end. The standard townie practice of screeching to a halt in the middle of the road Will Not Help and Will Cause An Accident.
[1] The bottom end of the M32 in Bristol was bad enough. Now it's far worse. It beggars belief that the slack-jawed fuckwits were allowed to get away with something that looks like the sodding trench from the Death Star surrounded by shopping canyons. I know that retro is big business, but is sixties fag-end neo-brutalism really a hip and happening thing? Bod help us all if so.
With any luck, the current crisis in the development and retail sectors will make them all Very Sorry. Bastards.
In-car navigation kit that uses GPS as a locator is still pish.
It'll remain pish until two interconnected problems are solved.
i) The mapping data has to be the OS. There are no other maps but OS maps (modulo Nicholson Streetfinder for those trapped within the M25 forcefield) because they show you where the road stops being a road, where the 1-in-3 hills are and where to find a pleasant riverside pub. (Usually next to a pleasant river)
ii) The voice-in-the-box is not a middle-aged man. It doesn't know the best way of getting to Yeovil from Bristol. Sure, it can have a stab at calculating it, but it doesn't effing know. It can have the voice of Cleese, Kitt or Clarkson and it's still going to point you down a lane that peters out into scrub after the cattle-grid.
I believe that the crucial test for GPS-located navigation is the ability to orbit Cheltenham in the opposite direction to the one-way system. (Or indeed any medium-sized town that's been cursed with urban 'planning' of the T. Dan Smith school)[1] Until that time, the things are as much a curiosity as a memo-taking biro or a calculator watch.
There is a technique for navigating country roads and it involves having lived in the area for a long time, keeping a shit old car, turning your lights off when approaching junctions (obv, if the other chap does that too, hilarity ensues. Ensure your passengers are relaxed by feeding them strong ale) and most important, diving for the hedgerow as a reflex. Getting the tracking fixed is cheaper than a new front end. The standard townie practice of screeching to a halt in the middle of the road Will Not Help and Will Cause An Accident.
[1] The bottom end of the M32 in Bristol was bad enough. Now it's far worse. It beggars belief that the slack-jawed fuckwits were allowed to get away with something that looks like the sodding trench from the Death Star surrounded by shopping canyons. I know that retro is big business, but is sixties fag-end neo-brutalism really a hip and happening thing? Bod help us all if so.
With any luck, the current crisis in the development and retail sectors will make them all Very Sorry. Bastards.
