Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
Racmanaz wrote:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C02wBt9xu5A/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The car is just as ventage as the GPS unit!
That looks like the first car I owned -- a 1963 VW bug.
In 1969 I was transferred from a ship in Miami to the U.S. Coastguard Cutter Storis, WAGB-38, in Kodiak Alaska. One of our Missions was to have the US Coastal and Geodetic Survey onboard to map the Bering Sea Ocean floor. Also they installed on the top of our ship a spiral antenna to study satellite navagation called the Omega System. Up to that time Navy and Coast Guard ships relied on LORAN to find their pisition on the charts. Its accuracy was about 1 tenth by 2 tenths of a mile. The man installing the antenna said Omega was accurate to 3/8ths of an inch because that was the diameter of the receiving antenna on the ship. This was 50 plus years ago.
Racmanaz wrote:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C02wBt9xu5A/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Very funny. It's almost like some weird technology from a Monty Python sketch.
I love my iPhone. "Hey Siri, Get directions to the [whatever]."
burkphoto wrote:
Very funny. It's almost like some weird technology from a Monty Python sketch.
I love my iPhone. "Hey Siri, Get directions to the [whatever]."
I had the same thought while watching the video. It just seems so ridiculous.
Racmanaz wrote:
I had the same thought while watching the video. It just seems so ridiculous.
But it's ridiculous BS technology like that that gets the creative juices flowing, when someone realizes, "Hey, they're onto something."
It sort of reminds me of a speech Steve Jobs gave in 1982 which (in retrospect) SOUNDED like he was predicting the development of the iPad. It didn't hurt that one of the Star Trek series had a computer tablet device like that on the Enterprise...
But whatever navigation system they had in 1971 it wasn't GPS. There were not sattelites for the purpose at that time.
Amazing technology, but if “Mr. Tesla”. had never been born, would we still be trying to read paper maps, while doing 70 mph and changing lanes on the Freeway?
He’s the man.
My 50+ year old memory was off the name of Omega. It was an experimental system they were trying out. Omega was replaced by GPS later.
If you wanted to order a complete set for a delivery truck to navigate through London and suburbs, there'd be no room for the merchandise, just a whole library of cassette tapes guiding from every possible point to every other possible point.
I miss road maps, the ones that the gas stations had in a rack, free for the taking. I could look at a map and see how I "might like to go" instead of going how I am be in "told to go". I guess the fastest way to get to your destination is via the GPS, but then you may miss many sights that add to enjoyment of travel. If you're in a hurry, GPS's are a blessing but for enjoying the countryside, get out the map.
I recall seeing a TED Talk years ago where the presenter described the origin of GPS - it was really thanks to the Russians orbiting Sputnik, on which which they purposefully installed a radio signal transmitter so anyone around the world could hear proof that the satellite was actually orbiting, including being able to locate it's position above by decoding the doppler effect on the radio signal (approaching compresses the waves, departing extends them, like an ambulance siren approaching and leaving where you are standing).
So a couple of scientists at Bell Labs talked about how they might be able to reverse engineer the concept in such a way as to ascertain one's position on the ground by interpreting the signals received from multiple satellites whose positions are known - their boss liked the idea and the Navy was looking for a way to get submarines a reliable tracking system - and off to the races.
Indi
Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.
I used to have two Garmin GPS units until I started using WAZE. WAZE is always on in my cars as it tells me when there are problems on the road ahead among other things.
I almost never get lost anymore. WAZE does have a bit of a lag when providing the next instruction on my route but I can live with that.
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