What a dummy. Kind of reminds me of a comedian I saw on TV that had this bit about the GPS insisting to him over and over to turn right even though there was a building there. It was like his electronic nagging girlfriend.
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My first priority will be to reinstate the assault weapons ban as soon as I take office.
Having worked with electronics and computers for the last thirty years, I can state that they aren't as reliable as people think, and they WILL fail at the first worst opportunity. GPS is often in error - mine sometimes shows me running along the roadside, not ON the road. My riding buddy's fancier GPS has the voice instruction feature like this guy in the story probably had - it sometimes tries to turn us where we can't go, or the 'road' suddenly becomes a deertrail.
One MUST use common sense with any device - but that is a commodity in short supply these days.
A couple years back, a story came out about an old feller in Germany relying on his GPS - he drove into a building.
Not that Bedford Hills, NY qualifies as 'country' by any means, except maybe to the folks in Manhattan who think that "upstate" starts at 125th Street. I don't live too far from where Mister Dodo got his car stuck - as a matter of fact, I've seen that crossing from both the train and from the ground - but you still have to be awfully damned stupid to try and beat the crossing gates, which according to the engineer on my wife's commuter train is what happened.
TomToms and Garmins work very well in the urban environment, and pretty well in the suburbs, and aren't too bad even in the exurbs (which is what Bedford Hills actually is; even if they go out of their way to try and make it look semi-rural what with all the fatcats' estates and horse-breeding farms, the properties thereabouts are expensive enough to give you sticker-shock). But once you get into the rural environment, they have a hard time coping even if you have the latest maps downloaded.
My wife's uncle gave me a Garmin for Christmas and it was a delightful companion on a trip to visit friends in North Carolina between Christmas and New Year's. No problem with the interstates, but once I got onto the state roads it tried to route me all around Robin Hood's Barn when I knew from past experience all I had to do was stay on a particular state road and it would take me to within half a mile of their house. And it got quite petulant when I ignored what it wanted me to do in favor of using my own memory of the route. I've read comments from a political reporter on Slate that say much the same thing. His GPS tried to route him to a political rally whose address he had entered into it via a corn field!
It just goes to show as I've said elsewhere: too many people are prepared to turn off their brains and let the computer do their thinking for them when it comes to electronic navigation systems. So now we have a whole new set of excuses for getting lost - "But honey, this is the way the Garmin said to go!"
This is not your typical American (married to a blond). Most likely this is some third world technician on a green card taking our jobs but can't use common sense in a car. I'm not bitter but I've been in the IT industry for 13 years as a professional software developer only to watch all American job opportunities given away to "the talent that can't be found in the U.S."
At my last job for a major petroleum services company we had a guy that thought he was a "God" but couldn't figure out how to use a lawnmower.
I recently left the industry out of disgust for the way the foreigners are being given our jobs and the management positions.
I use my DeLorme (sp?) hooked to my laptop sometimes; I don't look at it much, but I listen to it. If you coordinate what you're hearing with what you're seeing through the windshield, I don't remember it ever being off enough to get me in trouble. If it says, "turn left onto Bradford in 100 yards," and I see Bradford coming up, I don't worry that it might be 75 or 125 yards ahead, or that a quick peek at the screen shows me beside the road I'm following instead of in it...
If it insists on laying out a route I don't want to use, I insert a couple of way points into my request so it'll direct me down the way I want to go instead.
you gotta be crazy to just turn the wheel when that thing says turn right or left .lol. man -o -man us coon-ass-s got them we use them sometimes in the mashes but wyhen it tells us to take a left turn and there is a floton there we don't make a beach assault landing with our mud boat.lol kinda like the oreintal guy a while back down here with a mini van with cruise control he thought it completly drove the van. he was going down the road and needed something from in the back of the van so he put on the cruise control and went to the rear of the van"need i say anymore to the story" the wrecker truck pulled him out the swamp . that years ago when i was workin at a ship yard like around 1991.
Tommy, it wasn't a minivan. I read about the incident last year, in Snopes I think. But the facts are essentially as you said.
It was a real dimbulb in an RV. She sued the RV manufacturer and collected something on the order of half a million dollars, PLUS medical expenses, PLUS a new RV. The dimbulb was going down the highway and decided she wanted a cup of coffee. Instead of pulling off the road like a normal human being, she set the cruise control and then went back to the RV's galley to make coffee while the vehicle was still moving! Naturally the RV went off the road at highway speed and was totalled, with the nitwit getting seriously banged up and injured because she wasn't belted into a seat at the time of the accident she inflicted on herself due entirely to her own stupidity.
At the trial, the dimbulb maintained that the RV company salesman had never told her that "cruise control" did not equal 'Autocruise,' such as the fictional Knight Industries Two Thousand was equipped with in the old TV show Knightrider. And the jury bought this idiotic line of reasoning! They found for the plaintiff and decreed that award. I think in the end the award was cut back by the judge to legal fees, medical expenses and about $87,000 - but she did get a new RV too as part of the deal.
And that's why all the owner's manuals today specifically warn that cruise control controls only the speed of the car and not the steering; that the car does not drive itself. Dear old Uncle Chuck Darwin never sleeps, but moronic jurors think they have a duty to compensate nominees for the Darwin Award who didn't quite make it because they weren't quite stupid enough to qualify for it!
Well that was nearly bye bye Bo Bai
sometimes its a toss up between the technology and the technologist as to who has the artificial intellengence. Regards.
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You dont need a weather man to know which way the wind blows
On our last road trip, my buddy was navigating by his GPS, which he had programmed to select secondary and dirt roads, avoiding highways. We have Dual-sport bikes, and like to take "the road less travelled".
Well, we end up on a little two-track hunting road. I say, "Well, THIS is why they call it 'Adventure Motorcycling'!" Hehehe. We followed a couple Good Ol' Boys in their trucks, and come out onto a paved road okay.
Sometimes, waypoints get the machine flustered too. He got us going in circles at one point - the blasted machine kept telling him to turn. I looked at the road sign, and using my simpler GPS's compass, suggested we take the particular road I knew led us to our destination - it worked. Sometimes, it's best to ignore the computer - and "use the force!"
Regards.
