#985 – Smart
Posted on March 22, 2010 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
About a year ago we were in Massachusetts taking a rental car out to our hotel. The navigation system seemed very sure of itself but it really started to feel wrong when it took us off of paved roads and down what seemed like just a dirt path. When it finally told us that the empty field we were in was our destination we called the hotel.
“Oh, are you using some sort of navigation system?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, those computer things don’t really know their way around here very well.”
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I was getting fitted for a wedding out of town when Google Maps insisted that this guy’s house in Irondale, Alabama was the Men’s Wearhouse I was looking for in Birmingham.
It wasn’t.
My grandmother got a GPS for her birthday a few months ago. She was so happy because she frequently gets lost. The first thing she does is ask it to take her home from the airport and it manages to take her to the Canadian Border. The next month I got the GPS as a “you got your driver’s license gift”, which I don’t use because I get too distracted.
I told you there’d be a red car!
yeeaaahh, who’s so smart now, you stupid… car! grr!
well, i think it’s not the nav to blame it on, but the car. how can things go well in a sports-shoe on wheels??? come on!! o___O
That happent to me… The treachorous gps sent me over badlands and forests through valleys and mountains, to finally realize that was the long way (very long way) to my destination… I actually passed 3 ghost towns. :_(
Lich king, you are Cassandra! 😀
I’ve been suspicious of computer navigation ever since a popular online mapping site tried to give me directions across the Patomic via a bridge that does not, and has *never,* existed. Fortunately I know DC well enough to not be fooled. 😛 That was close on a decade ago, and as I see things, the software isn’t all that much more reliable – just has more bling.
Computers are only as smart as the people who program them and use them, whichever is less.
Was Biff’s GPS distracted looking for patterns in the clouds?
@Lich king: But *how* did you know? Sherlock Holmes always reveals his process of deduction.
I got mapquest directions to pittsburgh with my dad once, and we finally got into the city and continued following the directions until they led us down a dark shady alley and the directions just ENDED. “welcome to pittsburgh and shady joe’s alley, hope you’ve enjoyed your 3 minute stay!”
@MaskMan: I don’t know…..who?
@i.half4: Hardy har.
@Lich king;
Cassandra – Fated to always speak the truth, and never be believed. 😛
It’s not hard to predict the future comics when I’m revealing them ahead of time.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bookofbiff
I like to stick to my iPhone, it has yet to fail me. Often it gets the bus schedule more right than the actual bus stops themselves! But I still kind of paranoidly check the little blue dot as I move along to make sure its going the right way…
Had the same thing happen in Central Texas.. only it was a dark and foggy night, and we had just passed a cemetary.. felt a little bit like a Scooby Doo cartoon.. But that empty field just HAD to be the Holiday Inn.
Here in Europe we often have troubles with truck drivers who follows blind their gps, just to be confrontated later with roads absolutely unsuitable for a 18-wheeler. A german newsmagazine wrote an article about the strangest and funniest mistakes with gps. The title was: “Navi an, Hirn aus” (gps on, brain off).
But the best story comes now. It’s really happen what the comic shows! In Rumpenheim, Germany five young men just follows the gps. It shows them a way using a ferry over the river Main. But it was night and the ferry boat was out of service at the opposite bank. And the gps didn’t say something about the liquid gap in the road, at the display it looked like a bridge. So they ignorating all road signs with the ferry symbol and continues to drive over the ramp at the river bank till they drop with their car into the river! Fortunately all could be saved unblessed but wet and with a big shock of course. Pictures: http://www.op-online.de/nachrichten/offenbach/fotostrecke-auto-main-rumpenheim-550133.html
oh man…. why do I see a giant squid coming out of nowhere!? maybe the squids reprogram those GPS’s to bring them right to thier eveeeeeiil lair.
next time, use OnStar
This is especially worrisome since gps also gives pedestrian directions.
Magellan is not a name I would trust in GPSs. For one thing, the real Ferdinand Magellan got lost and died looking for the East Indies. He was really close though. The East Indies are a couple hundred miles away from the Philippines (where Magellan died)
What perfect timing. Believe it or not, I finally upgraded to DSL this week.
Istream, ustream, we all stream… Sorry.
It said “Drive into a lake.” What’s so hard to understand about that?