Author Topic: Why I recommend commercial GPS (or: Navit mistook me for John McClain)  (Read 7910 times)

LordKaT

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If you're thinking about getting a GPS system, may I recommend a commercially available system that is built for your specific location (like the United States) as opposed to the Free Software Navit, using the Open Street Map system?

Here's why you want to avoid Navit and OSM at all costs: it tries to kill you.

Everything is fine up until it decides that the best route would be to use the expressway. Now, ignoring local traffic conditions, this would seem like the best route ... but the path taken is a tad heroic.

First, it instructs you to get on the wrong parkway, then make a SHARP RIGHT using your handbreak and get on the expressway using the offramp.




Second, it tells you to take a SHARP RIGHT off of the expressway overpass and on to the local street.

I hope you have good shocks.




Navit: for those of us who want to be able to shout "Yippie Kay Yay, Mother'efer!" in our daily lives.

charles

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I seriously want a GPS voice system with a REALY Aussie accent.

Not that foolish bloke they've got who says "Drive 200m and make a U-turn" But a true bluey who says "Pull a uey up ahead" or "hang a left here mate"  and if I miss a turn "What the bloody hell are you doing?" and if I'm over the speed limit, rather than "you are over the speed limit" I want to hear "drop her back a bit ya cheeky bugger"

Just get some seriously funny stuff in there.
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Emp_Dragon

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I'd much rather want an inertia/gyro positioning system, using the Swedish National RT90 system.

Pozf

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Geez I know Staten Island can be a pain in the ass to navigate sometimes, but that's a little overkill.
'Science is on the march. Don't get in its way.'

Oddball

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Use a Garmi Geko hand held and that is accurate even got a first generation hand held GPS that looks like the first generation "brick" moblie phones  ;D  and that is still accurate
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Emp_Dragon

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How accurate?

Oddball

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less than 5 metres, after the U.S Army turned off the security on the sats most GPS systmes are less than 10 metres now
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Emp_Dragon

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I still don't like beeing dependant on something that I'm not able to fix if it acts up.

Oddball

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only use my GPS as a back up always use a map and compass and some times a stop watch, or if in a white out a fellow skier HEHEHEHE if he/she disapears you know where to avoid
What good is dreaming it if you don't actually do it?.

LordKaT

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I still don't like beeing dependant on something that I'm not able to fix if it acts up.

I've always seen GPS as "nice to have" but not necessary. There's something fun and exciting about navigating the USA with an atlas and a compass.

Emp_Dragon

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LOL!

I doubt I'd need a compass unless the sun/moon is invisible and every single landscape feature is blanketed by snow. My sense of direction would have me get right just using a map.

Oddball

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Been on the wrong side of the SatNavs used in cars they are terrible at times.
What good is dreaming it if you don't actually do it?.

Churba

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Related, because it was done by running about with a GPS tracker - Zoom in on the squiggly bit. http://www.runsaturday.com/tabId/64/activityId/109566/subView/Map/Default.aspx

LordKaT

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LOL!

I doubt I'd need a compass unless the sun/moon is invisible and every single landscape feature is blanketed by snow. My sense of direction would have me get right just using a map.

I've been caught too many times in the middle of fucking nowhere and ending up going in one direction when I should've been going in the other. 9/10 you don't need a compass ... but it's that one time out in the middle of Arizona on a moonless night at 3am that you REALLY like to know the direction of magnetic north.

Oddball

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easy look up and find the brightest star and you have Polaris, the North Star but that only wworks when there are stars out  :-\ or if you have trees Moss always grows on the northside....or is that south cant remember now.
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CrystalDragonSpaceMarine

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I just drive until I see a roadsign that may or may not be relevant to where  I am headed.

UmberIsSexy

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haha...

yeah I just have no interest.  Never had it, never will (probably).  I don't think I'm trusting enough.

The original post was funny though.

NightWraith

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There was a Satnav system (or maybe it was a website) that if you said you wanted to go from Edinburgh to London avoiding motorways it sent you to ireland then france and finally back to the UK again....

I do have a habit of shouting at Satnavs when i'm driving if they give wrong instructions (e.g. sending the wrong way down a one way street).

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wierdly i find google maps the best directionalist.
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Oddball

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That was the AA route master website Nightwraith
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Foof

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I want a GPS with a sexy woman's voice, or sexy man.

"Ooh...yes...oh yeah, baby.  Turn right."
"Mmm...I love it when you follow my directions."

Emp_Dragon

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LOL! You sure you'd keep your concentration while driving then foof? or would you be a time bomb due to concentrating on lower regions of yourself?

Oddball

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Trying to remember what bond film with Peirce Brosnan that had a woman's voice for his GPS
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Foof

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...Oh man, that's true!

I know what one you mean!  I'm pretty sure that's Tomorrow Never Dies.

Oddball

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aye its says have a nice day or drive save now as it crashes into the shops at the end of a chase scene
What good is dreaming it if you don't actually do it?.