NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Dependence on GPS
From: Tom Sult
Date: 2009 Nov 03, 20:26 -0600
From: Tom Sult
Date: 2009 Nov 03, 20:26 -0600
Love it! I will have to start traveling with my sextant as well. I thinking it is a conversation starter! Thomas A. Sult, MD IntegraCare Clinic www.icareclinics.com tsult@mac.com On Nov 2, 2009, at 8:10 PM, frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com wrote: > > Thomas, you wrote: > "In fact just yesterday this iPhone GPS got me in trouble (ok it was > operator error). [...] My wife has been quite generous telling all > about my navigation prowess!" > > Ha. Yeah, I've had a few of those, too. I don't much need my GPS- > enabled phone for position-finding, per se, it's all the data that I > can access through Google Maps and other services that makes it so > liberating. The underlying data is comprehensive but also has a fair > amount of "noise". On a recent cross-country trip visiting submarine > museums, I happily drove up to a brand new H.I. Express motel > following the instructions from my smartphone. And when I pulled up, > oh yes indeed, it was new --so new that the windows hadn't been > installed yet. :-) So that's when I cursed GPS navigation and dug > out my sextant (not really, of course, but I do indeed usually have > not just one but two sextants in the trunk of my car when I drive > around, for teaching and photo-ops, not for navigation). > > I recently visited the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, > CT to peruse a whaling logbook from the mid-1840s with some > interesting "lunars" navigation in it. It wasn't really hard getting > there, but I am quite sure that I would have made some wrong turns, > wasted a lot of time, and perhaps I would even have gotten so > frustrated as to abandon the plan, but the smartphone took me right > there. So navigation by artificial satellites enhances research in > natural satellite navigation. > > -FER > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NavList message boards: www.fer3.com/arc Or post by email to: NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList+@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---