In the before times, I was uniquely blessed with the ability to decipher these paper maps. I was seen as a god among men.
Alas, with the advent of GPS and navigation I am but a mere relic of days gone by, regaling my days of glory to whomever should have the ears to listen.
Ohhh wise one, tell us one of your many tales.
In my younger years my city used to publish a comprehensive road map that you could navigate by reading the road name index, figuring out its location on a greater city map grid, then finding its detailed map on a page listed on that grid. I literally used to help my parents navigate unknown roads like a Garmin before Garmin was even a thing. Every 2 years I would pick up the new edition of the map because the old one was getting ratty and out of date.
Good times.
Right there with ya. Amusingly, the ADC website appears to also be a relic of another time.
Oooh. Table-based layout with image maps. That’s rare these days.
I find it interesting that many people are apparently no longer able to grok maps at all. Even on their phones.
If there isn’t a blue dot, they have no idea where they are. Nor how to go anywhere that isn’t linked by a blue line.
It’s a lost art indeed.
It doesn’t help that everyone perpetually keeps their navigation apps oriented as “forward up”, thus any sense of directionality is forever lost. They’ll use my navigator with it set “north up” and get very confused at intersections. How is this such a difficult skill?
If there isn’t a blue dot, they have no idea where they are.
That’s the neat part. Even with the app, they still don’t. Only now they don’t have to know.
I guess I’ll take comfort knowing it’s still a useful skill for some video games… but even those are becoming increasingly simplified
I used to be amazed by the idea that there were people that couldn’t do this. A good map/atlas has an index of street names and what pages grid cells they’re on, and you can trace any familiar road trip with your finger (or a highlighter if you must).
Now I know that some people have a lot working against them. Some can’t visualize things in their head, have no clue which way North is, or imagine what their current location resembles on a 2D map. There’s also a kind of “navigation sense” that some people have and/or learn where your perception of space is in constant comparison to near and distant landmarks, even when indoors. People that can do these things are not afraid of liminal spaces, can easy find hidden rooms in structures, know exactly how big their car is, can improvise new routes between distant locations with ease, and being lost is a temporary problem at worst.
Edit: I had an ex that had very poor spacial perception, so that’s a thing too. There was an argument over whether or not a moving box would fit through a doorway when carried. Critical thinking aside, a complaint was made when seeing the box sitting alone, packed, in the middle of an otherwise empty room. From outside the room, this person was unable to accurately compare the box’s size in relationship to the doorway’s dimensions, and insisted it was too big to leave the space. It was as if their mind was unable to pull together enough context to get an accurate frame of reference. I think this spacial perception ability applies to navigation as well, and may explain why some people struggle with it.
I feel sad. When I was younger I would always try and figure out North by the position of the sun, time of day and time of year, whenever I was in a new place. Its gotten so useless to do so I have forgotten how.
Last time I used these skills was in Norway. figured out North while walking around Tromso by looking at the Satellite Dishes.
Its gotten so useless to do so I have forgotten how.
I guess I lucked out with keeping this habit. I know of two tricks you can try to keep it straight. Once you memorize that the sun moves from East to West:
- On a compass, West and East spell “WE” with North above that.
- Imagine an old fashioned watch or clock face, where North is at 12 o’clock (N = Noon) and East is at 3 o’clock (3 kinda looks like E).
figured out North while walking around Tromso by looking at the Satellite Dishes.
Nice! Know your environment. For those reading along, when in the Northern Hemisphere:
- Satellites hang out nearer the equator so dishes point South(ish).
- Solar panels are another one and also face in a generally Southward direction to maximize solar exposure year-round.
- An older trick is to look for moss on rocks and trees. These do not like direct sunlight and prefer to grow in the shade of the North side of things.
The opposite is true for these three when in the Southern Hemisphere. And all this is less useful, the closer to the equator you go.
My partner and I have been together since before Google maps. On holiday she gets is lost, I find the way back. It makes for a nice way of seeing a town.
Of course now that “finding your way back” involves typing the location into your phone, anyone can do it and it becomes more of an affectation to use satellite free navigation
My partner and I have been together since before Google maps. On holiday she gets is lost, I find the way back. It makes for a nice way of seeing a town.
I’m going to do this, thank you for the idea. Indeed, “getting lost” may be as essential to travel as navigation. I never thought of that before.
At least it’ll come in handy when society collapses.
The NAVIGATORS will rise again!
I feel ya. Navigation by paper maps was my specialty. Now I’m a soldier without a war, relegated to shit posting on the Internet.
I got asked the other week how I managed to drive places without satnav or Google. I suddenly felt old.
for real! I’ll use Google maps on my phone only if I’m going to a new place I haven’t been to before and I don’t have time to take a few moments to learn the route(s) ahead of time. that’s its convenience. but I hate being on that digital leash, being scolded by my phone if I take a different road to see where it leads or to stop for gas or a break. so, I tend to drive everywhere in my day-to-day without it, and my friends think it’s so weird.
one of my friends won’t start driving to the grocery store a few blocks away from his house without turning on his Garmin. he’s all “if I take a wrong turn I don’t want to have to pull over to look at the map!” like he can’t just turn around and get back onto the simple route he usually takes? same friend is among 3 of my friends who get visibly anxious when I drive them places without GPS and will pull up their phone in the passenger seat to “get directions for me”. had to tell all 3: “don’t give me directions unless I ask for them. I know where I am and where I’m going, I don’t need you telling me to make a turn 60s before each one.”
Yeah i never looked into getting any kind of delivery job solely due to the idea I’d need to be able to find my way around the town I’ve lived in my entire life. I could get lost going to the grocery store and it hasn’t moved in, like, two decades.
I grew up in a time when you had to remember things, like where things were. In fact, for decades, I managed to do that. Suddenly, in 2007, I suddenly forgot where everything on the entire planet was.
Crazy!
My wife likes to give me shit for not using GPS, instead commiting directions to memory and then going (with mixed results). But, I have a better handle on where a lot is, so, checkmate atheists.
The only place of feel bad about getting lost is in Manhattan because the streets are numbered, or in my neighborhood in Brooklyn because of how long I’ve lived there. Everywhere else?
“Siri: give me transit directions to X,” then I pop in my AirPods and listen to a podcast while Siri tells me where to go!
I have a friend like this. Born and raised in his city. Put him on his feet in the CBD and turn him 180°, dude’s immediately lost.
me with my aphantasia
And now they use door dash and it takes two hours to arrive cold and spit on.
And cost you more in fees and tips than the increased cost of the food itself.
I rotate delivery apps so they constantly send me coupons. The coupon doesn’t actually save any money over the restaurant cost but basically cancels out the delivery fee.
This is the way. I pretty much only order when I have a 40% off coupon, which happens every few weeks
They decided a long time ago people will refuse to do the math.
But the companies running these softwares now make a huge profit, while the restaurants and delivery drivers earn less. So it’s better this way for their billionaire investors
I still don’t understand how paying a third party the delivery fee plus their management costs and profit margin is cheaper than hiring a teenager. It sucks though :/
Like you said, worse every person involved except for the door dash executives
Because a lot of places probably don’t do enough delivery volume to justify staffing a driver every night, and the apps themselves are pretty powerful marketing tools.
Because the food delivery apps pay their drivers that little.
They were distant allies to the masters … Taxi cab drivers … who literally hold mental maps of the entire city they worked in and they could figure out how to get to where in ten different ways without the help of any paper map or digital system.
I drove a taxi and dispatched for a couple of years back in the mid '80s. For ease of use, Street Guides were a drivers best friend, because they just gave you concise directions from the closest main road. For instance, if I wanted Elm street, I would find it quickly alphabetically, and it would tell me something like “Runs south from Main St, two blocks east of First Ave.” The driver would mainly just need a decent understanding of the main roads and how the numbering system for addresses worked, and they could just flip through it pretty quick without having to spread out a big map. The whole city fit into a neat little paperback book.
London and Tokyo taxi drivers are the apex… the map apex… the mapex (pronounced MAY-pex)?
“Take me to that hotel that’s in front of a pub, I think it’s called The Fox & Hounds… I think it’s between a park and a Tube station”, and the crazy bastard could figure out exactly where you meant, even though there are multiple pubs named The Fox & Hounds in London.
Take me from where I am to where I’m not
The taxi driver knows where he is at all times. He knows this because he knows where he isn’t.
Wherever you go, there you are.
For those that are interested, I present the studies:
Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers
Everyday taxi drivers: Do better navigators have larger hippocampi?
We had a map of our delivery area on the wall. Maps like this have an index of street names on one side, with XY coordinates to find them on the map. Before leaving with the pizza, you look at the map (if you weren’t familiar with the area) and get an idea how to get there. The longer you work there, the less you need to look at the map.
The 30 minutes or it’s free deal really became dangerous and was discontinued. Still, learning the city map by heart and combing through unlabeled houses was impressive.
“unlabeled houses?”
What kinda neighbourhood did you grow up in where people couldn’t even bother to put a number on their house?
Later in this thread, someone talked about encountering houses that didn’t have numbers on them.
I saw. Barbaric!
The number of pizza drivers just sending it through 4 way stops was crazy
The thing to keep in mind here is that each such pizzeria had a specific territory it staked out. There was an effective radius from every location, and the drivers were often very experienced with that chunk of town. I also recall wall-mounted maps near the phone so they could easily tell the customer to call a closer Domino’s or Pizza Hut over if they were out of range. So after a while, you just learn the region, memorize the street names, and off you go. Finding a house number was the only real risk.
Advertising was also typically done door-to-door with flyers and fridge magnets, along with phone numbers for YOUR local franchise. As a franchise owner you’d have your family or hire some kids to canvas every so often. I suppose that helped with any confusion, but there was nothing keeping you from getting a hold of the wrong number from the phone book or a friend.
With GPS navigation everywhere, I’m betting that drivers can range further than ever before. The calculus is probably more like “google says you’re 40 minutes out right now, so no”, than “you’re not one of our customers.”
I was one of those summer “crew” kids! It was fun, easy work at the time. Always wanted to move up to phones, but there weren’t openings. (bear in mind, it was my first year of HS, my goals were low)
Did that job for a summer. We had a huge map on the wall of our district. Holy shit, what a change.
No, that’s still there. They use GPS but knowing where you’re going is always better.
So long as they could “Avoid the Noid.”
Man what a wind string of events with those advertisements. Someone on a Creative team came up with a silly mascot, ends with pizza shop employees being held hostage at gunpoint.
And these days the waiting time is 45 mins. minimum.
because population has increased and everyone has become fat & lazy, therefore increased demand for pizza home delivery
It’s even worse with shit like door dash and all those services.
I did this for more than ten years ask me anything
Why do kids like Chex
Because the texture allows it to perfectly absorb and mingle with all the detritus between the couch cushions for additional layers of flavor.
Most memorable call?
Definitely an extremely drunk group of college girls who seemed to be doing some hazing ritual which involved molesting the pizza boy. I’m not 100% sure exactly what was going on, but the person who answered the door had her tits out and woman behind her was on all fours spreading her cheeks (just wearing underwear), slurring something about giving her the tip. I was solicited to pick which one I preferred.
It didn’t actually go anywhere. Once I cast my vote their attention moved on to something else and they offered me a shot and a beer (which I took, because college, poor decisions, etc) and they said I could hang out but it was all a bit too sloppy drunk for my taste so I just left mildly confused and slightly horny.
Who did you choose?
The booty.
Why is Nicolas Maduro working at an old time Domino’s Pizza franchise?
Worked pharmacy delivery for years starting in high school, just before smartphones, and I still don’t use GPS. Basically just map to nearest main intersection and remember their street name and the one before it.
It’s literally the same but now the phone sometimes messes up the delivery too, not just the guy
Imagine missing your turn in the route you memorized and having to pull over for 10 minutes to try to find the way back- or I assume that’s what happened, when I was a kid my mom just went to the library to print Google maps directions. And they were almost always wrong
