Lost and Found

Here's an article complaining that GPS makes us dumb.

The assumption is that most people memorize roads and know about spatial relationships. However, I find GPS and tools like this to be quite convenient. Before this, I didn't want to travel anywhere because I'd get concerned about getting lost. Now, I get far less concerned because I have a GPS.

I have mentioned before that GPS has a problem which is a bird's eye view of what's going on. You are given a series of directions, but it's hard to tell what's nearby. However, that's not so much a deficiency of GPS because, over time, this should get better. A computer monitor allows you to see the entire map, and zoom in and out as needed. There is starting to be a convergence of computer, GPS, and phone.

I suspect, as time passes, we'll not only know the paths but be able to see the relative locations of these paths. Perhaps locating things on a real map will seem as quaint as using a slide rule or performing long-hand square root computations. A neat trick that's time-consuming and not productive (on the other hand, it would be nice if people could do basic arithmetic like computing change faster than they do now).