What's the opposite of Luddite?

[Fordgalaxy]

I think these people and many others probably qualify. There have been at least 2 instances I'm aware of where people followed their GPS onto unmaintained forest service roads in the winter and ended up getting stuck and freezing to death. Relying way too much on technology.

 

 

Technology isn’t always foolproof, as about 100 Colorado drivers learned when Google Maps offered them a supposedly quick way out of a traffic jam.

A crash on Peña Boulevard, a road leading to Denver International Airport, prompted the app to take drivers on a detour on Sunday.

But it was too good to be true.

 

The alternate route took drivers down a dirt road that rain had turned into a muddy mess, and cars started sliding around.

Some vehicles couldn’t make it through the mud, and about 100 others became trapped behind them.

 

Connie Monsees was on her way to pick up her husband at the airport when she encountered the wreck on Peña Boulevard.

“I thought ‘maybe there’s a detour’ and pulled it up on Google Maps, and it gave me a a detour that was half the time,” she said. “It was 43 minutes initially, and it was going to be 23 instead — so I took the exit and drove where they told me to.

“There were a bunch of other cars going down [the dirt road] too, so I said, ‘I guess it’s OK.’ It was not OK.”

 

Luckily, Monsees’ car has all-wheel drive, and she was able to get through the sticky situation. She even gave two people a ride to the airport, and they were able to catch their flights.

“I tore up the front passenger wheel well liner,” Monsees said, adding that others had it much worse.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[edhunter]

My Google maps never really does that, but the Garmin I use for work drives me up a wall sometimes. I'll punch in a dozen or so stops finishing at a specific point, and then optimize it. It'll often have me drive right by a house I have a stop for only to get it on the way back, when I'll now have to cross the street. About a year and a half ago I got so frustrated with it that I punched it and blasted it right off the windshield, cracking the screen and breaking it. I then called Garmin, told them exactly what I did, and said I was mailing them their worthless GPS and they could hang it on the wall as a "Customer Opinion Survey". The phone rep actually apologized, said that would have annoyed him too, and told me to mail it in and they'd fix it for free. And son of a bitch, they did.

[Principled Man]

The alternate route took drivers down a dirt road that rain had turned into a muddy mess, and cars started sliding around. Some vehicles couldn’t make it through the mud, and about 100 others became trapped behind them.

 

In this context, the opposite of Luddites would be lemmings. ;)

 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Principled Man

[grep]

One time during a road trip in Virgina, my GPS suggested that I take a right turn onto a highway road ....from an overpass.

 

Nope. Nope. Nope.

 

Was obviously a data error, where the direction routine thought the roads intersected. So yeah.... computers are great tools. But are not perfect, never will be.

 

I've seen plenty of little glitches, where it won't actually map the obvious shortest distance. Which is a programming problem.

 

Thinks that train tracks and airport runways, etc are roads. Which represent data problems.

 

Which is why I won't be hopping on the self-driving car bandwagon anytime soon.

Edited June 28, 2019 by grep

[greyfriar]

Technikfreund

[grep]

Also, FWIW, I always keep a paper map in the car. Just in case. Get the general gist of where I'm going on a roadtrip. Then let the GPS guide me while in my head I'm keeping track of where I think I am relative to what I learned from the map.

[Fordgalaxy]

A week or so ago, I was driving from lower Michigan to far west New York around the south edge of Lake Erie and I knew where I was going until I got to the very end. It was only 3 interstates until we got about 10 miles from our destination so it wasn't hard to remember. The GPS was going to take us farther east to begin with before we turned south and even after getting more than halfway or more to Cleveland, it was still showing me taking whatever the next exit was to turn around and go back to the route it chose. Then after we passed the exit, it would reconfigure until we got to the next one and it would start the process again.

 

I'm thinking it hadn't been updated recently, but c'mon.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Fordgalaxy

[blueschica]

Also, FWIW, I always keep a paper map in the car. Just in case. Get the general gist of where I'm going on a roadtrip. Then let the GPS guide me while in my head I'm keeping track of where I think I am relative to what I learned from the map.

 

I'm the same way- I have to have the visual in my head to be able to listen to the GPS.

[HemiBeers]

Years ago we got our first GPS which was a Tomtom. I decided to test it taking my boy to a party about 20 miles away. I told me to turn down a street. This was an area where grape orchards for wine was being grown. The 'street' was dirt, which turned into sand, which turned into deeper sand, which turned into...stuck in sand. By the time I realized it was getting deeper I didn't have a choice but to floor hit and hope to make it out. I was about 30 feet away from making it to pavement.

 

This was also the same GPS that kept telling me 'turn left' after I got on the highway.

 

I named this device Tommy Boy after this incident.

 

[grep]

I think Grumpy referred to Dingus and Doofus in his books......

[goose]

Also, FWIW, I always keep a paper map in the car. Just in case. Get the general gist of where I'm going on a roadtrip. Then let the GPS guide me while in my head I'm keeping track of where I think I am relative to what I learned from the map.

 

I'm the same way- I have to have the visual in my head to be able to listen to the GPS.

I can't imagine going on a long trip and not having a good idea of the roads ahead of time, since fiddling with tech while driving is a bad idea.

[pjbear05]

Ah, AAA and Triptiks!

[goose]

I find technophiles to be rather boorish.

[Principled Man]

Ah, AAA and Triptiks!

 

There's no school like the OLD SCHOOL.... :ebert: :ebert:

[JARG]

http://youtu.be/DOW_kPzY_JY

[Babycat]

Vorsprung Durch Technik...

[vaportrailer]

http://youtu.be/DOW_kPzY_JY

 

"The machine knows."

[Jack Aubrey]

Technology is an excellent servant, but a very poor master.

[Principled Man]

Technology is an excellent servant, but a very poor master.

 

 

I respectfully disagree, Dave ....

 

 

http://orig05.deviantart.net/da94/f/2014/024/3/3/hal_9000__revisited__by_mondspeer-d73cwm1.jpg