On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:32:54 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

T i m Wrote in message:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:30:08 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip

Go on tomtom and report it as an error.

Not for me to do is it,

Corse it is when its you that has to come out at 2am to avoid
them demolishing any more private cars getting out.

Well, it has been a dead end now for probably longer than domestic
GPS's have existed so I have no idea why they are ending up down here.
The only reason I can think of (other than the lorry drivers not
reading the GPS correctly) is their map detail is sufficiently low to
not cover these sort of back roads accurately?

No, I doubt that.

Oh, ok, I only mentioned that because my first (autorouting) GPS, the
Garmin GPS V had very basic mapping for the whole world built in then
you added more detailed maps for the areas you were specifically
interested in. I think mine was 'Base World Map + Europe (down to
house level) so if you drove 'off the detailed map' (and I have) you
could end up with just the basic stuff?

Most likely just an error in the mapping data
that has never been corrected.

I've just checked the map on TomTom's error reporting site and it
looks like it's correct there. So, maybe the 'foreign drivers are just
running old / un-updated versions or really aren't reading them
properly?

There are to big companies
Teleatlas (owned by TomTom) and Navteq ( owned by whatever the
bit of Nokia that does mapping is now called) that produce the
all data that is used in lots of the mapping and navigation
products.

I have heard of Navteq and when I asked Garmin if I could use the same
map I'd bought for one GPS on it's replacement they said no (in that
instance) because they said they have to buy the map data off Navteq.

Google used it as well, though how much it still uses
that third party data now I don't know.

Ok. And as I said to Rod, whilst his phone_cum_GPS may be updating the
maps regularly, who knows how often the maps themselves are being
updated (or how pertinent it might be to the areas you use or are
interested in etc)?

These companies have various way to update the map data user
reports, data collected from their satnav units,

Ok.

their own
mapping cars etc.), but a less used road might only get changed
when someone tells them.

Understood.

Apparently they can spot new roads
sometimes using the data from the satnav units.

I can see how that data could inform them of a road that used to be a
field (for example) or a two way road now designated as one way but do
they just update everyone's data based on this scraped data, or is it
checked manually? The apparent one_way_traffic could be just down to
road works but I guess it could be nice if everyone's GPS units could
be made to respond to even temporary changes?

I found an error in Google maps recently, it tried to navigate me
down what is now a track but obviously was a road a one point.
Presumably it's an error in the mapping data goign back years.
And it has an error in it's data for cambridge where t tried to
send me down what is a restricted access (buses, taxis, bikes)
road. ( that one surprised me more).

Luckily, most of us use all the information open to us and don't
follow any of it blindly. ;-)

although I have a TomTom and think I've registered it so maybe I could?

You don't need to be a registered tomtom owner to do that.

So anyone could submit anything to them?

Probably, it's to their benefit to get errors reported. The
obviously check them out before changing the map
data.

Yes, it looked like you had to sign in (sign up?) to be able to submit
a mapping error update on the TomTom site.

http://www.tomtom.com/mapshare/tools/

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 11:07:09 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

T i m Wrote in message:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 15:27:27 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip



It would have to offer a hell of a lot more over google.maps
to be worth paying anything like that for it and they in fact
offer a lot less,

So, say I was going on a motorcycle tour of the UK and wasn't going to
have any data connection on the trip. Could I download all the maps
required to the same level of detail as most GPS's before I set off?

You can download Google maps for use offline, it's at the same
level of detail, AIUI it now contains basic routing and search
data. It seems to contain the data for things like supermarkets,
libraries, postcode etc. It doesn't do nicer things like tell you
what is at that postcode etc.

Ok, thanks.

There is a limiting the area though I tried on my phone at it
seems for example the largest area it would let me download was
SE, east Anglia, across to Leicester, down to Southampton
area.

Ok, well that could be usable. I wonder if it's similar to the 'Maps'
app you get in Windows 10?


But really, for offline use, a specific app might be better. I use
Here Maps ( produced by Nokia) which is free and works well
enough.

Yes, and I have Navmii (just the free stuff) and that's also useable
for the sort of thing I typically need.

snip

I've never used street view when out and about because I can see that
with my eyes. ;-)

at all and no satellite view at all either.

I'm generally in a car, not a hot air balloon g so I'm not sure what
advantage that would be either (to me)?



I sometime find the traffic data useful,

Yes, I generally turn that on on my Nuvi if I'm doing anything other
than a local trip.

I have a avoided a few
big snarl ups, and it can be useful if you have alternative
routes and you want to check if one is particular ly bad.

I think I turned off the 'traffic avoidance' option as whilst I don't
mind being forewarned of a snarlup, I'd like to decide if it's worth
doing anything about it. Like, 10 minuets sat on the Motorway might be
'easier' than taking a 9 minute detour.

I don't
drive long distance enough for it to be essential.

Nor me these days (or not very often).

Of course
Google maps uses the data when it chooses the best routes as
well.

Understood.

I have even used things like sat maps to find things like likely
looking parking areas. It ones of those things where once it
available you start to find uses for it.

Yeah, I'm sure there are uses and I guess you won't try them if you
don't know they exist ... but most people only look for solutions when
they actually have problems. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 09:38:55 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

snip

Maybe they could signpost clearly the current junction number on the
way in as one thing most people may know is the junction number they
intend leaving the motorway at? If it's higher than the one you are
entering on you want to go clockwise (as long as you know where the
thing starts and stops I guess). ;-)

Thus speaks someone who lives to the west of the M25 :-) That
doesn't work so well if if you are joining on the east, nearer
the start/end of the M25. If I join at junc 27 (m11) and I want
to go to j3 (m20) then i don't want to go anticlockwise.

Ah, no, good point. ;-)

Ok, let's scrap all the signs and give everyone GPS's. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 12:40:29 +0000, T i m wrote:

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 11:06:29 +0000, wrote:


That was the badger (I think). Car park near Treasure Island
overlooking the Solent. ;-)

Notice any of the Forts out in the Solent?

Standing in the car park to the right of Treasure Island and looking
out to the left I think I remember seeing one?

Had to do some work on one once and started late as were delayed by
fog getting there,
Are they privately owned now then? If so, what are people doing with
them?

Some info here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solent_Forts

My visit was installing some catering equipment on Spitbank about 15
years and a couple or more owners ago.


It is the only the time someone has said as
they left "I'll leave you holding the Fort" that the statement was
actually accurate.

Hehe.

As long as you weren't 'swinging the lead' ...
We weren't left quite alone, the owner who at the time lived on it
left us with her two Great Danes, the thought did occur that in the
unlikely but extreme circumstances of her failing return after say a
RTA happened who would win if both the dogs or us decided we were
going hungry.
As it was they were happy to share a packet of rich tea biscuits with
us .

G.Harman

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:34:22 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

charles Wrote in message:
snip

Of course, you could always look at a map before you start out.

Well yes, as I said somewhere, can be of limited usefulness by
themselves for navigation

If I'm going somewhere I've not been before (and have the opportunity)
I'll generally get a feel of the trip with Google maps via my PC.

If I'm out and about at the time I'll not bother and just enter it
into the GPS and that will also give me a reasonable idea.

If I'm going on a long journey (in the car, not motorbike) I might get
the big map book out and on the right page 'just in case'. The Mrs
wouldn't make use of it as just glancing down at it would make her
travel sick.

If I was passenger on a long trip and the driver had a GPS, I still
might take my own GPS *and* have the road atlas open and follow our
progress so I can get a feel where we are and what was around where we
were at the time. I did that on a laptop from my GPS years ago but it
was a lot more faffing than the paper map book. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

"T i m" wrote in message
...
Oh, ok, I only mentioned that because my first (autorouting) GPS, the
Garmin GPS V had very basic mapping for the whole world built in then
you added more detailed maps for the areas you were specifically
interested in. I think mine was 'Base World Map + Europe (down to
house level) so if you drove 'off the detailed map' (and I have) you
could end up with just the basic stuff?

Most likely just an error in the mapping data
that has never been corrected.

I've just checked the map on TomTom's error reporting site and it
looks like it's correct there. So, maybe the 'foreign drivers are just
running old / un-updated versions or really aren't reading them
properly?

Getting errors corrected on satnav routing info is a pain.

There's an unmade road near my parents' holiday cottage in Yorkshire, with
very tractor ruts and huge boulders sticking out of it. You wouldn't get a
4x4 up it and even tractors might have ground-clearance problems.

It has been closed to through traffic as long as I have known it (1970s) and
maybe for a lot longer than that.

However a lot of satnav sites still list it as a through route and try to
route you that way. I went on to TomTom's site and a few others and reported
it as a dead end farm access, but when I checked a couple of years later it
was still showing as an available route. I believe one of the satnav sites
now shows it as being closed.

It's a shame that the road *is* closed because it would be very useful for
knocking several miles off the journey from the village to Richmond and the
A1


When satnavs first came out they used to show access onto the A34 near where
I lived in Oxfordshire via a junction that was either closed several decades
ago or was planned but never built (I could never find out which). I
remember seeing an HGV that had got stuck trying to do a U turn at a
mini-roundabout in a nearby village after it had taken the route thinking it
could get onto the main road and then tried to turn round at the next
village afterwards.

The perils of HGVs with inadequate satnav software (ie without HGV
restrictions) is demonstrated by that train crash the other year in
Hampshire where an HGV missed a turning and tried to take the next road,
realised that it wouldn't get through a narrow bridge, tried to reverse and
knocked the bridge parapet onto the railway line where a train hit it before
the message got through from the local 999 operator to the train driver. The
message-passing and accident-reporting procedures came in for a lot of stick
in the official report because the bridge didn't even have a "phone this
number if a vehicle hits this bridge" sign on the grounds that it was not a
bridge which had a history of problems (whatever happened to "there's always
a first time"?)

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 09:26:10 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

snip

I have learnt some of the junctions on the A14, so that when I see
signs saying congestion j22-24 or whatever ( which is a common
occurrence on the a14 through Cambridgeshire) I know if it goign
to affect me or not.

Yes, we are back to 'local knowledge. I have done such trips when I
know it's generally 'better' (for various meanings of the term
'better'), to *always* leave the motorway early and finish the journey
via A / other roads.

snip

Signs are always only going to have their limits for navigation by
themselves, you can only put a few place names on them, that's
why we have maps as well.

Understood.

I can't remember what the signs said when joining the M25 from the A3
and trying to go clockwise but it might have said 'Heathrow' and I
think that's on the M3 (M4?), not on the M25?

IIRC there is a junction for Heathrow from the M25 as well?

It's not somewhere I've ever used ... well, apart from taking family
and friends to the airport, working round there (we did some
networking work in Terminal 4) and having the opportunity of flying a
737 simulator in their training suite. VBG

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 12:34:46 GMT, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:

T i m wrote on 03/02/2016 :
Hmm, that's the thing, I can't imagine *not* being able to explain it
to an alien (even). Right is just the label to that side / direction,
just as is forward or up. How come even those who can't remember their
left from right, don't generally have issues with the other
dimensions?

Left and right are more or less symmetrical, the others are not.

Are they not? As a decision / direction I can't see why up / down
aren't just as symmetrical as left / right?

I am
one who has always struggled or at least taken a few seconds to work it
out - left from right.

I was talking to our daughter about this yesterday and she remembers
it became 'automatic' to her at about 5 years old. I can't remember
when I 'got it' but it may have been similar. I can't remember if I
used any trick to learn, other than I used to write with my right
hand?

I pick a pen up and if I think about it, I am lost.

Sorry, in what way Harry?

The same with knife
and fork. I am though, mostly ambidextrous.

Whilst my left hand is very useful, if say doing mechanical work it
can play a useful roll, it isn't as anywhere near as dextrous as my
right. If say putting a nut on a bolt in some difficult to access
area, I would typically use my right hand to attach the nut and my
left to hold the bolt down / still.

was born left handed, but
at school I was one who was forced to right handedness, by tieing my
left hand behind my back, so now I write right handed, but my hand
writing is terrible.

Oh dear. We saw that played out at the Beamish museum a while back.
Very sad.

Someone who I was teaching to drive had a problem distinguishing left
from right, so I put a large L and R on the back of his hands :')

Hehe, that will do it. ;-)

It still interests me (from a human observation pov) just how many
people, often adults don't instinctively know their left from right.

"John, could you hand me that 10 mill spanner please, over to your
right ... no, the other right ... " ;-)

I accept 'some people' find it difficult but (of course) I don't
understand why. Just as someone else can't understand why I find (say)
spelling difficult (compared to them) or Linux difficult, compared to
Windows. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 13:52:28 -0000, "NY" wrote:

snip
I've just checked the map on TomTom's error reporting site and it
looks like it's correct there. So, maybe the 'foreign drivers are just
running old / un-updated versions or really aren't reading them
properly?

Getting errors corrected on satnav routing info is a pain.

Ok.

There's an unmade road near my parents' holiday cottage in Yorkshire, with
very tractor ruts and huge boulders sticking out of it. You wouldn't get a
4x4 up it and even tractors might have ground-clearance problems.

A mate (near Ugly) has similar with massive lorries trying to use a
tiny lane that cuts off a corner.

It has been closed to through traffic as long as I have known it (1970s) and
maybe for a lot longer than that.

However a lot of satnav sites still list it as a through route and try to
route you that way.

We don't know how many lorries getting stuck at my mates have set
their GPS's inappropriately (not in HGV mode) or set 'avoid narrow
roads / low bridges' on etc ... or just taken the road too soon (the
one a few hundred yards up the road is fine).

I went on to TomTom's site and a few others and reported
it as a dead end farm access, but when I checked a couple of years later it
was still showing as an available route. I believe one of the satnav sites
now shows it as being closed.

It's a shame that the road *is* closed because it would be very useful for
knocking several miles off the journey from the village to Richmond and the
A1

Ok.


When satnavs first came out they used to show access onto the A34 near where
I lived in Oxfordshire via a junction that was either closed several decades
ago or was planned but never built (I could never find out which). I
remember seeing an HGV that had got stuck trying to do a U turn at a
mini-roundabout in a nearby village after it had taken the route thinking it
could get onto the main road and then tried to turn round at the next
village afterwards.

Yup, we see that round here and it seems to be in batches so maybe new
(foreign) drivers when they take on a new supplier or summat?

The perils of HGVs with inadequate satnav software (ie without HGV
restrictions) is demonstrated by that train crash the other year in
Hampshire where an HGV missed a turning and tried to take the next road,
realised that it wouldn't get through a narrow bridge, tried to reverse and
knocked the bridge parapet onto the railway line where a train hit it before
the message got through from the local 999 operator to the train driver.

Feck. I don't remember that. ;-(

The
message-passing and accident-reporting procedures came in for a lot of stick
in the official report because the bridge didn't even have a "phone this
number if a vehicle hits this bridge" sign on the grounds that it was not a
bridge which had a history of problems (whatever happened to "there's always
a first time"?)

Quite.

'Be prepared. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 12:37:43 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:

snip

https://www.manualowl.com/m/Garmin/G.../Manual/229180

p58. '... Some roads have vehicle based restrictions associated with
them (e.g. no commercial truck traffic, no pedestrians or no bicycles)
. By selecting vehicle type you can avoid being routed where you
cannot legally go ... '

So, just a plain "Sorry Tim" will do dennis. ;-)

Sorry tim.

Accepted. ;-)

I have a gps V somewhere.
I don't know if its the same as yours but I remember it didn't have
enough memory to hold more than about 15% of the UK maps so you had to
download the areas you wanted.

Yup, that sounds about right. You probably used Mapsource and you
could build up the map area you wanted (hoped for) until it reached
the max RAM of your unit (which wasn't much, as you said).

It was very heavy on batteries too.

I generally used rechargables or took power off the car / motorbike.
That said I think it would last a good days driving on one set of
batteries and because it only took AA's, I could often nick batteries
from a torch or camera if required. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 12:55:46 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:

On 04/02/2016 10:27, T i m wrote:
8



nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK). I have it (free
for life) on my Garmin Nuvi and it works but I'm not sure how often I
see the suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it? Or how
often you can do anything about it (like when something happens on a
motorway and you are right behind it). Coming back from a 100 mile
trip the other day it was indicating traffic (red line on our route)
but gave the estimated delays as being no greater than 5 minutes. It
really wasn't worth trying to avoid it as it would have probably taken
longer.

Well yes, if the tomtom doesn't suggest an alternate route then there
probably isn't one.

Do you know if it gives you any control in how big a detour you are
willing to undertake to avoid any delays (the Nuvi does).

Its constantly checking for quicker routes and will
indicate if there is one.

Is that in the event of a tectonic plate shift, the snow melting or
the tide going out? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 13:26:14 +0000, wrote:

snip

Had to do some work on one once and started late as were delayed by
fog getting there,
Are they privately owned now then? If so, what are people doing with
them?

Some info here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solent_Forts

Interesting, thanks.

My visit was installing some catering equipment on Spitbank about 15
years and a couple or more owners ago.

Ok.

snip

We weren't left quite alone, the owner who at the time lived on it
left us with her two Great Danes, the thought did occur that in the
unlikely but extreme circumstances of her failing return after say a
RTA happened who would win if both the dogs or us decided we were
going hungry.

;-)

As it was they were happy to share a packet of rich tea biscuits with
us.

For then ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thursday, 4 February 2016 14:08:33 UTC, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 12:34:46 GMT, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:

T i m wrote on 03/02/2016 :
Hmm, that's the thing, I can't imagine *not* being able to explain it
to an alien (even). Right is just the label to that side / direction,
just as is forward or up. How come even those who can't remember their
left from right, don't generally have issues with the other
dimensions?

Left and right are more or less symmetrical, the others are not.

Are they not? As a decision / direction I can't see why up / down
aren't just as symmetrical as left / right?

for me you could describe up or down to an alien as being with or against gravity as down is always going with gravity and up is always against it.

Not aure how you could do such a thing with left or right.



I am
one who has always struggled or at least taken a few seconds to work it
out - left from right.

I was talking to our daughter about this yesterday and she remembers
it became 'automatic' to her at about 5 years old. I can't remember
when I 'got it' but it may have been similar. I can't remember if I
used any trick to learn, other than I used to write with my right
hand?

I have a scare on my left side, that's who I've always remmebred left from right.




The same with knife
and fork. I am though, mostly ambidextrous.

Whilst my left hand is very useful,

We don't want to hear about those sorts of activities. ;-)

if say doing mechanical work it
can play a useful roll, it isn't as anywhere near as dextrous as my
right. If say putting a nut on a bolt in some difficult to access
area, I would typically use my right hand to attach the nut and my
left to hold the bolt down / still.

was born left handed, but
at school I was one who was forced to right handedness,

my mum had that, but she was rapped on teh knuckes with a wooden ruler in class if she was seen using her left hand.

by tieing my
left hand behind my back, so now I write right handed, but my hand
writing is terrible.

I've a friend that had a bad car accident and he had to re-learn how to write with his right hand as he was left handed.


Someone who I was teaching to drive had a problem distinguishing left
from right, so I put a large L and R on the back of his hands :')

Hehe, that will do it. ;-)

Should use permanent markers, wouldn;t have to do it so often ;-)


It still interests me (from a human observation pov) just how many
people, often adults don't instinctively know their left from right.

Maybe that's an indication that it isn;t as logical as you think.



"John, could you hand me that 10 mill spanner please, over to your
right ... no, the other right ... " ;-)

Well you're lucky he hasn't got 2 left feet then


I accept 'some people' find it difficult but (of course) I don't
understand why. Just as someone else can't understand why I find (say)
spelling difficult (compared to them) or Linux difficult, compared to
Windows. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 14:44:01 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

snip

Ok, well that could be usable. I wonder if it's similar to the 'Maps'
app you get in Windows 10?



No idea what that is like. It's just like normal Google maps on
the phone, just we a few missing niceties if no data connection.
But for your basic driving navigation it works fine.

Ok, well I've not really used the Maps app on W10 other than it looked
initially like your typical online map solution but had the option to
download the maps for selected areas / countries (presumably to use
offline)?

snip

I think I turned off the 'traffic avoidance' option as whilst I don't
mind being forewarned of a snarlup, I'd like to decide if it's worth
doing anything about it. Like, 10 minuets sat on the Motorway might be
'easier' than taking a 9 minute detour.

Indeed.

I've not used a standalone satnav with traffic info, but I like
the way googly maps pops up a message saving there is quicker
route via xyz and you can easily look and decide

I'll have to try it when in the car next.

On my Nuvi the proposed path ahead is normally purple and superimposed
on the general map and it goes red (over the relevant section) when
traffic exceeds some threshold. It also shows you what direction it's
in. I'm not aware of it popping up with any audible warning but it may
be there is and I've turned it off (or it goes off when you disable
the 'traffic avoidance' option).

Thinking what I do or don't do re my GPS has got me thinking how I
generally approach any new(to_me) technology.

I generally first turn it on, see if it pops up with anything that
looks like an incorrect input could cause an issue and if not, just
see if I can get it to do what I want. If the UI is good enough (for
me) I *can* generally do what I want and I may only find other things
it can do by accident. If I would like it to do something I am not
sure about I will generally first just explore (trial and error) and
then (and only then), check the Internet or (lastly), RTFM. ;-)

The daughter is the same whereas the Mrs (a bit older than me) would
RTFM first.

That said, I might, given time in a waiting room, flick though the
user guide, just to see what else it might do but at the end of the
day, I generally only want to do the things I know it can do and why I
bought it in the first place. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

T i m Wrote in message:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 11:07:09 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

T i m Wrote in message:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 15:27:27 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip



It would have to offer a hell of a lot more over google.maps
to be worth paying anything like that for it and they in fact
offer a lot less,

So, say I was going on a motorcycle tour of the UK and wasn't going to
have any data connection on the trip. Could I download all the maps
required to the same level of detail as most GPS's before I set off?

You can download Google maps for use offline, it's at the same
level of detail, AIUI it now contains basic routing and search
data. It seems to contain the data for things like supermarkets,
libraries, postcode etc. It doesn't do nicer things like tell you
what is at that postcode etc.

Ok, thanks.

There is a limiting the area though I tried on my phone at it
seems for example the largest area it would let me download was
SE, east Anglia, across to Leicester, down to Southampton
area.

Ok, well that could be usable. I wonder if it's similar to the 'Maps'
app you get in Windows 10?



No idea what that is like. It's just like normal Google maps on
the phone, just we a few missing niceties if no data connection.
But for your basic driving navigation it works fine.

snip



I sometime find the traffic data useful,

Yes, I generally turn that on on my Nuvi if I'm doing anything other
than a local trip.

I have a avoided a few
big snarl ups, and it can be useful if you have alternative
routes and you want to check if one is particular ly bad.

I think I turned off the 'traffic avoidance' option as whilst I don't
mind being forewarned of a snarlup, I'd like to decide if it's worth
doing anything about it. Like, 10 minuets sat on the Motorway might be
'easier' than taking a 9 minute detour.
Indeed.

I've not used a standalone satnav with traffic info, but I like
the way googly maps pops up a message saving there is quicker
route via xyz and you can easily look and decide
--
Chris French


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On 04/02/2016 14:33, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 12:55:46 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:

On 04/02/2016 10:27, T i m wrote:
8



nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK). I have it (free
for life) on my Garmin Nuvi and it works but I'm not sure how often I
see the suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it? Or how
often you can do anything about it (like when something happens on a
motorway and you are right behind it). Coming back from a 100 mile
trip the other day it was indicating traffic (red line on our route)
but gave the estimated delays as being no greater than 5 minutes. It
really wasn't worth trying to avoid it as it would have probably taken
longer.

Well yes, if the tomtom doesn't suggest an alternate route then there
probably isn't one.

Do you know if it gives you any control in how big a detour you are
willing to undertake to avoid any delays (the Nuvi does).

It just asks if you want to take an alternative route that saves X time.
You can say yes/no or turn on the alternative route when it pops up as
its indicated in a different colour.


Its constantly checking for quicker routes and will
indicate if there is one.

Is that in the event of a tectonic plate shift, the snow melting or
the tide going out? ;-)

It sometimes changes when a ferry gets suspended does that count.

On 04/02/2016 13:57, Brian Reay wrote:

On my first trip to the US, I arrived to discover I'd not packed any
underwear. I jumped in the hire car, drove to the local shopping mall,
stocked up, and returned to the car park. Of course, I couldn't remember
what the hire car looked like (it was some strange model).

I wandered around for ages clicking the remote.




That wouldn't work with mine and probably most modern cars.
The code (pseudo)randomly jumps and the car will only accept codes a few
in advance. After you have used up the codes you have to put the key in
the ignition to restart the sequence.

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 15:22:19 +0000, dennis@home
wrote:

snip

Do you know if it gives you any control in how big a detour you are
willing to undertake to avoid any delays (the Nuvi does).

It just asks if you want to take an alternative route that saves X time.
You can say yes/no or turn on the alternative route when it pops up as
its indicated in a different colour.

Ok, thanks.


Its constantly checking for quicker routes and will
indicate if there is one.

Is that in the event of a tectonic plate shift, the snow melting or
the tide going out? ;-)

It sometimes changes when a ferry gets suspended does that count.

It does indeed, as long as the new route isn't the same as the old
route. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 07:47:00 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave
wrote:

snip

Not aure how you could do such a thing with left or right.

Hmmm, good point. I guess some of us find accepting / remembering that
something just 'is' easier than others.

But there should be some logic to it, there should be some way of decribing left or right but there isn't as it's totally reliant on a human to understand the idea.

But how is that any different to remembering your name or what 'hot'
conveys to anyone?

Left and right (like port and starboard) are only man made labels for
things that already exist, just as forward and back are. So, (and from
my POV of course), why is left and right any more difficult to learn /
understand than back and forward. If 'forward' is the same way as your
face then right is the same side as the hand you write with (or the
opposite side if it isn't)? ;-)


eg. I have two hands, a left hand and a right hand. The hand I (happen
to) write with is my right hand and so that side / way is 'the right'.
I can also do it just as easily when describing left and right to
someone who is facing or and 90 degrees to me. It just 'is'?

You're describing hands rather than a direction that the point.

It's the same things though isn't it? If I tell someone to 'turn
right' it's the same direction as their right hand?

Not ever creature has hands, try explaining it to a star fish.

Ok. ;-)


I have a scar() on my left side, that's how() I've always remmebred left from right.


Well, we do what works Dave and that sounds as good an 'aid-memoir' as
any (all be it you have to take your shirt off to be sure). ;-)

No I don't actually, I'd have to drop my trousers :-0

Ah, that might take some explaining. ;-)

But having the scar from before my first birthday it's difficult to forget such a thing that goes half way up my leg.

But haven't you had your right hand for even longer? Ok, I can see if
you were ambidextrous it would be difficult to use that to remember
left / right via the hand you write with but if it was really that bad
I think I'd have a 'R' tattooed on my right hand (because being able
to know your left from right can be quite important).

snip

It still interests me (from a human observation pov) just how many
people, often adults don't instinctively know their left from right.

Maybe that's an indication that it isn;t as logical as you think.

You may be right (or left ducks) mate but of course to any of us
where it seems to come 'naturally', it is logical. ;-(

What even in women :-
Maybe their 'logical' is just different.

I'm pretty sure it is (and as yet un deciphered). ;-)

I went out on Friday and came back on Monday, the Mrs had the right
hump and I hadn't even been there! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

on 04/02/2016, T i m supposed :
I was talking to our daughter about this yesterday and she remembers
it became 'automatic' to her at about 5 years old. I can't remember
when I 'got it' but it may have been similar. I can't remember if I
used any trick to learn, other than I used to write with my right
hand?

I pick a pen up and if I think about it, I am lost.

Sorry, in what way Harry?

It does not automatically 'fall' to the right (correct hand).

The same with knife
and fork. I am though, mostly ambidextrous.

Whilst my left hand is very useful, if say doing mechanical work it
can play a useful roll, it isn't as anywhere near as dextrous as my
right. If say putting a nut on a bolt in some difficult to access
area, I would typically use my right hand to attach the nut and my
left to hold the bolt down / still.

Either hand will work fine for either task, if one hand is more suited
I use it, if one hand becomes tired I use the other. I often use both
hands on different tasks at the same time.


was born left handed, but
at school I was one who was forced to right handedness, by tieing my
left hand behind my back, so now I write right handed, but my hand
writing is terrible.

Oh dear. We saw that played out at the Beamish museum a while back.
Very sad.

My father went along to the school and complained about the treatment,
I now blame that treatment for my early problems reading and writing,
though now long since more than over come.


Someone who I was teaching to drive had a problem distinguishing left
from right, so I put a large L and R on the back of his hands :')

Hehe, that will do it. ;-)

It still interests me (from a human observation pov) just how many
people, often adults don't instinctively know their left from right.

"John, could you hand me that 10 mill spanner please, over to your
right ... no, the other right ... " ;-)

My now deceased partner was left handed and not forced to being right
handed. She also had problems with left and right.

I accept 'some people' find it difficult but (of course) I don't
understand why. Just as someone else can't understand why I find (say)
spelling difficult (compared to them) or Linux difficult, compared to
Windows. ;-)

No problems now with spelling, or OS's, My ability to spell improved
dramatically when I first began using computers and keyboards in the
mid 1970's. I type most words without a thought - I am somewhere
between a two fingered typist and a touch typist, I use three fingers
on each hand.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

whisky-dave brought next idea :
for me you could describe up or down to an alien as being with or against
gravity as down is always going with gravity and up is always against it.

Not aure how you could do such a thing with left or right.

+1

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 18:09:47 GMT, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:

on 04/02/2016, T i m supposed :
I was talking to our daughter about this yesterday and she remembers
it became 'automatic' to her at about 5 years old. I can't remember
when I 'got it' but it may have been similar. I can't remember if I
used any trick to learn, other than I used to write with my right
hand?

I pick a pen up and if I think about it, I am lost.

Sorry, in what way Harry?

It does not automatically 'fall' to the right (correct hand).

Oooerr.

The same with knife
and fork. I am though, mostly ambidextrous.

Whilst my left hand is very useful, if say doing mechanical work it
can play a useful roll, it isn't as anywhere near as dextrous as my
right. If say putting a nut on a bolt in some difficult to access
area, I would typically use my right hand to attach the nut and my
left to hold the bolt down / still.

Either hand will work fine for either task, if one hand is more suited
I use it, if one hand becomes tired I use the other.

I'll often swap hands if say sanding as you don't need the same level
of control as say hand-sawing.

I often use both
hands on different tasks at the same time.

Plate spinning? ;-)


was born left handed, but
at school I was one who was forced to right handedness, by tieing my
left hand behind my back, so now I write right handed, but my hand
writing is terrible.

Oh dear. We saw that played out at the Beamish museum a while back.
Very sad.

My father went along to the school and complained about the treatment,
I now blame that treatment for my early problems reading and writing,

I wouldn't be surprised.

though now long since more than over come.

Good. ;-)

snip

My now deceased partner was left handed and not forced to being right
handed. She also had problems with left and right.

I wonder 'why' that is the case though? Do you think there is a link
between dominant 'handedness' and the ability to easily 'learn' left
from right.

I accept 'some people' find it difficult but (of course) I don't
understand why. Just as someone else can't understand why I find (say)
spelling difficult (compared to them) or Linux difficult, compared to
Windows. ;-)

No problems now with spelling, or OS's,

Even Linux?! ;-)

My ability to spell improved
dramatically when I first began using computers and keyboards in the
mid 1970's. I type most words without a thought

I try and type most words without a thought but when I look back at
them I can spot loads of typos. Then it's more difficult to undo a
typo than typing it correctly because I can't always figure out what
is right. I think most people could read and understand what I wrote,
but much of it could be phonetic if I'm not careful.

- I am somewhere
between a two fingered typist and a touch typist, I use three fingers
on each hand.

I'm still hunt_n_peck with my right index finger and left thumb for
shift etc. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:30:08 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip

Go on tomtom and report it as an error.

Not for me to do is it,

Corse it is when its you that has to come out at 2am to avoid
them demolishing any more private cars getting out.

Well, it has been a dead end now for probably longer than domestic
GPS's have existed so I have no idea why they are ending up down here.

What's its name so I can look at it with google maps etc ?

The only reason I can think of (other than the lorry drivers not
reading the GPS correctly) is their map detail is sufficiently low
to not cover these sort of back roads accurately?

They shouldn't be looking at map at all, just following the
turn by turn instructions. Maybe that is misleading there,
I have sometimes found that when there are a couple of
turns close together that it is possible to turn down the
wrong one in the dark even with the recent approach of
saying the name of the street because the name means
nothing to you when its in the middle of a trip etc.

although I have a TomTom and think I've registered it so maybe I could?

You don't need to be a registered tomtom owner to do that.

So anyone could submit anything to them?

Yes, and they allow for that by checking whether
the amendment makes sense using other data etc.

So does google.

I find some changes happen almost instantly, so fast that
I kick myself for not checking the map more frequently.
Not such a problem now that they send you an email
when the change has happened and it often takes a
few hours before the change is visible on the map itself.

But sometimes it can take months for some reason.
Not at all clear to me why one took months. That one
was in fact a spelling mistake in the street name that
crept in somehow and took months to get fixed. It
used to be called Snaidero Rd, got mangled into
Snaldero Rd, took months before they changed it
back to the correct spelling, Snaidero Rd again.

Maybe that happened at the official level with the
local council doing the error and it took a long time
before that got fixed at the local level or something
because the error showed up on both google maps
and apple maps. And still hasn't been fixed on apple
maps.

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , Chris French
wrote:
T i m Wrote in message:
On Wed, 03 Feb 2016 22:49:26 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

In article , DJC wrote:
On 02/02/16 22:38, T i m wrote:
Is it only me who would be happy with 'Clockwise' or
'Anticlockwise' on roads leading onto the likes of the M25? I may
be very aware that I need to go clockwise but don't know if I want
Heathrow or Luton, when neither are on the M25! ;-(

Me too, I just don't know which junction number is which. I have
driven London to Newbury often enough to know where M4 J13 is, but
that's about it. The general problem is that if you don't have some
idea both where you are and where the places mentioned on signposts
are, relative to each other and where you are, then said signposts
can be very unhelpful.

Actually, Heathrow Terminal 5 has its own junction on the M25. (14a)

Ah, ok, then that makes a bit more sense then when joining the M25 from
the A3 (J10?) and trying to go clockwise.

But why 'Heathrow'? Why not 'Clockwise' as at least clock or anticlock
are universal no matter where you join the M25 (or the Nth Circ or any
other ring road) and from the inside or outside?

Maybe they could signpost clearly the current junction number on the
way in as one thing most people may know is the junction number they
intend leaving the motorway at? If it's higher than the one you are
entering on you want to go clockwise (as long as you know where the
thing starts and stops I guess). ;-)

Thus speaks someone who lives to the west of the M25 :-) That doesn't
work so well if if you are joining on the east, nearer the start/end of
the M25. If I join at junc 27 (m11) and I want to go to j3 (m20) then i
don't want to go anticlockwise.

Of course, you could always look at a map before you start out.

Makes a lot more sense to use the satnav in the phone.
That way you can be sure its always up to date and will
be routed around big traffic snarls due to crashes etc too.

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Ask them if its a tomtom truck satnav.

Is there such a thing?

http://business.tomtom.com/en_us/pro...ro/7250-truck/
https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/drive/truck/

I'm pretty sure none of them had anything like that.
They all looked like pretty small / std units.

Yeah, bet they are too cheap and just use the cheapest
low end tomtom they can find in the shops etc.

But like I said, a dead end is a dead end even to a car so ...

Yeah, but that may be due to the other factor, no one has
bothered to tell tomtom about a map error or its quite close
to another street that they should be using and they turn
into yours in error because the street names mean nothing
to the truck driver who isnt a local and the street sign isnt
easy to read at night from a truck or they don't bother to
check the street signs on decent trips because there are
too many to bother with.

Don't you have a proper no thru road sign ? We do here.

On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 05:37:44 +1100, "Blanco" wrote:



"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , Chris French
wrote:
T i m Wrote in message:
On Wed, 03 Feb 2016 22:49:26 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

In article , DJC wrote:
On 02/02/16 22:38, T i m wrote:
Is it only me who would be happy with 'Clockwise' or
'Anticlockwise' on roads leading onto the likes of the M25? I may
be very aware that I need to go clockwise but don't know if I want
Heathrow or Luton, when neither are on the M25! ;-(

Me too, I just don't know which junction number is which. I have
driven London to Newbury often enough to know where M4 J13 is, but
that's about it. The general problem is that if you don't have some
idea both where you are and where the places mentioned on signposts
are, relative to each other and where you are, then said signposts
can be very unhelpful.

Actually, Heathrow Terminal 5 has its own junction on the M25. (14a)

Ah, ok, then that makes a bit more sense then when joining the M25 from
the A3 (J10?) and trying to go clockwise.

But why 'Heathrow'? Why not 'Clockwise' as at least clock or anticlock
are universal no matter where you join the M25 (or the Nth Circ or any
other ring road) and from the inside or outside?

Maybe they could signpost clearly the current junction number on the
way in as one thing most people may know is the junction number they
intend leaving the motorway at? If it's higher than the one you are
entering on you want to go clockwise (as long as you know where the
thing starts and stops I guess). ;-)

Thus speaks someone who lives to the west of the M25 :-) That doesn't
work so well if if you are joining on the east, nearer the start/end of
the M25. If I join at junc 27 (m11) and I want to go to j3 (m20) then i
don't want to go anticlockwise.

Of course, you could always look at a map before you start out.

Makes a lot more sense to use the satnav in the phone.

Ok? Not for me walking, cycling or on a motorbike in the rain it
wouldn't [1]. Or on a boat, or if I want to use my phone at the same
time as looking at my routing screen ... or when my wife wants to use
my (contract) phone whilst I'm driving.

I have a smartphone, I have access to Google Maps and the Navmii GPS
app, I prefer to use a dedicated GPS.

That way you can be sure its always up to date

Updated, not necessarily up_to_date, or any more up_to_date than a
dedicated GPS with free lifetime map updates. And not that in the 10+
years of using a dedicated GPS (and sometimes with fairly old maps)
I've never made it to my destination?

and will
be routed around big traffic snarls due to crashes etc too.

As would I using my dedicated GPS?

Cheers, T i m

[1] I bought a second hand 6 month old smartphone off the Internet and
two days later it died. I sent it back to the original owner to in
turn took it back to the shop who sent it off for testing. It came
back saying it had suffered some water damage (not in my care it
hadn't). The more worrying thing were the exclusions from liability
from damage from moisture and the potential causes of moisture damage
(outside not dropping your phone in a puddle or down the bog).

Do not use your phone whilst cooking in a steamy environment.

Do not use your phone whilst exercising.

Do not use your phone in the rain.

So, do I want to risk +400 quids worth of phone or 80 quids worth of
dedicated GPS ... that does all I want better than any phone could?

On 04/02/16 12:39, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
It happens that whisky-dave formulated :
I have the same problem with sheep but apparently sheep can recognise
50 faces least

I have trouble recognising faces, at least until I have seen them a few
times. I particularly struggle with female faces, due to makeup. Makeup
can make them look so very different to my eyes.

I once walked straight past a new girlfriend, because I had never seen
her before wearing makeup and he hair done.

You should. in such cases, keep walking...


--
Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper
name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating
or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its
logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of
the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead. They must
face it, then decide whether this is what they want or not.

Ayn Rand.

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

and I did try what the mobile homers I know had
before I got one myself. None of them ever had
a Garmin and almost all of them had something,
normally a tomtom or a navman.

I wonder how much of that was down to marketing?

I don't believe it has anything to do with marketing,
just that garmin was never that common with satnavs
for cars and other road vehicles.

I've seen people go for something because the
marketing suggested it was 'easy', even when
the competitors offering were equally easy.

Sure, but with the mobile homers its much more about
word of mouth. They are much more social than most
and sit around comparing notes on the hardware they
use like the mobile homes, satnavs, solar panels,
generators, dunny dump sites, places to visit etc
in the evenings particularly.

Some of my mates used to routinely migrate to where
its warm every winter and spend the entire winter sitting
around in a mobile home park playing gin rummy,
getting ****ed and furiously swatting the midges.

They also have meets a few times a year when hundreds
of them all show up at some place by prior arrangement
and spend days there doing all sorts of IMO silly stuff.

I went for the tomtom myself basically because the
navman still had discrete buttons and the tomtom
was entirely touch screen and I could see that that was
the way to go. Navman did eventually go that way too.

With (protective) gloves on discrete buttons are still the best way to go.

Voice commands and a proper headset leave that for dead.

Touch screens can be ok when the buttons are big enough but aren't
so good to use on the move as there is nothing to 'centre' the finger
or keep it in place (so you end up swiping rather than pressing). I know
this to be true from using the (touch screen) Nuvi on my bicycle / tandem.

But you havent tried the much better approach
of voice commands and a proper headset.

Some else I talk to on usenet also loves his Garmins,
also a pom, but an immigrant one to here in his case.
He migrated using the £10 pom system back in the
60s, long before anyone had any GPSs.

He's also into small boats.

Well, I think there are country by country differences that can make
the need for owning a GPS more relevant. Like I live on top of one
of the biggest city's in the world and because most of it is 'old', it
has loads of small / complicated roads and back streets (and no old
towns with the American 'grid system'). My GPS sometimes sounds
like a rapper, trying to get all the turn instructions out quick enough!

Yeah, the Garmins can be late with the turn instructions too.

Compare that with somewhere like The States or Aus where
I could imagine hearing 'In 2000 miles, turn right'. ;-) [1]

There are only a few places like that.

I think they were also the first to make the waterproof
models (boats, motorcycling and hiking).

Likely.

And again, it's ok for alternative manufacturers coming up with
this stuff 'now', but the likes of Garmin were the only people out
there for some time and often were the first to offer suitable and
specialised products (like waterproof units for walking and
glove friendly_waterproof units for motorcycling).

But the others did the much better approach of voice
commands and bluetooth headsets well before Garmin.

It's like the Linux fanboys getting all excited about the Steam game
platform being available on Linux, only 10 years behind Windows. ;-)

In your case with voice commands.

I guess, although even pre 'Free Map updates for life (of that unit
g), many of the Garmin units allowed you to update the map to
the current map for free, if one had been released reasonably recently.

They all have that now.

Well, I've seen 'many', I'm not sure I'd go as far as all. ;-)

Yeah, I did go a bit far there. The very cheap no name stuff
doesn't have any map updates at all, you just buy another.
Not clear how many of those sell anymore tho now that
even the cheapest smartphones do a lot better so for the
same price you get a phone and a camera and a browser
as well as the satnav and always up to date maps.

But still plenty of them have utterly silly prices for their
software only version for smartphones. Like $80 or more.

Yeah.

It would have to offer a hell of a lot more over
google.maps to be worth paying anything like
that for it and they in fact offer a lot less,

So, say I was going on a motorcycle tour of the UK and wasn't going
to have any data connection on the trip. Could I download all the maps
required to the same level of detail as most GPS's before I set off?

Makes more sense to get what you need when you pass a wifi.

nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK).

I am. Traffic congestion is a real problem in quite a bit of that.

I have it (free for life) on my Garmin Nuvi

Nothing like the real time measured traffic that google does.

and it works but I'm not sure how often I see the
suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it?

You only need to use it a few times for it to be useful.

Or how often you can do anything about it (like when something
happens on a motorway and you are right behind it).

Much more often by definition you won't actually be involved.

Coming back from a 100 mile trip the other day it was indicating
traffic (red line on our route) but gave the estimated delays as
being no greater than 5 minutes. It really wasn't worth trying
to avoid it as it would have probably taken longer.

And on the long run into Sydney running very late, it was clear
from the google ETA that I needed to hoon in at a hell of a rate
to have any hope of catching the train, with the Nokia telling me
that I would arrive in plenty of time keeping to the speed limit.
Google was right, Nokia was wrong.

and no street view at all

I've never used street view when out and
about because I can see that with my eyes. ;-)

You use it when setting up the nav so that when
you arrive there you have a pretty good idea of
where to go and where to park etc before you
get there.

I used it to see where I needed to go on foot
once I had been dropped outside the main
train station in central Sydney because I had
never actually used it because I normally fly.

Couldn't make much sense of the internal map
of the very big station that has all of the country
lines and all of the suburban lines and light rail
and buses. Didn't worry about it because we were
supposed to arrive there with an hour in hand and
I assumed that I would have plenty of time to
wander around and see what was what when
I got there. I didn't even know if you were
supposed to check in for the country trains
like you do with the airlines or not. You do
book in advance and get an electronic ticket.

When I jumped out of the car at the lights
right at the time the train was due to leave,
I was a hell of a long way from the platform,
didn't have a ****ing clue where to go,
managed to come across one of those
loonys who we used to keep in locked
wards when I asked people which was
the way to the country platforms, with
her quite literally screaming at me at
the top of her voice.

Eventually ended up on the right platform
5 mins after the train had left.

and no satellite view at all either.

I'm generally in a car, not a hot air balloon g so I'm
not sure what advantage that would be either (to me)?

It is when you are camping/walking when you want to
see where is a good place to camp which isnt one of the
nice and tidy places where someone mows the grass etc.

and for many journeys and old map will "get you there"
even if not taking advantage of newer and better routes.

Oh indeed. Because I haven't updated the maps on my Nuvi
for a good few years now I sometimes appear to be driving
across a field (rather than the new by-pass I'm actually
driving on) or that roundabout is now a crossroads etc.

You getting many roundabouts being changed to crossroads ?

Many, no. On any reasonably long journey, sometimes. I'm also
seeing crossroads turned into extended roundabouts of course.

Yeah, our local roads people have been putting in mini roundabout
all over the place, on any road with any real traffic on it at all.

With lights presumably.

I think the inclusion of lights is a function of the peak traffic loads
(and then if they are left on 24/7 or only used at peak periods).

We don't have any lights that are only on in peak periods.
They do default to the road with the highest traffic levels
in the middle of the night so you don't have to stop at all
if you on the highest traffic road, but do with the lowest.

snip

Cheers, T i m

[1] The furthest ahead I've heard our GPS announce as about 75 miles.

I don't recall google maps ever doing that but I don't normally have
it on all the time, usually turn it off and just turn it on again when
I am coming up to somewhere which can get a bit hard to remember
the detail, like when the highway goes thru a particular town in a
complicated way or there is a turn off from one of the national
highways that has been shifted a lot recently so isnt engraved
in my mind yet because I haven't used the new one much yet.

And the major national highway which has been completely
redone so it doesn't have any of the towns on it at all now
tho that is just for the exits you need to use to get petrol etc.

We (daughter pillion) broke down on the motorbike whilst
on a motorcycling trip (clutch splines stripped) and had to
be relayed the 175 miles home. We sat my Garmin portable
GPS next to the Garmin GPS that was built into the AA truck
and the driver gave the remote for his GPS to our daughter
to see if she could setup out home as the destination.

Must be pretty thick if he needs a course
to use a GPS and still can't use it.

She had input the destination before he had started telling
her how (he was laughing how they were sent on a course to
learn how to use the GPS's g) and it was interesting to see
the two devices mirroring each other exactly (speed, ETA etc).

It would be more surprising if they didn't IMO being the same brand.

It was interesting to watch the difference between the satnav
that comes with Nokia Lumias that doesn't have its own name
and google maps. Google left it for dead on ETA because of its
much better live measured traffic data.

Once on the motorway both GPS's went quiet and
then after some time, his closely followed by mine
said 'Straight ahead for 75 miles' (or some such). ;-)

Didn't get that in the run in to Sydney on the Hume with
google or the nokia. I did comment that a few more 'you're
still on the right route' would have been better, but presumably
it would have started howling if I had gone where I shouldn't
have even if just to get petrol. We did stop for petrol but I
cant remember if we asked it to tell us which exit to use for
that, we probably did.

He was a good driver and recovery guy, ex Army Royal Engineers.

But clearly a tecknostupid if he needed a course
to use a GPS like the Garmin and still couldn't use it.

On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 05:43:16 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

snip

I'm pretty sure none of them had anything like that.
They all looked like pretty small / std units.

Yeah, bet they are too cheap and just use the cheapest
low end tomtom they can find in the shops etc.

Probably ... shops in Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy and Wales (so
far). ;-)

But like I said, a dead end is a dead end even to a car so ...

Yeah, but that may be due to the other factor, no one has
bothered to tell tomtom about a map error

I checked that earlier on the TomTom site and it looks correct.

or its quite close
to another street that they should be using and they turn
into yours in error because the street names mean nothing
to the truck driver who isnt a local

That could easily be the case ... they come off the motorway and
fairly soon onto a smallish roundabout (where it's all joining roads
and hardly any 'land' in-between) and the wrong exit takes them to us.
;-(

and the street sign isnt
easy to read at night from a truck

There are actually 3 signs between the roundabout and their last
alternative exit but they don't really make it obvious that their
intended destination isn't available that way. Think 'No access to the
shops' when they thought they were going to a supermarket.

or they don't bother to
check the street signs on decent trips because there are
too many to bother with.

Well, considering the distance most of them have traveled and they are
only maybe 1/2 a male away from their intended destination by the time
they get to us I think they have done pretty well.

Don't you have a proper no thru road sign ? We do here.

No, because it's not actually a no through road, that's the problem.
And there are legitimate reasons for attics to be down here (like the
transporter that took our car away). ;-(

The problem is that at one point in time (even during my time here)
there was a road leading to where they want to go but it hasn't been a
through road as such (only access to a few houses) ever and now it's
very much cut off.

I did contact the Council, regarding the signs and how inappropriate
they may be but they just fobbed me off with the 'they conform to the
regs'. Whilst they might do that, they are obviously missed or
meaningless to some and it's obvious to all (but them apparently) how
it could be worded differently to be more poignant to all.

The next time I'm out there in the dark and rain, helping some 40'
artic turn round, I'll see if I can actually poll them on the signs.
;-)

I asked 100 drivers who said ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 06:48:52 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

and I did try what the mobile homers I know had
before I got one myself. None of them ever had
a Garmin and almost all of them had something,
normally a tomtom or a navman.

I wonder how much of that was down to marketing?

I don't believe it has anything to do with marketing,
just that garmin was never that common with satnavs
for cars and other road vehicles.

Maybe where you live but it was about the only offering when I bought
mine?

I've seen people go for something because the
marketing suggested it was 'easy', even when
the competitors offering were equally easy.

Sure, but with the mobile homers its much more about
word of mouth.

Yes, but they don't make up the vast majority of the population do
they?

They are much more social than most
and sit around comparing notes on the hardware they
use like the mobile homes, satnavs, solar panels,
generators, dunny dump sites, places to visit etc
in the evenings particularly.

I'm sure they do, like caravanners or people living on boats ... still
not yer average Joe though eh? FWIW, the GPS's I bought were very much
used / recommended by the motorcycle community so not dissimilar to
your concept.

Some of my mates used to routinely migrate to where
its warm every winter and spend the entire winter sitting
around in a mobile home park playing gin rummy,
getting ****ed and furiously swatting the midges.

;-)

They also have meets a few times a year when hundreds
of them all show up at some place by prior arrangement
and spend days there doing all sorts of IMO silly stuff.

Ok.

I went for the tomtom myself basically because the
navman still had discrete buttons and the tomtom
was entirely touch screen and I could see that that was
the way to go. Navman did eventually go that way too.

With (protective) gloves on discrete buttons are still the best way to go.

Voice commands and a proper headset leave that for dead.

So you keep saying. Loads more stuff to go wrong / charge / connect
and far less flexible. And my GPS (this is more waterproof than your
phone) doesn't have voice recognition.

Touch screens can be ok when the buttons are big enough but aren't
so good to use on the move as there is nothing to 'centre' the finger
or keep it in place (so you end up swiping rather than pressing). I know
this to be true from using the (touch screen) Nuvi on my bicycle / tandem.

But you havent tried the much better approach
of voice commands and a proper headset.

Of course I have, on my phone (didn't need the headset as it was in
the car) but you are forgetting I don't want to have my phone tied up
doing something I have something better available to do. The sooner
get that ... ;-)

Some else I talk to on usenet also loves his Garmins,
also a pom, but an immigrant one to here in his case.
He migrated using the £10 pom system back in the
60s, long before anyone had any GPSs.

He's also into small boats.

I was watching a program about Plymouth earlier. The only electronic
device they showed a close up of was a Garmin (it could have been a
GPS or echo sounder etc).

Well, I think there are country by country differences that can make
the need for owning a GPS more relevant. Like I live on top of one
of the biggest city's in the world and because most of it is 'old', it
has loads of small / complicated roads and back streets (and no old
towns with the American 'grid system'). My GPS sometimes sounds
like a rapper, trying to get all the turn instructions out quick enough!

Yeah, the Garmins can be late with the turn instructions too.

I've only had that after just switching it on. The timings of the
instructions are linked to the speed so *always* earlier than you
need.

Compare that with somewhere like The States or Aus where
I could imagine hearing 'In 2000 miles, turn right'. ;-) [1]

There are only a few places like that.

Including where you live though.

I think they were also the first to make the waterproof
models (boats, motorcycling and hiking).

Likely.

And again, it's ok for alternative manufacturers coming up with
this stuff 'now', but the likes of Garmin were the only people out
there for some time and often were the first to offer suitable and
specialised products (like waterproof units for walking and
glove friendly_waterproof units for motorcycling).

But the others did the much better approach of voice
commands and bluetooth headsets well before Garmin.

I'll have to take your word for that as it's not been something I've
ever been interested in.

It's like the Linux fanboys getting all excited about the Steam game
platform being available on Linux, only 10 years behind Windows. ;-)

In your case with voice commands.

Yers, *my case* according to you, not the equipment. However, it's *my
choice* and I'll use what suits *me* and my roll best (thanks).

I guess, although even pre 'Free Map updates for life (of that unit
g), many of the Garmin units allowed you to update the map to
the current map for free, if one had been released reasonably recently.

They all have that now.

Well, I've seen 'many', I'm not sure I'd go as far as all. ;-)

Yeah, I did go a bit far there. The very cheap no name stuff
doesn't have any map updates at all, you just buy another.

We bought one. ;-(

Not clear how many of those sell anymore tho now that
even the cheapest smartphones do a lot better so for the
same price you get a phone and a camera and a browser
as well as the satnav and always up to date maps.

'Updated', not 'up_to_date'. There is no guarantee your maps are any
more up to date than any other 'connected' GPS system. To be
'connected' costs, either in the initial purchase price or in other
connection charges.

But still plenty of them have utterly silly prices for their
software only version for smartphones. Like $80 or more.

Yeah.

It would have to offer a hell of a lot more over
google.maps to be worth paying anything like
that for it and they in fact offer a lot less,

So, say I was going on a motorcycle tour of the UK and wasn't going
to have any data connection on the trip. Could I download all the maps
required to the same level of detail as most GPS's before I set off?

Makes more sense to get what you need when you pass a wifi.

That isn't an answer to my question. I'm giving you a real world
example of the situation (as I don't have WiFi accounts with any
external service).

nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK).

I am. Traffic congestion is a real problem in quite a bit of that.

Not been a problem yet?

I have it (free for life) on my Garmin Nuvi

Nothing like the real time measured traffic that google does.

It's real time measured traffic over the RDS service and possibly
using the same sources?

and it works but I'm not sure how often I see the
suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it?

You only need to use it a few times for it to be useful.

I've used it loads of times and it's not yet been anything like
'useful'. I have avoided more traffic issues by looking at the
motorway as I drive over it or avoiding known trouble spots at the
wrong time of day than I have with *any* traffic service.

Or how often you can do anything about it (like when something
happens on a motorway and you are right behind it).

Much more often by definition you won't actually be involved.

Quite.

Coming back from a 100 mile trip the other day it was indicating
traffic (red line on our route) but gave the estimated delays as
being no greater than 5 minutes. It really wasn't worth trying
to avoid it as it would have probably taken longer.

And on the long run into Sydney running very late, it was clear
from the google ETA that I needed to hoon in at a hell of a rate
to have any hope of catching the train, with the Nokia telling me
that I would arrive in plenty of time keeping to the speed limit.
Google was right, Nokia was wrong.

Then Nokia solution is cr*p? Not all systems are created equal. Not
everyone has data or wants to use a smartphone as a GPS.

and no street view at all

I've never used street view when out and
about because I can see that with my eyes. ;-)

You use it when setting up the nav so that when
you arrive there you have a pretty good idea of
where to go and where to park etc before you
get there.

Like I said, I can use my eyes (and brain). ;-)

I used it to see where I needed to go on foot
once I had been dropped outside the main
train station in central Sydney because I had
never actually used it because I normally fly.

Sure, I've also used Street View on my PC to check things out,
including places I'm driving to and I could do so on my phone if I
wanted when out and about. I haven't needed to yet?

Couldn't make much sense of the internal map
of the very big station that has all of the country
lines and all of the suburban lines and light rail
and buses.

Yup, some people don't find them straightforward.

Didn't worry about it because we were
supposed to arrive there with an hour in hand and
I assumed that I would have plenty of time to
wander around and see what was what when
I got there. I didn't even know if you were
supposed to check in for the country trains
like you do with the airlines or not. You do
book in advance and get an electronic ticket.

Ok.

When I jumped out of the car at the lights
right at the time the train was due to leave,
I was a hell of a long way from the platform,
didn't have a ****ing clue where to go,
managed to come across one of those
loonys who we used to keep in locked
wards when I asked people which was
the way to the country platforms, with
her quite literally screaming at me at
the top of her voice.

Ok?

Eventually ended up on the right platform
5 mins after the train had left.

Not good.

and no satellite view at all either.

I'm generally in a car, not a hot air balloon g so I'm
not sure what advantage that would be either (to me)?

It is when you are camping/walking when you want to
see where is a good place to camp which isnt one of the
nice and tidy places where someone mows the grass etc.

That's where we camp thanks. We are just looking for a change, not to
go back in time 10,000 years.

snip

[1] The furthest ahead I've heard our GPS announce as about 75 miles.

I don't recall google maps ever doing that but I don't normally have
it on all the time, usually turn it off and just turn it on again when
I am coming up to somewhere which can get a bit hard to remember
the detail,

Helps to keep the phone battery good eh? ;-)

like when the highway goes thru a particular town in a
complicated way or there is a turn off from one of the national
highways that has been shifted a lot recently so isnt engraved
in my mind yet because I haven't used the new one much yet.

Ok.

And the major national highway which has been completely
redone so it doesn't have any of the towns on it at all now
tho that is just for the exits you need to use to get petrol etc.

Oooerr.

We (daughter pillion) broke down on the motorbike whilst
on a motorcycling trip (clutch splines stripped) and had to
be relayed the 175 miles home. We sat my Garmin portable
GPS next to the Garmin GPS that was built into the AA truck
and the driver gave the remote for his GPS to our daughter
to see if she could setup out home as the destination.

Must be pretty thick if he needs a course
to use a GPS and still can't use it.

I'm not sure about thick, just some people have an aptitude for things
that others don't. Plus I think he was just being kind to our
daughter.

She had input the destination before he had started telling
her how (he was laughing how they were sent on a course to
learn how to use the GPS's g) and it was interesting to see
the two devices mirroring each other exactly (speed, ETA etc).

It would be more surprising if they didn't IMO being the same brand.

Well quite but different models, chips and software possibly though.
It's the same as seeing your car speedo is fairly accurate when
compared against the GPS. It *should* be good, just nice to prove it.

It was interesting to watch the difference between the satnav
that comes with Nokia Lumias that doesn't have its own name
and google maps. Google left it for dead on ETA because of its
much better live measured traffic data.

So you said.

Once on the motorway both GPS's went quiet and
then after some time, his closely followed by mine
said 'Straight ahead for 75 miles' (or some such). ;-)

Didn't get that in the run in to Sydney on the Hume with
google or the nokia. I did comment that a few more 'you're
still on the right route' would have been better, but presumably
it would have started howling if I had gone where I shouldn't
have even if just to get petrol.

Potentially, yes.

We did stop for petrol but I
cant remember if we asked it to tell us which exit to use for
that, we probably did.

He was a good driver and recovery guy, ex Army Royal Engineers.

But clearly a tecknostupid if he needed a course
to use a GPS like the Garmin and still couldn't use it.

See above. The AA would have sent him on the same course they send all
their people, probably have to legally.

Cheers, T i m

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I don't think you are unique with that either as that was why the
early Garmin units didn't use postcodes (because in some countries it
wasn't specific enough). Even then, some just used the first few digits.

Ours only have 4 digits for the entire country.

We do have a different system for big rural propertys,
hundreds of acres or lots of square miles. RMB 5243
style, its obvious what RMB means.

Should it? Melbourne something?

Rural Mail Box, silly.

Our postcodes generally pin it down to a block of
houses. Ours for example covers 8 properties. So,
'62, AB1 2BC, England' should get post here.

Yeah, not sure if I like it or not, obvious
problem with no check digit etc.

What we call a squatter's wife

I understand 'squatter' as we have them over here
but I'm not sure if it means more than it reads?

Major farmer/grazier here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_(pastoral)

Sure, but you couldn't use offline maps
without the GPS in the phone right?

Sure, but that's true of a dedicated GPS too.

Quite. But my point was a phone is 'just' a GPS when there is no data.

No its not, it also has the satellite and street
view that can be cached in the phone.

Yes, it will do full routing in offline mode.

Yes, as a straight GPS (so no real advantage
over a straight GPS at that point).

Yes there is when you cache the satellite view in the phone

I can see how that is use to us for finding a house in a rural area

And for finding a useful camping spot etc.

but not much use to me for driving somewhere.

It is when you are driving for camping and I do.

I also use it for driving with rough tracks and fire trails
and stuff like that that doesn't get on the map view.

and the maps are always completely up to date.

No, the maps are regularly 'updated' but may not actually be 'up
to date'. With a GPS with free map updates for life, as long as the
person syncs regularly then that too will be as 'up to date'.

Those get updated much less often than with google
that accepts user updates and corrections that often
show up in hours of telling them about the problem.

Unless you are just using it like a dumb paper map?

You can use it like that but I don't.

Ok.

And IMO that's much better than a paper map because
it shows you where you are on the map and you can zoom
around much more conveniently than with a paper map.

True.

Easy to drop pins and make notes too.

Ok.

I do that quite a bit where its easy to get thru a
barbed wire fence or where there is a locked gate
that is easy to climb over instead of trying to get
thru the barbed wire fence.

OK. ;-)

And it only costs peanuts if you don't bother.
I pay 7.5c/MB for data and pay by the KB so
I normally get a nav for about 1-2c for the data.

But you do therefore have to have an active connection

No you don't have to. You can use offline mode if you want.

Using the phone as a straight GPS. ;-)

No, it has full turn by turn routing for walking

As do most GPS's?

and you can cache the satellite view and street view etc too.

Not sure the value of that other for than
your (not particularly 'typical') usage?

Its handy for plenty who camp etc.

Ok. I have Navmii on my SGS4 and I think that
tells me when there are updated maps available.

(I tried it earlier and it did just that).

But they don't get updated at anything
like the rate that google maps does.

See above. Updated but not (necessarily) 'up to date'.

I just updated it yesterday and just got an email
saying that my update had been added.

And had anything changed that you could see?

Yeah, that road had always been a divided there with
a 100' of grass between the two halves, two way traffic
in both halves. They removed the connection of the
northern half to the main high traffic road at the end.

Dunno how the map was wrong, their street
view showed the reality and apple maps had
right. I noticed it because when I was getting
it to route me to one street that comes off the
northern half, it doesn't work anymore due
to the bit they closed off.

Did that the week before too. But errors
I noticed during the garage sale run.

?

Both errors I noticed during the garage sale run.

That never happens with me. I am always sure.
The only thing I don't know is where it might
be less convenient because the scrub is too
thick to move thru easily because I haven't
been that way before.

So pretty similar to a gorge then. 'Impassable'. ;-)

Nar its not impassable at all, just rather
slower going than if you avoid that.

Yup, classic usage of the 'Breadcrumb trail'. ;-)

Nar I don't use a breadcrumb trail, just avoid
the areas that aren't as convenient to walk thru.

returning the way you came will always be safer

Not for me.

No, it will, for everyone.

Not for me, just as safe going a different way.

Always, even in the dark and rain?

Yep.

If it does turn out to be impassable,

Ahaha! ;-)

I can always backtrack but I have never had to do that.

Mate, the fact that you never had to do something doesn't
negate it as something considered the right thing to do. ;-)

It isnt the right thing to do because there are
**** all places where it is actually impassable.

Even when I was a crazy teenager and hitched a lift
into the mountains behind Canberra and walked
down one track in quite deep snow and ended up
going down a very steep drop in waist deep snow
deliberately, it was fine albeit a bit of a mad thing
to do if I had broken something.

Quite. Not something that anyone trying
to get home 'safely' would be advised to do.

That was before GPS had even been invented
and while I did take a map, I didn't actually
refer to it at all just did it by instinct and a
good sense of direction. I never bothered
to take a compass and there were no
mobile phones in those days either.

Hmm.

I'm not saying there aren't often alternatives
but it's generally understood that 're-tracing
your steps' is one of the safest way of doing it.

Its no safer at all if you know what you are doing.

Nope.

Yep.

If you got from A to B safely via a particular path,
getting back to A from B using the same path *will*
be more predictable than taking any alternatives.

Doesn't make it safer, JUST more predictable.

No possibly about it here. I spent the entire day doing
that in Sydney and checking the timetables for the trip
home etc and it cost me peanuts data wise.

Yes, you, hence 'possibly'. Over here it's not that cheap,

It is actually.

No, over here, not over there. ;-)

I meant in that soggy little frigid island of yours.

either to buy as an add-on or as part of a contract.

There are more than just those alternatives.

I'm sure there are but none are as free as a straight GPS solution.

Same price when you use offline maps.

It's only of any use at all, *if* you have a connection.

Sure, but you obviously do in the towns even there.

But we don't camp in towns, we camp in the country

But you have to pass the towns to get to the country.

and there is often no mobile phone coverage, let alone data.

But there is in the towns you have to pass to get there.

See, you are using a scenario where your
solution can work and works for you.

It would work for you too.

My solution (straight GPS) would do most of what you want

For a MUCH higher price if you have the phone already.

but yours wouldn't do any of what I want, unless
you were using your phone as a straight GPS?

It isn't a straight GPS with cached satellite view and street view.

I can answer my phone (directly, no other gadgets)
*and* follow my GPS for example. ;-)

You can do that on any smartphone and
I do that a lot during the garage sale run.
It keeps giving you the turn by turn instructions
while you are talking on the phone.

Is your ear on the same side of your head as your ear?

Everyone's is.

How can you 'see' what the map is showing at the same time?

By having the map showing while you are talking on the phone.

Answer (of course) is 'you can't',

Corse you can.

something else I wouldn't want to be without.

Works fine with just the phone and no dedicated GPS.

No its not. It has the satellite view and street view etc.

OK, but only if you have loaded them prior to losing data connection?

Yep, but that is completely automatic if you want.

I don't want. ;-)

More fool you.

I have with the earliest devices. Not so much these days.

Not at all these days in my experience. The phones even
interpolate when you are in underground tunnels etc.

As does my GPS. ;-)

Not as well as the best of the smartphones which use
wifi and bluetooth and mobile bases to interpolate in
the worst for GPS reception locations.

Yup, there are no detectable WiFi or bluetooth signals in any tunnels I
know of.

Try the pedestrian tunnels with shops etc in them sometime.

I'd much rather have the much more capable
phone and a spare if I am that paranoid.

I have the 'much more capable phone' but I'm not interested *at all*
in the features a phone offers *you* as a phone-cum-GPS but *do*
need the features my GPS offer me over my phone as a GPS.

So you stupidly pay lots more for a dedicated GPS which
doesn't give you a damned thing that the phone can't do.

Best of both worlds eh. ;-)

Nope, dinosauring along, just like with your A-Zs
and paper maps you never actually use anymore.

Interesting ... have you ever heard of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test

Yep, completely irrelevant to what is being discussed.

You enjoy features on your phone_cum_GPS that are worthless to me.

They aren't worthless to you, you're in denial just like the Linux rabid
zealots are.

I need features in a GPS that aren't as easily available to me on the
SmartPhone

That's a lie.

and all_you_can_eat contract I've already got and can use as you suggest.
I just choose not to because it doesn't suit me and my needs.

The smartphone can in fact do it much better if you actually
had enough of a clue to use voice commands and a proper
headset instead of farting around with gloves and some
stupid GPS stuck on the handle bars etc.

Are we back on the same page yet? ;-)

Nope, you're just desperately dinosauring away, just like
you always do with you're A-Zs you never actually use and
the paper maps that got left in the dust years ago now.

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

But it isn't. My GPS is *far* superior to your phone_cum_GPS solution
in ways that are highly important to me and unimportant to you. I'm
not trying to convince you to get a stand-alone GPS because your
phone_cum_GPS does all you need. It wouldn't last 5 seconds out in the
rain on some motorbike handlebars and being operated by gloved fingers.

That's why anyone with even half a clue has it in their pocket with
a proper headset and voice commands that leaves that for dead.

Yeah, you haven't ever ridden a motorbike have you?

Wrong again.

FWIW, I have used my phone as a GPS in the top of my motorcycle tank
bag and it was a complete PITA (and it wasn't dark or raining)!. ;-)

But isnt if you have even half a clue and have it in your
pocket with a proper headset and voice commands.

See above.

See above.

Here is another saying you might find interesting re audio v visual cues:

What you hear you forget.
What you see you remember.
What you do you understand.

Must be why even you uses turn by turn navigation now.

So, *you* may be more than happy walking to a garage sale
and talking on your phone and listening to the direction
prompts at the same time. It's all very easy at 5mph.

Even easier at 100mph in heavy rain when you are carefully keeping
a look out for what might cause a problem in front of you.

At 70 mph *I* (so not you remember) am much happier with
an audio prompt (that can come though my bike intercom)
but prefer the visual instruction re what I actually need to do.

More fool you when you should be looking at the road, not the GPS.

In most cases it's actually only a confirmation of what
I already know, but nonetheless, it's still how I like it.

Stupid to be looking at your GPS in that situation.

Now, I am fully aware (and accept) what *you* prefer, how
about having a go at considering what I might prefer

Not interested in what you prefer when it increases the
risk to me and can see me kill you because of your stupidity.

While it's your stupidity that killed you, I'd prefer to not
have to scrape you off my car and would prefer it if you
didn't write my car off and waste my time calling the
ambo and cops and maybe even having to show up to
give evidence to the coroner and waste even more of my
time that I would much rather be doing something else with.

and we can finish this eh. ;-)

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:06:51 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:



"dennis@home" wrote in message
raweb.com...
On 03/02/2016 20:43, Rod Speed wrote:
dennis@home wrote
T i m wrote

I'd agree for unpredictable congestion but argue that local knowledge
would probably win over any GPS congestion displays. I've been taken
on routes by the GPS I wouldn't typically take because I know all the
little side options etc.

My tomtom knows the traffic congestion around here better than I do.

But not as well as google.maps does.

Google can't track phones in the UK, its illegal.

It isnt tracking phones.

AFAYK.

I know how they do it. They don't track phones.

You *can* track phones (they do).

They don't for traffic measurement.

You can't track a GPS *receiver*.

You can't track a phone in airplane mode either.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 04/02/2016 10:27, T i m wrote:
8



nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK). I have it (free
for life) on my Garmin Nuvi and it works but I'm not sure how often I
see the suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it? Or how
often you can do anything about it (like when something happens on a
motorway and you are right behind it). Coming back from a 100 mile
trip the other day it was indicating traffic (red line on our route) but
gave the estimated delays as being no greater than 5 minutes. It really
wasn't worth trying to avoid it as it would have probably taken longer.

Well yes, if the tomtom doesn't suggest an alternate route then there
probably isn't one. Its constantly checking for quicker routes and will
indicate if there is one.

So does google, and tells you you are still on the best route
and is surprisingly accurate with the amended ETA when the
**** has hit the fan with unusual congestion due to a major
accident etc.

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:34:22 +0000 (GMT+00:00), Chris French
wrote:

charles Wrote in message:
snip

Of course, you could always look at a map before you start out.

Well yes, as I said somewhere, can be of limited usefulness by
themselves for navigation

If I'm going somewhere I've not been before (and have the opportunity)
I'll generally get a feel of the trip with Google maps via my PC.

If I'm out and about at the time I'll not bother and just enter it
into the GPS and that will also give me a reasonable idea.

If I'm going on a long journey (in the car, not motorbike) I might get
the big map book out and on the right page 'just in case'. The Mrs
wouldn't make use of it as just glancing down at it would make her
travel sick.

If I was passenger on a long trip and the driver had a GPS, I still
might take my own GPS *and* have the road atlas open and follow our
progress so I can get a feel where we are and what was around where we
were at the time. I did that on a laptop from my GPS years ago but it
was a lot more faffing than the paper map book. ;-)

Just another dinosaur.

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"T i m" wrote in message
...
Oh, ok, I only mentioned that because my first (autorouting) GPS, the
Garmin GPS V had very basic mapping for the whole world built in then
you added more detailed maps for the areas you were specifically
interested in. I think mine was 'Base World Map + Europe (down to
house level) so if you drove 'off the detailed map' (and I have) you
could end up with just the basic stuff?

Most likely just an error in the mapping data
that has never been corrected.

I've just checked the map on TomTom's error reporting site and it
looks like it's correct there. So, maybe the 'foreign drivers are just
running old / un-updated versions or really aren't reading them
properly?

Getting errors corrected on satnav routing info is a pain.

There's an unmade road near my parents' holiday cottage in Yorkshire, with
very tractor ruts and huge boulders sticking out of it. You wouldn't get a
4x4 up it and even tractors might have ground-clearance problems.

It has been closed to through traffic as long as I have known it (1970s)
and maybe for a lot longer than that.

However a lot of satnav sites still list it as a through route and try to
route you that way. I went on to TomTom's site and a few others and
reported it as a dead end farm access, but when I checked a couple of
years later it was still showing as an available route. I believe one of
the satnav sites now shows it as being closed.

Try it with google.maps They have fixed
plenty of stuff like that very quickly for me.

Not Apple maps tho, they haven't changed a thing I have reported as wrong.

It's a shame that the road *is* closed because it would be very useful for
knocking several miles off the journey from the village to Richmond and
the A1

When satnavs first came out they used to show access onto the A34 near
where I lived in Oxfordshire via a junction that was either closed several
decades ago or was planned but never built (I could never find out which).
I remember seeing an HGV that had got stuck trying to do a U turn at a
mini-roundabout in a nearby village after it had taken the route thinking
it could get onto the main road and then tried to turn round at the next
village afterwards.

The perils of HGVs with inadequate satnav software (ie without HGV
restrictions) is demonstrated by that train crash the other year in
Hampshire where an HGV missed a turning and tried to take the next road,
realised that it wouldn't get through a narrow bridge, tried to reverse
and knocked the bridge parapet onto the railway line where a train hit it
before the message got through from the local 999 operator to the train
driver. The message-passing and accident-reporting procedures came in for
a lot of stick in the official report because the bridge didn't even have
a "phone this number if a vehicle hits this bridge" sign on the grounds
that it was not a bridge which had a history of problems (whatever
happened to "there's always a first time"?)

It happens that T i m formulated :
I wonder 'why' that is the case though? Do you think there is a link
between dominant 'handedness' and the ability to easily 'learn' left
from right.

Possibly, its not something I have done any research on.


No problems now with spelling, or OS's,

Even Linux?! ;-)

No, though I settled on Windows as it suited my needs. Decades ago I
worked my way through several of the computer languages.

I try and type most words without a thought but when I look back at
them I can spot loads of typos. Then it's more difficult to undo a
typo than typing it correctly because I can't always figure out what
is right. I think most people could read and understand what I wrote,
but much of it could be phonetic if I'm not careful.

My usual errors are trying to rush some typing and either omitting
letters, or pressing the keys in the wrong order. I generally have
spell check enabled anyway, to pick out those errors.


- I am somewhere
between a two fingered typist and a touch typist, I use three fingers
on each hand.

I'm still hunt_n_peck with my right index finger and left thumb for
shift etc. ;-)

Forty years ago, that was how I typed on the computer, but I naturally
slipped into using both hands and three fingers of each - it was fine
for type software in, but not so good for text. I had to, with the
sheer amount of text I entered.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

The Natural Philosopher wrote :
You should. in such cases, keep walking...

No, no - she was 22, blonde and an absolute stunner makeup, or no
makeup- definitely not one to ignore Þ

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On 04/02/16 22:13, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote :
You should. in such cases, keep walking...

No, no - she was 22, blonde and an absolute stunner makeup, or no
makeup- definitely not one to ignore Þ


Ive had the most probolems with the good looking ones. They think that
they can get anything they want with a swirl of the hips and a pout..

My advice, don't keep walking. Run


--
"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women"

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 12:34:46 +0000, Harry Bloomfield wrote:

T i m wrote on 03/02/2016 :
Hmm, that's the thing, I can't imagine *not* being able to explain it
to an alien (even). Right is just the label to that side / direction,
just as is forward or up. How come even those who can't remember their
left from right, don't generally have issues with the other dimensions?

Left and right are more or less symmetrical, the others are not. I am
one who has always struggled or at least taken a few seconds to work it
out - left from right.

I pick a pen up and if I think about it, I am lost. The same with knife
and fork. I am though, mostly ambidextrous. I was born left handed, but
at school I was one who was forced to right handedness, by tieing my
left hand behind my back, so now I write right handed, but my hand
writing is terrible.

Someone who I was teaching to drive had a problem distinguishing left
from right, so I put a large L and R on the back of his hands :')

If I have SWMBO navigating (haven't for a while!) it's dreadful. She gets
right and left mixed up.

We mostly cured it by getting her to say 'my side' or 'your side'.