Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- It's fascinating to see how reliant our world is on GPS services (GNSS more precisely, not only location, but especially time) and how we still get even more reliant every day while at the same time we can see how fragile all of this is in the conflict zones of the world.
Maybe there is room for a stalker like lost art in navigation in places where it all breaks down but I doubt it.
The future I see is more one of autonomous navigation systems. Ones that pick up locations cues wherever they are and build a local map that helps you or your vehicle to find your way.
by weinzierl - The "Derive"[1] app from french collective "Hérétique"[2] his really great to help you wander while still going on your way. I use it a lot when discovering a new city by foot...by toinebeg
- It's possible to get "lost" even with modern GPS.
My wife and I went on a backpacking trip in the wilderness some years ago. We decided to take a shortcut, bushwacking down a river drainage (1.5 miles) rather than taking the trail all the way around (7 miles) hoping to extend a later part of our trip.
We got downhill through the bushwhack to the bottom of the river valley just fine, but discovered at the bottom that a fire had come through the area a year or two prior. It had completely obliterated the trail, any markers, etc, and trees were fallen everywhere making moving in a straight line very difficult.
Despite having a phone with GPS and offline maps showing exactly where the trail "should" be, the lack of the trail actually existing combined with the challenging terrain made navigating out of the area a huge challenge. It was very easy to start wandering off in the wrong direction away from where the trail used to run without realizing and having to course correct back. I think we were moving at maybe 1/3 mile per hour, for 5-6 hours, until we finally made it out of the burn to where the trail existed again.
by biotinker - I'll be honest, I'm not sure why I should feel nostalgic about inconvenience. Getting lost is a major inconvenience, it creates anxiety, wastes time, and all around just sucks.
GPS greatly reduces all of those things at the expense of... I'm not sure what honestly. The article was short on that part - or at least, to me, the benefits felt like inconveniences reframed as excitement and entertainment. I'll pass on this and most of the 'I miss the good ol days when life was harder ' genre.
I don't miss the days of stopping at a gas station for directions. I don't miss taking the slower route because I didn't have traffic updates redirecting me. I don't miss inconvenience for its own sake.
To each their own, but I really don't get this inconvenience nostalgia period we find ourselves in.
by mlloyd - Getting lost isn't fun. I resent the people who say so.
In many places in the world, a missed exit on a freeway can take you 20-30 minutes or more from your destination, with no chance of turning around.
There is an art to wandering, for sure, but this luddite paean to wandering neglects the fact that for most of human history, one of the largest drivers of technology was navigation technology to AVOID getting lost on purpose.
This is projected metaphysical angst masquerading as nostalgia.
by epsteingpt - Orienteering is a good skill to have. My wife and one of my best friends could both get lost trying to get out of a cardboard box.
With that said, in the days before GPS, I recall wandering off my planned route for a bit in a new to me city, crossed the wrong street, and ended up in the poorest neighborhood and gang controlled territory. Nothing came of it, other than a lesson learned to be a little more careful about planning potential deviations rather than impromptu ones.
Going into the donut store and having to pass money under bullet proof glass and getting the donut through a revolving bullet proof door was certainly an interesting experience, though not one I'd care to repeat.
by zdragnar - You can still get lost today if you want to.
When I go to a new city, I find a landmark than take the train/bus/subway towards it but not to it. I get off ~ 3-5 miles away from it, then I try to find on my own navigating the streets in the general direction of it. Yes, it takes a an hour or two to get there, but I get to see things at random which otherwise I would miss.
I have seen people with phones in their hands asking for directions and not knowing how to tell Google Maps where they want to go.
- by karakoram