Paper Maps going way of public Telephone

[Brandon]

Nobody actually reads the articles. We just respond to the title.

Kind of like Playboy.

[hbelkins]

I hate when someone refuses to listen to my directions because they have a GPS.  Then they tell me the convuluted way GPS told them to go.

My wife calls me her human GPS. Even if she's driving somewhere I've never been before, she trusts my directions more than her Garmin.

[hbelkins]

Actually we both had cell phones but cell coverage sucks in the mountains of eastern West Virginia.
Actually we both had cell phones but cell coverage sucks in the mountains of eastern West Virginia.

FIFY, twice.

[kkt]

Actually we both had cell phones but cell coverage sucks in the mountains of eastern West Virginia.
Actually we both had cell phones but cell coverage sucks in the mountains of eastern West Virginia.

FIFY, twice.

Cell coverage sucks.

[agentsteel53]

Cell coverage sucks.

more importantly, cell phone behavior sucks in the absence of signal.  there should be an option for "retry an infinite number of times automatically, until success" in the absence of signal.

also, signal-seeking kills the battery.  my phone, last weekend, went from 65% charge to 5% in under an hour on AZ-98 and US-160 between Page and Kayenta.

the main solution is to be able to transmit a text/email to one tower, and then use another tower to query the network for the confirmation, and then be much less aggressive in signal-seeking. 

[kphoger]

You could just go up to the wall, skim the area the family lived in, and figure out your own route.  Beat that, GPS!

how would you know, a priori, where to skim?

without a GPS, or a map index, I wouldn't know the faintest way to get to the Johnson ranch because I don't even know where the Johnson ranch is.

I'm not gonna stare at a map for hours, scouring grid square by grid square, as though it were some kind of a word search.

Chances are, you would at least know which direction from town they lived in, or perhaps which other farmers they were within a few miles of.  This was a county of fewer than 5000 people, after all.  One New Year's, my parents were driving me to a friend's farmhouse, but they had since moved to a different house.  So we started knocking on doors to find out from neighboring farmers where he had moved to.  You know how hard it is to find a farmer awake at 11:00 on New Year's Eve???

[J N Winkler]

how would you know, a priori, where to skim?

without a GPS, or a map index, I wouldn't know the faintest way to get to the Johnson ranch because I don't even know where the Johnson ranch is.

I'm not gonna stare at a map for hours, scouring grid square by grid square, as though it were some kind of a word search.

A typical Kansas county--and Rawlins County is no exception--is 30 miles by 30 miles.  Rawlins County is also in the shortgrass prairie part of the state, so landholdings tend to be large, usually on the order of one full section of 640 acres or one square mile.  Kphoger's father probably knew the approximate location of his parishioners down to the nearest one-sixteenth part of the county, which leaves at most 60 or so names to check.

A fair number of Kansas counties--possibly all of them--publish not just county road maps, which show the alignment and surfacing type of roads under county jurisdiction, but also land ownership maps similar to what Kphoger describes for Rawlins County.  I do not know if Sedgwick County publishes one (land ownership information is available in any case from the county GIS site), but I have a copy of one for Geary County (Junction City and environs) which I purchased years ago when I was doing my undergraduate degrees at KSU in the next county east.  For that matter, KDOT also publishes county highway maps, though I am not sure how up-to-date these are compared to maps published by the counties and cities themselves.

It doesn't surprise me that Kphoger had to go to Manhattan, Kansas' municipal website to retrieve an up-to-date map.  When I left KSU, Manhattan had a population of about 30,000; now it is about 60,000 and a freeway is under construction to connect it to I-70.  Manhattan is now considered important enough to be shown (occasionally) on flight maps aboard planes plying the Heathrow-O'Hare route.

[on_wisconsin]

Why is this in the Midwest sub-fourm?

Because the thread originated with an article in an Ohio newspaper and centered on Ohio's map industry.
What does Wisconsin have?

I did not mean for my comment to be taken as a personal slight. But the topic, since the first few posts, has evolved into a way more broad view of the subject.
Personally, I like paper maps much better then GPS devices. Having something tangible that can't crash or lose a signal is an advantage paper has over any cellphone/GPS/laptop that cannot be beaten.

[Bickendan]

You could just go up to the wall, skim the area the family lived in, and figure out your own route.  Beat that, GPS!

how would you know, a priori, where to skim?

without a GPS, or a map index, I wouldn't know the faintest way to get to the Johnson ranch because I don't even know where the Johnson ranch is.

I'm not gonna stare at a map for hours, scouring grid square by grid square, as though it were some kind of a word search.

I would! Minimizes the need to look up the map later on -- though I'll do it just the same because it's a map

[F350]

I cinched every mile on I-70 in 2010; twice I had to ask the state line rest area service representative where they kept the state maps because I wasn't able to locate them on display units. Why don't they stock state/local/regional maps along with the rest of the tourist attractions?

We had a nice thread going on this forum obtaining state maps via snail mail. Think we should do this again for 2012 and beyond.

I refuse to give in to a GPS unit. Most consumer ones are horrible. Truck/RV GPS units are better in my opinion, but I'd prefer paper maps.

[F350]

You mean people are peeing in them?

Hah! An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

[bulkyorled]

I hate when someone refuses to listen to my directions because they have a GPS.  Then they tell me the convuluted way GPS told them to go.

I still prefer their using a GPS to the dreaded "we'll just follow you" option. At 10 mph below the speed limit. And it's the end of the world if they're for a moment out of your sight.

Agree with both. Its like listening to my mother telling me directions. She wants to tell me I should have turned left when we're passing where I shoulda turned. So i tell her be quiet, we have technology now. But then at the same time when I'm the one in the passenger seat I wanna tell everyone where to go

[1995hoo]

You mean people are peeing in them?

Hah! An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

We have one in the garage. It's on the floor shoved under the front end of the snowblower to keep the auger blades off the floor because it's supposed to be better to store it with those off the floor.

[hbelkins]

Hah! An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

Yesterday.

[realjd]

It is a sad state of affairs that so many people don't know how to read maps anymore. They just blindly follow GPS units and don't have a grasp of the bigger picture with regard to where they are going. 

I've noticed completely the opposite. 10 years ago I would regularly encounter people who would tell me they had no sense for maps. Nowdays, with online mapping being common and everyone carrying what amounts to a world street atlas in their pockets on their phones, I rarely hear that.

Now I will agree that people have a worse sense of direction than they used to. Just because they can read a map doesn't mean they're good at mentally keeping track of where they are when they're blindly following their GPS.

I use my GPS mainly when I fly somewhere. If I'm getting off a plane in a city I've never been to at 11 at night and have to drive to a hotel on the far side of the city, a GPS is indispensable IMO. It frees me up from having to juggle a page with written directions, in the dark, all while trying to read street signs in places that for some reason forgot to install them. They're also extremely useful for figuring out which generic looking office to go to the next morning when I only have a street address, the buildings all look alike, the street numbers aren't posted on the buildings, and the town has a strict restrictions on signage so the company logo isn't prominently displayed.

For long distance travel, I don't feel the need to use one.

[PHLBOS]

Like a few others here, I've never used a GPS but have always used road maps or atlases.  It's even more refreshing to see that many of those who responded similarly are (assuming everyone's age profile is true & current) actually younger than I.

The techy-est map-related item I've used is either Mapquest and/or Bing Maps and even then, it's alongside my maps (most of which are from AAA).

Many still refer to me as the human-GPS.  I have had one or 2 friends call me to get better directions because they either misinterpreted their GPS or it gave them bogus info.

Back to the topic at hand, while I can easily see some states cut back on offering paper maps as a means to save money; I wouldn't necessarily declare paper road maps and atlases dead just yet.

[kphoger]

You mean people are peeing in them?

Hah! An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

The last time I ordered pizza, I'd guess about a month ago.

[Duke87]

An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

June of 2009. I was home alone, the power went out, and was looking up the number to call the electric company to report an outage. The trickiest part was finding where the hell my mother had put the phone book. After a solid 20 minutes of looking, I found one under a pile of other stuff in her office, unopened from when it had been deposited in our mailbox a couple years prior. More recent annual deliveries had gone straight into the recycling bin. Fortunately, the number for CL&P in it was still good!


People get surprised when I tell them I don't have a GPS, especially if they know how often I'm going someplace I don't usually go. But I don't need one. I prefer to do my own navigation manually using just a map. I keep a Rand McNally atlas in my car to look things up with. And if I want a more detailed view, I use the Google Maps app on my phone. I'm not averse to technology, I'm just averse to having a computer figure out for me something which I am perfectly capable of easily figuring out on my own - hell, I am more capable of figuring out on my own than my computer is. Besides, I need to maintain a conscious concept of where I am and where I am going. I am not comfortable blindly following anyone or anything, the way all too many people seem to be.

It's amazing and honestly rather worrying how utterly helpless people become when all of a sudden their Garmin doesn't work. I once had a woman who'd just gotten off the highway and then had her GPS fritz out on her need me to direct her how to get back on the highway - exactly the reverse of the way she'd just came. I'm sorry, I don't care how good your little nav computer is, if you are clearly not paying attention to where the fuck you're going that is just pathetic.

[huskeroadgeek]

I use both paper maps and online mapping when I am planning a trip. When I am on a trip, I use paper maps exclusively when I am by myself. I don't even own a GPS system, but I am sometimes with somebody who has one. I would hate to have to use GPS on a trip without paper maps. You just can't get the perspective with GPS that you can get with paper maps.
I also hate how people have become so GPS and online mapping reliant for routing purposes. I do sometimes check online map routing just as a suggestion or sometimes for a quick computation of mileage for a long trip. But I would never rely solely on a route given to me by an online mapping service. Not only do I trust my own evaluation better, but it's more fun for me to plan my own route.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

You mean people are peeing in them?

Hah! An better analogy than a public telephone would be a phone book. When was the last time any of you used one?

I was fishing through a 1920 and then a 1961 phone book back on Wednesday.

[A.J. Bertin]

Like a few others here, I've never used a GPS but have always used road maps or atlases.  It's even more refreshing to see that many of those who responded similarly are (assuming everyone's age profile is true & current) actually younger than I.

My age profile is indeed correct. I am 32 and refuse to own a GPS unit. I too like the fact that I'm not the only younger person who feels this way.

The techy-est map-related item I've used is either Mapquest and/or Bing Maps and even then, it's alongside my maps (most of which are from AAA).

I enjoy using Google Maps when I'm sitting at home looking at my computer. I like to see the suggested routes and what the approximate mileage/time is for those routes. If I need the detail of a cities I'm going to on a trip, I just print off the maps and bring them with me alongside my atlases and paper maps.

I wouldn't necessarily declare paper road maps and atlases dead just yet.

I certainly hope you're right. :-)

[A.J. Bertin]

People get surprised when I tell them I don't have a GPS, especially if they know how often I'm going someplace I don't usually go. But I don't need one. I prefer to do my own navigation manually using just a map. I keep a Rand McNally atlas in my car to look things up with. And if I want a more detailed view, I use the Google Maps app on my phone. I'm not averse to technology, I'm just averse to having a computer figure out for me something which I am perfectly capable of easily figuring out on my own - hell, I am more capable of figuring out on my own than my computer is. Besides, I need to maintain a conscious concept of where I am and where I am going. I am not comfortable blindly following anyone or anything, the way all too many people seem to be.

I'm exactly the same way... except that I don't have a smartphone. If I need the detail to a city, I just print out the maps from Google Maps and bring them with me on my trip. I would much rather figure something out for myself than have a GPS or a computer figure it out for me.

It's amazing and honestly rather worrying how utterly helpless people become when all of a sudden their Garmin doesn't work. I once had a woman who'd just gotten off the highway and then had her GPS fritz out on her need me to direct her how to get back on the highway - exactly the reverse of the way she'd just came. I'm sorry, I don't care how good your little nav computer is, if you are clearly not paying attention to where the fuck you're going that is just pathetic.

Amen to that. It always amuses me when I hear stories on the news about idiots who rely on their GPS units which tell them to turn onto a railroad track or into a body of water. "That's what my GPS told me to do!!!" Morons.

[Scott5114]

I do not have a GPS, or much desire to buy one, though if I won one in a contest or something it'd be kind of neat.

Occasionally my girlfriend will get directions to somewhere from the Google Maps on her iPhone, but fortunately if I point out issues with them she will usually listen to me and not the phone.

[froggie]

From the comments posted here, I'm getting the impression that when most of you hear GPS, you think of the commonly available navigation units such as Garmin or TomTom.  While Garmins and TomToms are indeed GPS units, GPS is a much broader category than that.  Any piece of gear that can receive and decode the signals sent by the GPS satellites is, technically speaking, a GPS unit.  This includes iPads and most recent smartphones.  If you have a smartphone less than a few years old (especially one running Android or an iPhone newer than the "3") or an iPad, then you have a GPS unit.

[signalman]

I won a Garmin unit a few years back and it sat in the box unopened for 2 years.  I had never used it for the same reasons others have cited.  I had intentions to sell it, but had never found a buyer.  I got a use for it about 6 months ago when the instrument panel on my old beater truck crapped out.  (Only the temp gauge works, thank god for that.)  I use the GPS for a speedometer.  It isn't worth fixing the instrument panel on an 18 year old truck that I bought for $500 a few years ago.  Since I had already won the Garmin and it wasn't being used, I considered it a free repair.  I have the unit duct taped right over the speedometer.

As far as navigation.  I love maps and I certainly hope it's a long time before they die.  If I'm going somewhere far that I've never been to before, I'll use online maps to plan my route.  I'll print the maps or jot myself down directions if necessary.  If someone gives me verbal directions, I'll use my paper or online maps to confirm things and see that it makes sense and is a viable route.