Could you find your way out of the woods if you were dropped in the middle of nowhere?
Robot
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dancingtongue · 80-89, M
Only if I had a reference point.
The concluding chapter of This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong, an interesting as well as humorous book on cartography, cites research that increasingly people who use GPS (or satnav as the Brits, including the authors call it) for directions to anything and everything are losing the ability to find their way anywhere on their own. They have lost all sense of dead reckoning, points of reference, from only staring at and/or listening to their car/smartphone give turning directions.
Thankfully horses were never given smartphones back in the day. And yes, I am that old.
The concluding chapter of This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong, an interesting as well as humorous book on cartography, cites research that increasingly people who use GPS (or satnav as the Brits, including the authors call it) for directions to anything and everything are losing the ability to find their way anywhere on their own. They have lost all sense of dead reckoning, points of reference, from only staring at and/or listening to their car/smartphone give turning directions.
Thankfully horses were never given smartphones back in the day. And yes, I am that old.
LordShadowfire · 46-50, M
@dancingtongue I never had a sense of direction.
swirlie · 31-35
@dancingtongue
You could only find your way out of a forest if you had a reference point, you say?
Well, let's face it dancing tongue, if you had the reference point that you speak of, then technically speaking, you wouldn't be lost now, would you?!
First of all dancing tongue, GPS and SatNav are not the same thing regardless of what you think about British people or the Author of that book you're reading, nor are GPS and SatNav even remotely related in function to each other ..nor do those Bloody flipping Brits call it something different than Americans do. What the Brits call it, is what it is. What the Americans call it, is what it isn't.
Prepare to have your American mind navigated, dancing tongue!
First of all, GPS (which means Global Positioning System) is the specific satellite network that provides location data (lat & long). That group of satellites is referred to as a 'system'.
Secondly, SatNav (Satellite Navigation) refers to the DEVICE OR SOFTWARE (like Google maps or an in-car nav unit) that uses GPS signals, maps and routing algorithms, which are then sent to the SatNav portion of the unit to give you directions in how to go someplace from where you're presently located.
GPS provides present-position information only, whereas SatNav provides Azimuth (compass direction or road routing) only.
SatNav itself does not know where on the earth you are unless GPS tells it.
GPS on the other hand cannot tell you how to go someplace unless SatNav provides Azimuth direction to get there.
This means that SatNav relies on GPS to provide a lat & long point of reference and GPS relies on SatNav to give direction options.
One system cannot function without the other, nor can either system perform the other system's job as a stand-alone navigation device without the other.
This means that GPS is wholly dependent on SatNav and SatNav is wholly dependent on GPS within the navigation system of a car, boat or airplane.
In simple terms, GPS tells you where on earth you are located, whereas SatNav tells you how to get to where you want to go FROM that GPS point of reference.
GPS tells you where you are and SatNav tells you how to get somewhere else from here. If you were lost in a forest but you had a hand-held GPS device, it would only tell you where you are. If that mechanical unit gives you any kind of direction to get out of that forest, then what you have in your hand is technically a hand-held SatNav unit, not a GPS unit.
In that regard, the Brits are actually correct, not the Americans when making reference to a navigation system's namesake.
The navigation system in your car or your airplane is actually called SatNav, though American auto makers mistakingly name the system 'GPS'.
If you were to access the navigation system of a modern jet airplane, you would find it labeled 'SatNav' not GPS, though both systems are used simultaneously to navigate the airplane.
A nav system is named for what it does... which is navigate. To navigate using GPS points of reference is to 'SatNav' your way from point A to point B.
If you are looking for directions, SatNav provides Azimuth direction. GPS does not provide direction, it only provides present-position data.
You could only find your way out of a forest if you had a reference point, you say?
Well, let's face it dancing tongue, if you had the reference point that you speak of, then technically speaking, you wouldn't be lost now, would you?!
When Maps Go Wrong, an interesting as well as humorous book on cartography, cites research that increasingly people who use GPS (or satnav as the Brits, including the authors call it) for directions to anything and everything are losing the ability to find their way anywhere on their own.
First of all dancing tongue, GPS and SatNav are not the same thing regardless of what you think about British people or the Author of that book you're reading, nor are GPS and SatNav even remotely related in function to each other ..nor do those Bloody flipping Brits call it something different than Americans do. What the Brits call it, is what it is. What the Americans call it, is what it isn't.
Prepare to have your American mind navigated, dancing tongue!
First of all, GPS (which means Global Positioning System) is the specific satellite network that provides location data (lat & long). That group of satellites is referred to as a 'system'.
Secondly, SatNav (Satellite Navigation) refers to the DEVICE OR SOFTWARE (like Google maps or an in-car nav unit) that uses GPS signals, maps and routing algorithms, which are then sent to the SatNav portion of the unit to give you directions in how to go someplace from where you're presently located.
GPS provides present-position information only, whereas SatNav provides Azimuth (compass direction or road routing) only.
SatNav itself does not know where on the earth you are unless GPS tells it.
GPS on the other hand cannot tell you how to go someplace unless SatNav provides Azimuth direction to get there.
This means that SatNav relies on GPS to provide a lat & long point of reference and GPS relies on SatNav to give direction options.
One system cannot function without the other, nor can either system perform the other system's job as a stand-alone navigation device without the other.
This means that GPS is wholly dependent on SatNav and SatNav is wholly dependent on GPS within the navigation system of a car, boat or airplane.
In simple terms, GPS tells you where on earth you are located, whereas SatNav tells you how to get to where you want to go FROM that GPS point of reference.
GPS tells you where you are and SatNav tells you how to get somewhere else from here. If you were lost in a forest but you had a hand-held GPS device, it would only tell you where you are. If that mechanical unit gives you any kind of direction to get out of that forest, then what you have in your hand is technically a hand-held SatNav unit, not a GPS unit.
In that regard, the Brits are actually correct, not the Americans when making reference to a navigation system's namesake.
The navigation system in your car or your airplane is actually called SatNav, though American auto makers mistakingly name the system 'GPS'.
If you were to access the navigation system of a modern jet airplane, you would find it labeled 'SatNav' not GPS, though both systems are used simultaneously to navigate the airplane.
A nav system is named for what it does... which is navigate. To navigate using GPS points of reference is to 'SatNav' your way from point A to point B.
If you are looking for directions, SatNav provides Azimuth direction. GPS does not provide direction, it only provides present-position data.
dancingtongue · 80-89, M
@swirlie Well, I'm sorry if I apparently hit on some raw Commonwealth nerve. All of what you state is covered in the last chapter of the book, which I have read and apparently you have not. Which does not change the fact that English slang uses GPS to cover both applications.
And by reference point I meant something like the polar star, or the mossy side of trees, to point you in the right direction but doesn't tell you where the hell you are. Or some topographic feature when exploring, such as Cabrillo's party splitting up and agreeing to meet at the solitary redwood tree they could see in the distance -- Palo Alto -- which is now the name of the town at the heart of Silicon Valley, which had a little bit to do with both GPS and SatNav, where my grandparents had their farm on MIddlefield Road when it literally ran through the middle of fields.
And by reference point I meant something like the polar star, or the mossy side of trees, to point you in the right direction but doesn't tell you where the hell you are. Or some topographic feature when exploring, such as Cabrillo's party splitting up and agreeing to meet at the solitary redwood tree they could see in the distance -- Palo Alto -- which is now the name of the town at the heart of Silicon Valley, which had a little bit to do with both GPS and SatNav, where my grandparents had their farm on MIddlefield Road when it literally ran through the middle of fields.
swirlie · 31-35
@dancingtongue
Well, if I know more about what's covered in the last chapter of your book than you do, then I don't really see the point of me reading the last chapter of that book if what it says is precisely what I just told you.
It isn't English slang that refers to both GPS and SatNav as if both were one in the same, it's truly a lack of American understanding of both systems which is why GPS isn't English slang at all, it's actually American slang.
Only Americans would call SatNav "GPS" as evidenced by your own claim that it's the Brits who are out of step with the world, not America The Great.
Let me remind you once again that the Brits are correct in calling it SatNav.
All of what you state is covered in the last chapter of the book, which I have read and apparently you have not.
Well, if I know more about what's covered in the last chapter of your book than you do, then I don't really see the point of me reading the last chapter of that book if what it says is precisely what I just told you.
It isn't English slang that refers to both GPS and SatNav as if both were one in the same, it's truly a lack of American understanding of both systems which is why GPS isn't English slang at all, it's actually American slang.
Only Americans would call SatNav "GPS" as evidenced by your own claim that it's the Brits who are out of step with the world, not America The Great.
Let me remind you once again that the Brits are correct in calling it SatNav.
dancingtongue · 80-89, M
@swirlie Mea culpa: I should have said American slang. But the point remains, that GPS has come to mean both in American English which, like it or not, tends to become the predominant English spoken outside the Commonwealth because of American domination of the international entertainment industry and the Internet.
swirlie · 31-35
@dancingtongue
American slang isn't spoken in Canada, dancing tongue and Canada lies right next door to the USA! Being American, you may need SatNav to find it. But if you only have American GPS at your disposal, just go outside on a windy day and put your back to the wind, then stick out your left arm and point your left hand finger, then go the way your finger is pointing... eventually, you'll come to Canada.
Obviously your fragile American ego is threatened by the fact that the world doesn't actually revolve around the whims of the United States of America nor ever has. You really need to get a grip on the world's true perception of the USA because you and all Americans live in a delusion of grandiosity that's been bubble-wrapped and insulated from the reality of the world that surrounds your bankrupt country.
But the point remains, that GPS has come to mean both in American English which, like it or not, tends to become the predominant English spoken outside the Commonwealth because of American domination of the international entertainment industry and the Internet.
American slang isn't spoken in Canada, dancing tongue and Canada lies right next door to the USA! Being American, you may need SatNav to find it. But if you only have American GPS at your disposal, just go outside on a windy day and put your back to the wind, then stick out your left arm and point your left hand finger, then go the way your finger is pointing... eventually, you'll come to Canada.
Obviously your fragile American ego is threatened by the fact that the world doesn't actually revolve around the whims of the United States of America nor ever has. You really need to get a grip on the world's true perception of the USA because you and all Americans live in a delusion of grandiosity that's been bubble-wrapped and insulated from the reality of the world that surrounds your bankrupt country.
dancingtongue · 80-89, M
@swirlie I am quite aware of the language difference--and where to find your lovely country--having traveled quite a bit of your country, from Quebec to Vancouver Island and in between. As well as quite a bit of the rest of the world.
'Tis not I who has gotten their knickers in a twist over something off-topic, eh?
'Tis not I who has gotten their knickers in a twist over something off-topic, eh?
swirlie · 31-35
@dancingtongue
Twisted knickers? Now I can't even imagine what that must feel like!
Twisted knickers? Now I can't even imagine what that must feel like!