It's neat that my GPS asks me questions like "Do you want to plan your route to avoid toll roads?" and "Do you want to plan your route to avoid HOV lanes?" but it doesn't ask me "Do you want to plan your route to avoid Illinois?"
For a relatively bright little machine, it took it all the way to Columbus, IN to figure out that I wasn't going to heed its calls to turn around and drive through Mordor. Every exit would have it pipe up with "Exit right and turn around" and every exit would have me respond "Shut your whore mouth!" Finally it gave a sulky little electronic sigh and replotted its route through Louisville.
Listen here, Baby HAL, I've been land-navving on roadtrips for thirty years without help from you OR Rand McNally. Either you open the pod bay door or I'll open your access port with a crowbar and a gas axe; I will not be sassed by a machine. I bought you as a toy; annoy me enough and I'll risk the fine to toss you into the roadside shrubbery at 80mph.
Also, it's worth noting that when Apu assures you that his fine inn has the wireless internets, he doesn't necessarily mean in the room.
You can set way-points in most of them that will let you force the machine to send you through non-machine optimal paths.
ReplyDelete"Finally it gave a sulky little electronic sigh and replotted its route through Louisville."
ReplyDeleteTerribly sorry about our traffic. Theres a little bridge on the west end thats falling apart.
Will you be gracing the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot with your presence this year?
Driving from Florida to Iowa presents this problem too.
ReplyDeleteI've found, with the Garmin, you tell it the final destination then grab a couple of intersections off route that force the route to go around Illinois.
The one I use is in Tennessee, then Columbia, Missouri then the home town. Betty doesn't even whimper.
The official work-around is to plot your route and then detour by roads, eliminating all of the routes through Illinois one by one until she does your bidding.
Next time don't pick a room boasting "Faraday stayed here".
ReplyDelete(RobertaX might find that funny.)
Waitaminute...
ReplyDeleteWherever you're going, it wants to send you through Illinois, but you're going there by way of Louisville?
"We circled France all night, we circled France all night..."
:)
I'll never forget my little excursion a few years ago from the hotel in Rosemont, IL, to Woodfield Mall.
ReplyDeleteDamn thing kept INSISTING that the only way to get there was through the Motorola plant.
Then, just last year, it INSISTED that the only way to get to Union Station in Chicago was to drive through the maintenance yard and right up to the platforms.
Evil devices.
:) Sounds like a great trip thus far.
ReplyDelete:)
My bet: Blogorado
ReplyDeleteSee, this is why I have the thing muted when I'm driving along. No problems.
ReplyDeleteGPS unit - invaluable in large, confusing European cities such as Prague. Why bother with them on the 3000-mile cross-country trek, though?
"Next time don't pick a room boasting "Faraday stayed here".
ReplyDelete(RobertaX might find that funny.)"
She's not the only one, North. Though I do think you might be overlooking Apu's reluctance to buy more than one or two APs, & to have a site survey done before locating them...
They aren't always that bad. For Boomershoot I printed out a set of nice maps from Google maps. My friend's TomTom insisted we keep driving straight. My maps showed a road off to the left that was shorter.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to being shorter it was also steeper and rockier than the main road and there were several points where I thought we were going to be leaving behind a car with a hole in its oil pan.
Next time we're paying attention to the robot.
I just want to find the programmer at Garmin who decided the GPS in my girlfriend's car will find "St Helena" but not "St. Helena."
ReplyDeleteDon't you love when you ignore them long enough that they actually seem to get a disgusted voice going? Farmdad is a master at it.
ReplyDeleteI like it when the GPS asks do you wish to avoid dirt roads and your 5 miles down a dirt road.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Texas is a nice, long way from Illinois, doesn't put up statues that celebrate how terrorists blew up some of the most iconic towers in the US, is home to some awesome gunnie history, and you can go just about anywhere (other than Illinois itself) without being routed through Mordor. Also: a number of fellow awesome gunbloggers are here!
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'. ;)
North, it's the chickenwire lath that does it!
ReplyDeleteThe Tamara is on A Mission. But not necessarily to convert the heathen.
Further, deponent sayeth not.
Like in Serenity: That's for chickens to lath at.
ReplyDeleteHaven't had mine pull something that bad on me, but it does misspronounce names in amusing fashions.
ReplyDeleteit doesn't ask me "Do you want to plan your route to avoid Illinois?"
ReplyDeleteI'd love it if my GPS would give me the option of automatically avoiding the notorious Teneha, Texas, but I usually just have to circle around the town whenever it lies in between me and my destination. That's about four times a year.
It would be nice to be able to detour around Illinois. As often as I go places where Illinois is in the way, I don't think I could afford it. Every time I go through, it feels like I am trying to sneak past a Pirate Stronghold.
ReplyDeleteI know this is crazy, but if I know where I'm going, I don't put my destination into the GPS. That would be like putting my mother-in-law in the passenger seat by choice.
ReplyDelete"Also, it's worth noting that when Apu assures you that his fine inn has the wireless internets, he doesn't necessarily mean in the room."
ReplyDeleteTell me about it. You have an Android smartphone, right? Two words - tethering and PDA.net. Saved my bacon many a night.
Having ridden in a rental with Jay G. I have to say I've never heard someone curse and scream at a GPS unit that much in my life.
ReplyDeleteJeffro:
ReplyDeleteIf I remember previous Tam writings correctly, she has a pay-as-you-go plan, and may not want to rack up data charges.
Also, I haven't used PDA.net, but I'm a huge fan of EasyTether. It has already more than paid for itself in my case. (Also, you can even do tethering under Ubuntu and Fedora with EasyTether, which was the major selling point for me.)
The Tamara is on A Mission.
ReplyDeleteDid Sister Mary Stigmata, AKA The Penquin, send her?
Gerry
If she was on a mission for The Penguin wouldn't that require going TO Illinois?
ReplyDeleteOn my recent motorcycle excursion to Detroit and Indianapolis rerouting around Illinois was not practical.
ReplyDeleteOn the way east from Iowa the Tour-Pak resembled a convenience store - alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.
On the return west, the only thing missing was the alcohol.
Try to get around D.C. on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. The main roads up and out to Ohio had 2 - 4 hour delays, and the TomTom "lady" didn't care. Even my wife was shouting at the GPS.
ReplyDeleteFYI: I have the "maps for life" option, so I don't have to pay for upgrades. Then the seccond upgrade locked up the unit. An online search shows TomTom has had this problem for at least 4 years. And it costs $20.00 to ship the unit to them. Your "refurbished" unit does come back with an extra base and cables, but I didn't need them. So I hit AAA [even with their "NO GUNS" signs] and don't do any upgrade.
And it's OH to Denver next month. Think the carry laws in IL will change by then? OldeForce
We call ours "The Bitch" and I kind of enjoy listening to her squawk while I go on my merry way. I think they should program a Marvin the paranoid Android voice module that will eventually go all sarcastic and passive aggressive on you if you ignore it.
ReplyDelete"Fine. Go that way. Why did you even bother asking me?"
Phil
LMAO. I have a thing for maps. Been studying them like most folks study their school books since I was about 11 or 12. Any time someone asks me where some place is (at least in Texas), odds are I know where it is. If it's east of IH-35 and/or north of U.S. Highway 84, the odds are fairly good I've BEEN through it. GPS, SCHMEE-P-S. ;-)
ReplyDeleteJohn Farrier, just curious; where in Texas are you and where do your travels take you? I live in San Antonio but am originally from Texarkana; my travels between the Golden Triangle area (where I lived before I moved to SA) and Texarkana took me through Tenaha quite a few times. I remember reading about the police shakedowns there and was quite aghast at it.
Sorry to say - if you have not heard - Steve Jobs has passed on.
ReplyDeleteWell, it could be better - or worse. Before even internet maps, I wanted to visit my gracdfather several states away, so I asked my mother for directions. So. Start on 1A in RI, take 95 from RI thru MA... forty miles or so into NH, I was still understanding as she took me several miles on some NH State road. Until, with yet some twenty miles to go: "Then turn left where the old oak tree used to be, and..."
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I got off the Interstate in NH, I bought a road map.
*Either you open the pod bay door ...*
ReplyDelete*I'm sorry, Tam. I'm afraid I can't do that.*
Yeah, they DO get a tad sulky don't they... :-)
ReplyDeleteSo Tam, you are saying that maybe when the GPS unit leads someone into a canal or a lake ... it might not have been an accident?
ReplyDeleteAlways making my day a little sunnier with you wonderful snark. Thanks
ReplyDeleteA single feature has significantly improved my GPS experience: Mute.
ReplyDeleteIf yer GPS can't do waypoints, you need a better one.
ReplyDeleteApu? Didn't they make a movie or three about him?
ReplyDeleteNobody should have to take any nonsense from uppity robots; the humans are bad enough.
ReplyDeleteI mind one of those "proactive" burglar alarms a few years back which told me to "Please step away from the car." Naturally, and of course, I kicked one of that car's tires as hard as I could, and was gratified to hear the woop-woop of the alarm.
I then sauntered away, happily and smugly smirking.
It was a Pontiac, of course.
"Hi there. This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and I'm feeling just great, guys, ..."
ReplyDelete@Igor
They did a few movies about Norman. Believe me, you'd rather deal with Apo.
wv: urdst -- I'm not dust. Norman's mother, the other hand...