GPS In An Insular Life

I got a portable GPS thingy for Christmas.

- It’s pretty accurate. I’ve set a course and purposely gotten off the expressway before it told me to do so. Within a hundred feet or so, the voice said “recalculating route” followed by “travel 1.2 miles” on the access road I’d exited on to the next exit, which is where it planned me to exit the expressway. Except, I always get off at that exit because there is a short cut that avoids two major intersections. When I turned onto the short cut it said “recalculating route” (I think with some annoyance) and gave me new, and accurate, directions coming from the back way.

- Its database is at least a year old because the Captain D’s in my neighborhood which is a “Point of Interest” is now a used car lot, and has been for about a year.

- It has an annoying feature that wants me to mark every “speed camera” I come across. It’s made by Mio, which I think is a British company. I gather they must use more cameras than lasers there, though “marking” the location of speed traps for either involves the same process. I’ve not marked any because I don’t speed (note that speed is a relative term, if you drive 55 mph on an Atlanta expressway you will die or cause others to die); and, even if I did, the Metro Atlanta police departments don’t much care, except at places that I already know about; and, again, I’m not “speeding” anyway.

- Though it uses GPS, it gives locations as latitude and longitude. I thought GPS numbering was different?

- I don’t need a GPS because I almost never go anywhere I’ve not been to before.

- But, it’s kind of fun if I leave it on, the little screen shows me where I am if by chance I don’t want to look out the windshield.

So much for the less quantity, more quality semi-pledge in the previous post.