You see tweets like the neuroscientist’s all the time from the young and the baffled, the generation who grew up with the internet all around them like a benevolent god who asked nothing of them except watching five seconds of an ad before the video starts.
When you like drove from one state to another state, how did you know where to go??? Were there like signs or things?
I’d sit in the truck with a tape recorder.
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Driving, from Vermont almost all the way to Guatemala, nuttin’ but a Rand McNally atlas.
To fly I just went out to a bit of a clearing in the woods, found a guy there, and asked him if he would take me up. For five bucks cash, no ticket, he’d bundle me into an open cockpit biplane and fly me around for a while.
The guy was Cole Palen, owner of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.
In the early 90s, Rand McNally used to have a corner location at the base of the tallest skyscraper in Philly, probably the highest rent in the city at the time. I assume it was profitable, because it was there at least a few years. They even had USGS topographic maps. What a time to be alive! Can you even buy hard copy maps anymore?
Thought Criminal – Stop in any State welcome center and pick up a state map. So far, every State I’ve gone through still gives out maps. I always get one. Electrical thingies can fail. Maps always work.
I suppose if you wrote to the Dept. of Transportation in every State and Province(?), they would send you a map.
Thanks H.R.!
You can pick up Rand McNally at most truck stops. I still use them, don’t use GPS.
H.R. I was and still am a map guy. When traveling I always have an Atlas and a road map or two of the area I am travelling through, even if I have been through the area in the past. You can even use your computer to print a map of a specific area.
There’s a couple of specialty map stores in downtown Calgary.
I still use maps. I’m not a fan of GPS.
What’s changed is that I use one of the mapping programs to see the route and then maybe make a few notes. If it’s a long trip, I may print out the directions. But that is no different from the old days where you went to the local AAA office, and they would print out a Trip-Tic (or however it was spelled).
Study that map for a bit and you pretty much know how to get where you’re going.
That’s how we roll.
Our local CAA still provides maps.
We prefer backroads, instead of google telling us where to go.
ours does too. but they are google map printouts , not the flip books off their own program of old
Old Rhinebeck has been on my wishlist for a couple decades, after I read an article in Kitplane about their big annual fly in airshow.
As for keeping tapes forever… not in Manitoba. So many of my tapes were ruined by the cold weather in the car letting the tape become stiff, then start the car and the music came on, cracking the tape as it unwound.
From telegraph to texting in one giant heap for mankind.
Life Followed Art dept.
Western Union Wire – Kinky Friedman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv5VCg42kAY
Miranda is soooo awesome.
Jean Claude Parrot; remember him?
He was head of the Canadian Postal Workers Union..
When email was first starting, he tried to get the federal government to legislate that all email would go electronically to the nearest post office, where a postal worker would print it off, put it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail. The I think the letter carrier was supposed to collect payment from the recipient.
ol’ Jean Claude did CUPW a big service and a big disservice.
he carved out crap like the cry of ’40 for 30′ translation they put in 30 hours get paid for 40. he was so goddamn good what he did it was forgone conclusion they would demand such a thing.
the disservice rates shot way way up and post 1 strike in particular, l sensed a LOT of customers opted for couriers. then fedex etc swamped the market never went back.
then email. oy oy oy oy oy that was the equivalent of a bit shark bite out of your rib cage.
Purolator in Canada is owned by the post office . DHL is owned by the german post office
Maps! Oh, the joys of maps. I had two different summer jobs that involved driving to various places. One was as a relief lifeguard where I was would work at a pool for a day or two or maybe a week before getting reassigned somewhere else. The other was as a county inspector of swimming pools. For both jobs, I relied on county-level map books to find where I was going, and then used my noggin to figure out the best route (putting my Boy Scout training to good use). I got very comfortable with those books and built up a nice collection as I moved through my early adult years, into marriage – taught my wife how to rely on them – and up to the age of GPS. I can’t tell you the last time I bought one, but I still have a collection of those out-dated things on the book shelf. And we usually stop at the visitor center when crossing a state line to pick up one of their maps. It’s always good to have a back-up plan.
Ever get caught driving on a skidoo trail?
Never saw the end of the road sign and the trail was extremely wide in the dark.
I was fortunate that it met up with another road after quite a distance.
Some German tourists got lost in a remote part of Queensland recently because they relied on Google maps. Nearly lost their lives.
my youngest son and i were driving in Germany last oktoberfest , he relies entirely on the on board GPS which was all in German , we were heading for the autobahn and the roads got progressively smaller . I said somehow you have put us off course by touching the screen , we ending up on a 12 % grade going up a ski hill before i convinced him to shut it off. a different aside/ the more nervous he got the louder he would play the radio , Techno Rock. the louder he played it the more my fingers would dig into my thighs. painful few days
Maps are for planning, GPS for the travel.
It’s darn difficult to get through some of the follies that double as traffic networks.
Some engineers should have maybe taken up knitting.
Try explaining a ‘party line’ to them. Then tell them how we used to shave.
The best upgrade for topographical maps is to purchase the plastic vice the paper version. The map is printed on house wrap material and is impervious to rain. No more having your map disintegrate while you are trying to use it.
I love my MapArt map books. I will computer map street view beforehand to see what I am looking for when I get there though.
“Apparently there’s a difference between knowing how the brain works and using it.”
Yeah, after a life long observation, one can come to that conclusion.
Most of them are scientologist that dabble in what they call science.
As it is, science is not what it used to be. You can get ahead in the ‘science’ simply on account of your skin tone, not being a damn white racist. The actual meaning of damn white racist is being white, no racism required.
And then you have the actual scientists that in a laboratory somewhere behind concrete walls tinker with stuff and discover. The hope of course is that it will be of benefit rather than kill people.
Lileks is always good for a laugh. Check out his Gallery of Regrettable Food.