I love getting toys for Christmas:
Chateau Steelypips is now GPS-enabled. That's from our drive home last night (GIMPed to within an inch of its life, because the light level was really low)-- bonus points for anyone who can identify where it was taken. It's a Garmin c340, for those who want specs with their gadget photos.
So, how does it work? Well, we've used it on exactly one drive, from my parents' house to here, and there's really only one way to go. At one point, the display said "Turn in 87 miles," which tells you just how hard it had to work on that trip...
The directions it gave were exactly the same as our normal route, so that didn't really tell us anything. We may end up confounding it this weekend when we go to Kate's parents' place outside Boston, or maybe not. At any rate, it will be a better test.
The one probem we saw was that it identified Nott St. in Schenectady as "County Route 6," which was less helpful than it might have been. It told us to turn in the right place, but the name it gave didn't match local usage or signage, which might've been distressing if we hadn't known right where we were.
Other than that, all I can really say is that it's kind of cool to see the grid of unseen streets to either side, as you move along the map. I may play with it running errands today (I may even run errands for the specific purpose of playing with it...), and see what other things it can do.
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The theft rate for plug-in GPS is immense. Hide it when you're away from the car. You'd think they'd have an addressable distress signal to locate themselves if stolen, or an ID lockout.
And hiding includes even the suction cup (otherwise a giveaway that there is a GPS device in this car)...
You get bonus points for using a Buckaroo Banzai quote in this post's title.
#3:
"What is that watermelon doing there, anyway?"
"I'll tell you later."
I await Prof. Chad Orzel's laboratory story of that watermelon trapped between those monstrous pressure plates deep within the Banzai Institute's Critical Stress Laboratory. Does it relate to the String Theory implicit in "Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension" or maybe to the Quantum Mechnics of the bunniless cheese of this fascinating film?
Does the new GPS car-gadget connect to the Overthruster?
What is Chad's favorite song by the Hong Kong Cavaliers?
Will Dr. Lizardo get tenure?
This raises many questions, especially about hard-rocking particle physicists who are also really good dressers.
Rt. 39 turning onto I-88 puts you right outside of Worcestor.
Rt. 39 turning onto I-88 puts you right outside of Worcestor.
Nice guess, but that's county route 39, not state route 39. It's a much smaller road than that.
I'm guessing that it's you going home from your folks' place... but that has more to do with me having a vague idea of where your folks live...
Ah, Bainbridge then. 39 is the cross-street, where the gas station is.
Here's a first: I completely endorse Uncle Al. Hereabouts, it's become the hottest crime: Smash windows in and make away with the GPS and iPods/accessories. It's gotten to the point where even hiding the GPS is not enough - the little suction cup leaves a tell-tale mark and the thieves look for it.