As far as my reliance on getting maps and directions from my cell phone goes, I’m nearly as bad as jefbot is in today’s strip. When I first started driving, I had a Thomas Guide my dad gave me that I used to find my way around L.A. on various errands and acting auditions. By the time I had access to digital maps, that guide was barely recognizable as a collection of counties, roads and highways due to the car fluids, fast food stains and general usage it had endured. I still have it in the trunk of the latest BOTmobile, but it’s been years since I’ve cracked it’s oily, torn cover. Whether I could figure out how to use it again is a different matter; its index and legends were cryptic to begin with. Anyway, by the time I was fluent in MapQuest and later, Google Maps, it was nearly time to make the jump to GPS devices and then smartphones. Now that I can get to a destination by literally asking my smartphone, and then following its audible directions, I don’t think I could ever go back.
Do any of you BOTreaders still use paper maps? Or do you rely on online maps? GPS? Map apps? The Force?
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Did I mention that a limited edition, holiday BOTton will be given FREE with all orders from the new BOTshop from now ’til December 31st? Check out the news, here.
I use a very old TomTom 1 in my car and work van. But still drag out the map from time to time to check other routes.
Plus I still teach my Scouts how to use bearings and 6 figure grid references
i wish i could use “bearings and 6 figure grid references,” Dj! the only compass i’ve used recently is a virtual one on my iPhone, so there’s that.
anyway, you got the first comment, so you just achieved the Shades of Firsting! wear them well – these (naturally) have a mapping feature built-in! but there’s no voice activation, so you might need a bluetooth keyboard to get your starting and ending destination plugged in:
😎
Ever ask for directions in Boston? I was asking people like gas station attendants and such “How do you get to Fenway Park?” Fenway Park for god sake. Nobody could/would tell me.
heheh. nope, never been to Boston, tudza, but it’s on my list of places i’d like to visit! i have a bunch of friends from there – i’ll be sure and get any directions i need from them before i make the trip. (or, you know, i’ll just bring my iPhone.) 🙂
I warn you, the iPhone doesn’t help with Boston. It gives the turns too late, and says things like “Turn left on Roberts Street” but none of the street exits give the street names. Instead of the sign saying “Robert Street exit” like a normal sign, they all say things like “City Center exit” or “Boston Commons next left.”
It’s probably best to plot it out ahead of time. Or, better yet, kidnap a local and make them ride shotgun.
I’ll use a GPS when I need to go somewhere new, just to be sure, but I live in Utah, where the addresses are based on a grid system along with the street names, so as long as I know the address, I also know its coordinates relative to the middle of the city, so I don’t usually have a hard time even without a guiding device. 🙂
a grid system/naming system would be so nice, ZAD-Man. unfortunately, here in L.A., our street system is pretty schizo at times, with streets going squiggly and diagonally, and dead-ending into nowhere, especially in The Valley. you get used to it after a while, but it’s pretty confusing at times when you’re just trying to get somewhere.
Both my parents are scouts, so they know how to read maps and how to find their way out of the woods if they were lost. Unfortunately, their skills were passed onto my older sisters and I am the black sheep of my family in that area. Thankfully, I have a GPS app on my phone 🙂 and I barely leave my home town either.
As for the phone not being charged, dont you have one of those chargers to have in your car?
ha! my sister Laura and i have actually been lost in the woods, DAS – something i hope to chronicle in JEFbot sometime. not sure how good my parents’ mapping skills are, but i think any skills i have were honed (or un-honed) by video games. as far as the phone charger – i do have one built into my car now, but bot still drives my old car, which doesn’t have one. i used to carry around a battery for my phone to charge from, but would forget it all the time, which would lead to situations like the one in the strip. 🙂
I usually write out careful directions, because I know me, but borrowed a GPS for a trip to Cleveland this past October, because it was a nine-hour drive.
The problem was, the GPS was four years old and it had been previously programmed to avoid toll roads. So instead of directing me to the Ohio Turnpike, it led me on a lovely tour of rural northern Indiana. Which would have been fine, except the roads didn’t match its maps anymore, and at one point it thought I’d left the highway and convinced me I had, too.
So I followed its directions to get back . . . and steered me into a dead end where a through road used to be and told me to proceed straight for the next mile.
In its defense, the through road was still technically there, but my car couldn’t make the fence.
yikes! i’ve had some bad experiences with GPSs in rental cars, Sarah W, but nothing like that! i’ll have to remember to check the route through toll roads the next time i use one. if you had just plowed through that fence, i wonder if the police officer would’ve been lenient if you had blamed it on the GPS?
I’m familiar enough with most of the areas I visit that I usually check google maps before I leave so I have the basic idea of where I need to go then feel my way from there. If I get lost, then I consult my ‘smart’phone
yeah, i’ll sometimes print out the directions using Google maps, dj, but most often than not, i just rely on my phone these days.
In and around my little town, I don’t usually need GPS; if someone’s given me directions, they usually use landmarks I know to direct me. When Mom and I did our epic road trip, we used real maps (that I still have somewhere) and mapquest printouts for the majority of the way. I do plan to get an actual GPS for my personal road trip, just so I don’t get desperately lost in the maze of roads without a navigator.
i love epic road trips, T! i’ve thought about getting an actual GPS – especially now that i’ll probably be driving to most conventions – but i think i’ll just continue to rely on my phone for the time being.
Yeah, phone GPSs are nice, if you have somewhere to plug the damn thing in and a way to read it without it falling off the dash. I’ve used it for that purpose a couple times when going to shoot locations outside my home city. Epic road trips are amazing!
i love epic road trips but i hate actually driving during them, T! i’d much rather be in the passenger seat looking around at the scenery than worrying about the road ahead. 😛
Morning BOTiverse!
Well, Hubby and I each have old GPS systems. The problem is with the updates. They cost almost as much as a new system! So we use them for 90% of our navigational needs (Especially with the move) and our phones for everything else. Besides, Hubby Pixie’s has a pirate ship he puts on whenever I’m in the car.
morning, Pixie!
i’ve wondered about the cost of those updates – it’s one of the reasons i haven’t bought a GPS. i’ve seen that you have to buy map packs when you leave your area, with some of those devices, which is kinda crazy. i do like that having a pirate ship is an option, though. 🙂
^^d I tend to just travel along routes I already know, and build up from there. Although I did try using my phone’s talking GPS once…
“Go straight.”
… *staring right at the wall of a casino* … “Bloody brilliant work Google.”
Suppose I shouldn’t expect better of Google though, their staff seem to be drunk every time it comes to mapping Vegas streets; I went to a job interview I thought was just on the other side of the airport, and ended up somewhere in the mountains in the Summerlin area, probably a good twenty miles away from where Google said it was XD
i’ll keep that in mind if i’m ever using Google maps in Vegas, JR! and i usually get out there at least once a year so it’s entirely possible, only i generally fly in and take taxis around town.
Okay so I said before I live by my gps, but their is a good reason for this. Except for my mother no one I know can give directions. This has led to certain situations.
-” go left!” ” I can’t go left” ” c’mon that’s how we always get there…” ” when walking, however if I were to go left on this dead end street were likely to drive through a house..” “Oh…” ” unless you want to explain why we drove a truck through there living room.” “… To air it out” –
Or with my current girl who lives in a city right outside of NYC, who tends to tell me to take wrong turns on one way streets, cause she doesn’t drive she just walks everywhere.. She lost all rights to give directions.
She also gets into fights with my gps, it’s actually very funny. My gps has a woman’s voice, that we decided was judgemental. Especially when I miss a turn, so eventually my girl will argue back with the GPS forgetting its not real, because it had caused her brain to snap. I tend to look at her afterwards and say something along the lines of ” your a neurologist.. Your arguing with an inanimate object.. I really want to tell all of your friends now”
Life is never boring..
heheh. you need to make a video recording of your girlfriend arguing with the GPS, Satoshieyes, and then upload it to YouTube so we can all see it. 😉
i’ll occasionally talk back to the turn-by-turn directions on my phone, especially when it’s giving long, drawn out directions, i’m just like, “okay! i get it! i’ll keep to the right when i transfer freeways!” or yeah, when it keeps telling me to get over when there’s a bunch of traffic, i kind of lose it a tiny bit.
I would but she doesn’t drive, so I can’t do it while driving myself.. She’s from a country where women can’t drive and just moved here.. I’m teaching her how this summer. This will not go well since she doesn’t believe stop signs are anything more then suggestions..
My gps and I don’t argue that much, just I believe it doesn’t really understand the time it takes to get somewhere.. It believes she lives an hour away from me.. This is not true, and while I don’t condone this for other drivers but at 2 am she lives Max 30 minutes away… At 100mph… Then again the train says 2 and a half hours..
I trust neither estimate.
good luck teaching those driving lessons, Sato! and, uh, be careful during those high speed runs to your girlfriend’s place at 2am. 😉
Einstein: When there is a generation that interacts more with technology than each other we will endure a generation of idiots.
Me: For goodness sake Bot, I suck at geography but I can read a bloody map!
I knew I wasnt the only one who had heard of that quote! 😀
it’s not that bot can’t read a map, Anime fan, it’s just that following directions given by a smartphone or GPS is soooo much easier! technology has made paper maps pretty much obsolete – except when one runs out of battery power, of course. 🙂
Besides, when you’re by yourself in a car (like I will be at the end of next month), it’s dangerous to try and read maps while driving. The talking GPS will save lives, Anime Fan!
indeed. i’m probably gonna be driving up to Seattle and back from L.A. next year, so i’ll be using the turn-by-turn directions for sure!
I rely on my gps when driving somewhere I’m not familiar with, but after a couple trips I can find my way without it.
yeah, i generally don’t need a GPS to get to places i’m familiar with, 52pickup, it’s those pesky places i’m unfamiliar with that give me a problem!
If I know where I’m going before I leave I print up some Google Directions to the place and give them to my wife. If she’s not with me I use my GPS (it’s dangerous to look at directions while driving.) or if the directions get us lost (which actually happened to us this weekend. Long story short, the directions didn’t tell us to take a local access road from the highway we were one and we blew past the street with no way of making the right.) I use the GPS. I only use my phone when I’m walking to a place.
Haven’t used a map in years, last time I used one I was so lost I decided to buy a GPS the very next day.
agreed – looking at directions while driving kinda sucks, TPC. glad your wife’s cool with being your GPS when she’s with you. heheh. and i’ve had online directions get me lost before, too, which makes using my phone’s map apps so much easier, although they aren’t foolproof either.
and glad to hear you haven’t used a “real” map in years, either. i wonder how many people still drive around with maps in their car?
Wait, there are things that give you directions? (Sent from Bejing)
heh. yes, G.L. Sytnos – they’re quite handy. 😉
and hello from the U.S.! i’d love to travel to Beijing. hopefully i can make that happen sometime soon.
I ended up using paper tourist maps in Europe even though I had a smart phone, the glare on the screen made it too difficult to fathom what it was trying to tell me. Used the gps for street corner and worked it out from there.
using paper maps while in Europe as a tourist was a smart thing to do, notme – the data charges while you’re abroad are ridiculous! i’d probably go back to paper maps in that case, too. 🙂
lol. there is a saying in my country. lost are those who are too shy to ask drection.
that’s a good saying, jf300, and i’d probably be lost A LOT in your country since i hate asking (and being asked!) for directions. 😛
Nah. Dun worry about getting lost in my country because anyone you would be too shy to answer.
heheh.
I never understood how people can NOT be able to read maps. They are made to be helpful, and if you let them, they will be. Its true that electronics have become very convenient but ever since I heard a GPS telling my dad to turn around because he missed a turn for whole THREE hours while we were testing it on a route from our home to my grandparents that we knew almost blindfolded, Im taking the Electronic navigation advice with a grain of salt.
Also I met a car of lost three elderly people last month. They had GPS, printed map with a route and printed sequence of turns on every intersection from their starting point to destination. Still they got lost and all they needed to do was follow road signs two turns back. As they were still in middle of their long journey I hope they safely arrived at their destination.
taking navigation advice “with a grain of salt” is a wise decision, Maryz – i’ve heard too many horror stories from friends and BOTpeeps in these comments to ever trust a GPS/smartphone implicitly.
and, yes: let’s hope those elderly people aren’t still driving around in an endless loop created by technology!
I only use paper maps. I can’t afford any fancy devices that have GPS capability, so when I need to go somewhere strange, I’ll print out maps, buy a city map, or ask for directions and draw my own (usually subway style) map.
I second this.
sounds like you’re your own GPS, Skreyola! and, hey – if it works and gets you to your destination, that’s all that matters. 🙂
I currently rely on memory alone in order to get around town. Fortunately that has served me well so far. However, the moment I have to go somewhere I don’t know the way to, I had better have someone in the car who does or I’m screwed. Although,I imagine it wouldn’t be that had to figure out how to use the GPS function of my smartphone.(and by that I mean ask my little brother or dad how to use it)
i generally rely on memory to get to most places around town too, Fijiman, although it’s not always reliable, i’m sad to admit. and, yeah – i’m sure you’ll pick up the GPS function of your smartphone right away as they’re fairly intuitive these days. just make sure you have plenty of power. 😉
And that is one of the reasons why, when either the zombie apocalypse or the Fiscal Cliff hits the US in order to create a post apocalyptic world that your power of scrawn needs to be able to re-install boy scouts v.0.0.1905
heheh. true that, W.D. Pat! the Power of Scrawn could definitely come in handy in a post-apocalyptic world. let’s hope it never comes to that. 😉
test
Since I don’t have a smartphone I take great pride in being an excellent “classic” map navigator… Plus when I wanted to try geocaching I couldn’t buy a map with coordinates in any cross-country treking shop. They only had hand held GPSes. Shame. Shame!
sadly i used to be an excellent classic map navigator, Formel, but those skills were lost long ago. shame!
I am actually quite an accomplished paper map navigator. In fact, I got us around England a few years ago which was quite a job (their maps don’t seem to work the same way – names change, etc.) and earned me the title of Navigatrix.
However, I usually use my phone these days. I am not sure if my phone GPS will work the same in Europe over the holidays, but I hope so! Did I mention that we are going to England and Spain for Christmas? 😀
ha! i love that you achieved “Navigatrix” status, Shanna! i suppose if i had to get back my traditional mapping skillz i could do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.
NO!!! i didn’t know about the trip! TOO COOL. you’ll have to give us detailed accounts of your European Holiday. have fun!!! 😀
I have a horrid sense of direction, and cant read a map to save my life. Ive gotta memorize the few routes I use and hope one doesn’t suddenly close, or Im almost screwed.
Also, I see that lil’ Jinxlet there on your mirror. 😀
heheh. makes me happy you noticed the jinxlet, NeithanDiniem. big fan of Straub’s Starslip. 🙂
I’d been relying on my GooglePhone’s GPS for a while, but I decided I wanted to cut the digital cord (cheaper phone service), so I got a Garmin Nuvi. Map updates are infrequent, of course, but fewer points of failure (my phone needs satellites AND a GSM connection). And sometimes my phone would freeze up.
But I remember Thomas Guides fondly from living in Orange County in the ’80s. I used to buy a new one every year and alternate cars. Missed them terribly when I moved back to Pennsylvania. Never found anything as good on paper. I still have a set in a box somewhere.
By the time I moved to Sacramento, GPS was cheap and easily available.
Q: How do you drive an engineer insane?
A: Tie him to a chair and then fold a map wrong in front of him.
i’ve thought about buying a Garmin Nuvi, Jeffrey, but wasn’t sure how their system works. if you go out of your area, county, state or whatever, do you get maps of those areas as part of the service or do you have to pay for new maps?
and i’m glad you understand the whole “Thomas Guide” thing. that became the problem – my TG continued to get older and older, and the info in it kept getting more and more outdated. i had one that had zip code zones in it, which changed a little every year. after a few years, that aspect of it became fairly unusable. 😛
Online maps, GPS, map apps, never look at a real map anymore. But back then, Thomas Guide’s were AWESOME!!
yep, Thomas Guides were pretty awesome, Richtpt! i wonder if they ever made the leap to digital? i’ll have to check the app store…
I can usually tell where I’m going…in a museum, amusement park, or Mass Effect! Otherwise, I need my phone’s GPS.
i pretty much had the layouts in Mass Effect 1&2 down, GG11, but i just started ME3 a few weeks ago and am learning all the maps all over again. (of course, the map feature helps.) 🙂
Mom has one of those map books in her car and that’s how she finds things. I’m ashamed to admit it but my reaction is the as Bot’s when my mom tries to get me to use it.
heheh. “real” maps can be helpful, Nat, but yeah, you need to show your mom the power of mapping apps! what kind of phone does she have?
She refuses to let me Google or MapQuest it. She just says “I’ll tell you where to go.” Now if only she could remember the names of the streets I’m suppose to turn on to. She has one kinda like your dad’s in the comic. My mom hates phones.
I don’t have too many problems with getting around in Indianapolis because, having lived here for 35+ years, I’ve been in just about every major portion of the city/county area using pretty much every mode of transportation. That said, there are places that I *haven’t* been to/through recently where I might get confused or lost because I tend to depend on landmarks, rather than streetsigns to navigate. (This is especially true on the Southwest side of Indianapolis, which is mostly industrial and a lot of the older factories have been closed and torn down.)
i’ve lived in the same area all my life, r61, but i always find new little nooks and neighborhoods to get lost in. heheh. probably because Los Angeles is SO spread out. and i do the same as far as landmarks go – i tell people to “turn left at the Carl’s Jr.” then make a right at “that restaurant with the orange paint on the corner.” i’ve gotten better at real directions, as people tend to hate that.
I can read a paper map well enough. It got us on the right walking route in the city once, but then woefully abandoned me when we ran to catch the bus that we’d missed earlier.
Mostly I use my phone now though, but I do have the 1988 WA/OR AAA guidebook in my ’07 car… and I was born in 1989. I think its a relic of my parent, that made it to the car on its own.
its true, emikae – paper maps aren’t foolproof either, and can get you lost almost as easily as digital ones can. and WOW! i’m surprised your 1988 guidebook’s still useful. but, hey, if it works, it works! 🙂
I have my phone for maps…..But I also have a paper map for back-up. If you ever let me navigate, I will have it planed out in detail with the names of streets 2 turns ahead of where we turn marked so that we are prepared to merge & turn on time. But that’s only if I’m in the passenger seat…If I’m driving?…..I get lost so fast it’ll make your head spin. I make wrong turns, panic, spend forever circling blocks, and generally make a mess of other peoples routs….Unless they tell me the names of the 2 streets before we turn. Then I’m prepared.
i’m a good navigator, too, Fazzey – i generally navigate along with my phone and tell the driver what to do way in advance. i agree that knowing the names of the streets before the turn’s important, too. it’s no good if your GPS (or friend) tells you “TURN NOW!!!” when you’ve already moved into the intersection.
Hey Jeff I love yor comics! I am just commenting to get my name out there but I would like to add thta the angry scarf will most likely be my all time favorite of yours
thanks for the enthusiasm and kind words, JavaBeanJohnny! and since you like the Angry Scarf, you’ll be happy to know it’ll be back in a big way in a storyline next year! 😀
You know, this strip reminds me of a Team Awesome/That Guy With the Glasses movie. It started with an obviously evil wizard guy getting picked up as a hitchhiker. He was so enraged by the amount of technology the guy had in his car (three game systems, XM radio, a tv/dvd, a gps system, AND he was using his iPhone to get directions to his new passenger’s destination) That he insulted him on it.
When the driver stated “Everything I own was made with technology,” the evil wizard took the one thing he owned that wasn’t, leaving a nice blood spray across the windows. He then left the car which promptly exploded.
heh. i haven’t seen that movie, jesternario, but it sounds awesome! and that car with all the tech in it sounds cool, too. luckily, if an evil wizard gets in my car i’ll now know what to do. 🙂
Why not just run in and pay about 15 – 20 bucks for a gas station cell phone duracell brand cell phone battery stick in emergency charge battery.
good solution, W.D. Pat, but i think jefbot would rather stress over being lost than to pay $20 for a battery stick.
Remember to mark ur calendar on the dec 21st. Just in case doomsday comes and u dont remember it. Also, could i request a special comic for 21st just in case the world ends and i need to see another jbcomic before we die a horrible death.
ha! thanks for the reminder, Jf300. i’ve been thinking about doing a doomsday comic. if it comes together, i’ll be sure and release it before the date, just in case. >:)
Hey there! Been busy lately, so I had no time to read jefbot…
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Honestly I find reading maps a pain. I don’t know what half the legend means…
happy you found some time to get back here, ROM! also glad you could relate to the comic. now get back to being busy!
Whenever I go somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I get paper directions printed from an AAA location which I keep in my van. Then I plug my smartphone into my cigarette lighter and turn on the GPS app. Also, whenever possible I get a telephone number for the place I intend to visit so that I can get directions that way if necessary. I also get maps for certain areas whenever possible (especially if I intend to stay a while).
I’m guessing fewer people read maps now that we have GPS technology. I got this idea when I showed people a cartoon that contained the words “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Below this label were map symbols and a scale indicating that one inch equals two miles. To my surprise, few people got the joke behind this cartoon.
I actually make it a point to not use GPS in new locations so I get lost on purpose in order to get a feel of the land. I hate relying on GPS for everyday runs. Vacations, sure, but to get from one end of LA to the other, no. I spent 12 years there, I’d like to know I actually know my own city.
But I do see GPS as an ongoing “problem”. I had a friend come over to my apartment back in Los Angeles at least a dozen times over the course of a couple months and he still could not find it without his GPS. He got to the point where he couldn’t even remember our way from a restaurant which was about a mile away and only had 4 turns in Playa Del Rey.