Is all that technology to part ways with the person in the seat next to the driver?

If nagging was a problem, technags are the lesser species. I'd prefer a nag from the real person of opposite sex in the other seat any time. Even if that person can raise the voice to a real level of unpleasantness. The make-up later on compensates like tech never can provide.

Have good weekend(nag/drive).

Yet.

Turn left.

Two memorable occasions when I had the luxury of a navigator.

Driving through Norway we started going down the side of a steep valley through a series of narrow snow tunnels. At the bottom was a primitive ferry. As we were supposed to be on a national highway this was a surprise. Looking at the map I asked why we were going this way - "It looked pretty".

In a city we stopped at traffic lights in the slow lane - then she announced "turn left" - across a total of five lanes of traffic.

Another time someone was supposed to tell me when to leave the endless loop round Bergen. When I queried passing the same exit twice - she thrust the map towards me and said "you do it"

Irrelevant if neuroscience can predict my wine preference..

As it plays little role in the wines I buy.

.. Buying process is

1. Go into wine selling shop / or visit wine website

2. Are any of the wines we really like in my price range

99% of the time step 3 is then, of course none of the good stuff is in your price range, buy a small number of bottles of some cheap plonk

Very rarely, step 3 is does double take, something we really like and not at a stupidly high price, calculate available "unallocated on other expenditure" budget, buy as many bottles as budget allows, as even though I know the amount we buy will run out before a good wine is again affordable, at least it means we have a few really enjoyable bottles ahead.

So 99% of the time "AI" could predict my buys without knowing my preferences

Be interested to see what it will predict my wine preference will be.....

I don't drink (never acquired the taste, and after seeing other people drunk - don't want to!)

You can drink without getting drunk.

It's just a question of managing the quantity.

Don't get me wrong - I don't stop other people if they want to drink and get drunk. It's when other innocent people get hurt or effected by it (suppose drunk driver is an extreme example), but it's not for me.

I do drink, but like you I never acquired the taste for wine.

I'm betting the Neuroscience would probably spend ages analysing me, before declaring that I'd likely be fond of a full and fruity Merlot or some such thing. And then the researchers would get quite pouty when I reply that "none" was the right answer.

That's the thing about a lot of tech, even the newer machine learning / AI. They can never think outside the parameters that their developers originally programmed in.

I don't drink very often but I do appreciate a decent wine when being sociable. The local Mercadona supermarkets here have had an excellent red called Armonico, no idea of the grape, reasonably alcoholic and sells for the incredibly reasonable price of €1.99 the next best is about €5.00 which is expensive here.

But, I do need to explore the thousands of other decent wines in the supermarkets of Spain, something I am looking forward to.

Satnag wise, I hate the bloody things, in Spanish or English, whatever system I am using either tells me to turn half a kilometer too soon or just as I am passing the turn then I miss the recalculation because both my wife and I are too busy calling the satnag rude names in English , Russian and Spanish.

this weeks video to be Talking Heads Road to Nowhere!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA

You'd better have a look at a [1]couple of steering wheels Stirling Moss was holding when he crashed... .

I think he experienced those steering wheels quite thoroughly!

[1] https://speedhunters-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/02160043/Stirling-Moss-04-1200x800.jpg

I called the lady on my old Garmin sat-nav Mona. :)

I always turn the volume down to zero when using any sat-nav these days.

The satnav in my BMW begins every instruction with "please". Of course to suit the stereotypical Beemer driver it should also add "... unless you know better".

Years ago I tried to discover how long it would take to drive from Stirling to Perth, so went to 'maps.google.co.uk' and entered the names... 'no route'... huh?

After a lot of faffing around I discovered entering 'Perth' on its own into 'maps.google.co.uk' (yes, '.co.uk') took me to Western Australia!

(since been fixed)

Not long after Hammersmith Bridge was closed because it was deemed structurally unsound I discovered that Google Maps had demolished the whole thing and was just showing a couple of piers in the middle of the river!

If they don't fix it soon, that is all that will be left

Had a look at that steering wheel advert - seems like a glorified mobile phone holder to me! I already have buttons on my steering wheel to answer/reject calls and to control the radio.

Thought it would be a joystick or something......

More to the point, becuase you have reduced the number of controls to those immediately under your thumbs that will incerease distracted driving rather than reduce it as you need to navigate through menus to find the bit you want to change and then make the change...that will be a few seconds when your eyes are looking at thinsg inside the car rather than outside.

There was a judge who made a very good comment about speed cameras causing people to spend too much time watching their speedo instead of the road and this would be worse as it would kick in every time you wanted to alter the heating/wipers/radio/lights...great idea that

"Not only does it have a penchant for taking me on pointlessly circuitous routes, the wrong way up one-way streets, and along shortcuts too narrow for a bicycle, it grows angrier by the second when I refuse its orders."

It is also my experience of cars embedded SatNav. The little shits never want to re-calculate any path, which makes it useless when a road is closed, you'll always get back there unless you spend 30 mins finding how to make it understand you WON'T go there !

As for G map, it is utterly shit for driving. It's not a SatNav but a social network, with half (if your phone is vertically held) or 80% (if horizontally held) of the screen encumbered by all the places others have been to (you don't care), every good restaurant/carpet shop/etc ... in the vicinity (you don't care), leaving only 2 cms for your path ! Fuck it, it's only good for walking in big towns.

Myself, I have a really good TomTom Premium X I can put in any car, and it's golden. I can even navigate a map on my computer, and push it to the device !

I wouldn't use anything else for driving.

I have always preferred a stand alone Tomtom - I can plan/update routes at home and it has all the maps built in.

Many moons ago, before Google maps were a thing, I had a Psion with maps that had to be downloaded manually. A colleague had a "smart" phone, but he had managed to get lost in a dead zone with no signal and so couldn't download new maps. I realise that technology has moved on, but I don't feel comfortable relying on a mobile.

Overheard in office - one lady had taken her car to the garage for a service, and she was charged £90 for them to update the inbuilt satnav!

I could never get along with standalone units - too big, too many wires, sucker marks all over the windscreen, and so on (IMO). I hate my Ford satnav, though I will use it at a push.

But I use the [1]TomTom Go app for longer journeys. I prefer it over Google because I can create specific routes on my PC and sync them to the app, and you also have the extra functions you'd expect from a dedicated satnav.

[1] https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/navigation/mobile-apps/go-navigation-app/

I once had my passenger door window broken and a Tomtom nicked from the glovebox. Reported it to the police (just to get the Crime Number for insurance, not in the hope of getting the satnav recovered).

A nice Policewoman asked me

"Do you stick it to your windscreen when you use it?" I answered yes.

She said "Criminals see the ring left by the suction cup left on the screen, so know there's a good chance the satnav will be in the glovebox."

sucker marks all over the windscreen

I prefer the clips that hook into the airvent slots, no obscured windscreen & usually in a more convenient place to see/use.

>I can even navigate a map on my computer, and push it to the device !

You can do that on google maps as well. Along with rest stops, fuel stops etc. An interesting twist I found on this the other day is that if you 'export' the route as a link - you can just save that link. That way you can have a list of routes in a file which you just click to activate in gmaps and then push to the phone. Actually works quite well.

I don't know if they've pushed this capability to the civilized world yet - but combining that with the maps download means that you effectively have a standalone gps unit.

I've never understood why people are so obsessive about integrated satnavs, Top Gear used to go on about it constantly for example (been many years since I watched it though) and some of my friends are the same. They aren't very good generally, always out of date and an update is almost always a ridiculous price.

I was cursing Google Maps a lot recently as I was trying to find a nightclub in Edinburgh because I was going to a gig there. After much swearing at GM I had to change the source of my fury, turned out the club had changed names 2 weeks earlier but not put an announcement out or told the bands that were booked to play.

As the old saying goes, "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do..."

Well maybe in America or Milton Keynes bit round here you will probably end up in the next town first.

"Well maybe in America ..."

In New York City or Los Angeles, usually. In New England, rarely. In Boston, never

Ah, driving in Boston. Have you read "Wild in the Streets"? I laughed 'till I cried. Have seen all those antics (my favorite is the one right, two lefts, then a right make a left; read the book to understand how it works), have done quite a few myself, and my grandmother and mother have some stories that could have been in the book. For many many years my approach to Storrow Drive was wrong-way down a one-way street. Had a girlfriend who would drive to just before Alewife, then get out and make me drive the rest of the way to downtown Boston. I hate driving, and in Boston it hated me back. I admit I was part of the problem!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2686145-wild-in-the-streets

Depends how far left or right you're turning...

Navigated back okay from last week's pont, Mr Dabbs?

Interesting, one of the terms in Cymraeg for steering (as in English I suppose) comes from the word for 'rudder'.

Why doesn't someone re-introduce the rudder as a way of controlling motor vehicles? Far more relaxed having a long rudder running up the middle of the car, with your appropriate elbow gently resting on it and giving it a twiddle from time to time. I believe some very early automobiles did actually use a tiller mechanism rather than a wheel. Have to be rear-wheel drive of course.

About ten years ago, I went to a gig in Glasgow. It was at the Old Fruit Market.

At the time, I subscribed to Orange Maps (remember that?), and with my phone in its cradle, I set off on the 300 mile journey. All went well until I reached somewhere near Lesmahagow - and my phone lost the connection. Nothing would make it reconnect to Orange Maps, though there was a phone signal.

I didn't have a clue where the Old Fruit Market was, and that side of Glasgow was a mystery, too. But I was still at least 50km away from my destination.

I frantically searched Google Apps for a free satnav app, and even downloaded one painfully slowly, when I suddenly remembered the Google Maps beta (with 3D) function.

Within a minute I was on my way, it took me directly to a car park, and then the 'on foot' feature took me step-by-step through the streets to the venue a short distance away.

I cancelled Orange Maps the next day.

Almost 40 years ago, one of the first projects I worked on as a new engineer was evaluating speech synthesis chips for possible inclusion in a cellular phone so that it could talk to you instead of just displaying things on a small, 2-line display. The marketing folks were quite keen on the idea that people wanted things to talk to them, but the rest of us joked that the real plan was to include it in the base model options and charge extra to turn it off.

Is that the way you like it Mr Beeblebrox?

It was the 1970's, and one of our engineers lived half-way down a hill, On his return from whatever job he'd been doing he would switch off the engine at the top, coast down the hill and swing soundlessly into his drive. Equally soundlessly, his van was stolen from the driveway.

Force of habit is strong and his new van, now fitted with an in-built steering lock, introduced him to his neighbour's front lawn via the dividing brick wall. I don't know if the anti-theft alarm went off as well.

A few years ago I went for a job interview in Richmond, Yorkshire. Driving up there from Brackley was a bit tedious but they'd agreed to pay my mileage so whether I got the job or not I was going to be quids in (A Honda Jazz bimbling along the motorway at 60 mph does not come close to burning what they agreed to pay). Anyway after the interview(*) I got into the car, started my sat nav app and put my belt on.

"Please head south".

And that was all it said for about ten minutes. I mean I can't fault the advice for accuracy but it wasn't particularly helpful.

The funniest though was when I asked my first Smart Nokia to get me from Llandudno to Newton Stewart. It wanted to send me to Liverpool, along the docks and then the immortal phrase 'Follow the Ferry for 75 miles". Instead I decided to drive out to the M6 and turn left. It seemed safer :)

(*)I got the job which actually resulted in 14 months working in Birmingham.

Follow the Ferry for 75 miles

I can't believe the number of times, still in 2021, that we get told (often by Real People in a call centre) something along the lines of "your nearest shop / garage / plumber is in Weston Super Mare" when we live near Cardiff. Possibly literally correct - if you go in a straight line across the Severn - but for all practical purposes, utterly wrong.

Never personally used a standalone satnav device, but the unit in my wife's car is woefully ambiguous with directions (umm, yes, there are three turnings left within the next two hundred yards, which one did you mean?), often late with the instructions so I've passed the turning before it's told me to turn, and the central touchscreen display occasionally shows conflicting information to the little display between the dials, usually at roundabouts so I'm never sure (for example) whether "turn left" means the first exit (at, say, 8 o'clock), or the exit at 9 o'clock as shown on the little display.

M.

I have a Garmin (with lifetime updates) I got at Goodwill for $25. It seems to do fairly well, though SWMBO swears by her iPhone. Which ceases to work in less digital areas (yes, there are some here in the US), so I'm glad to have the Garmin as a backup.

The newer Garmins don't verbalise the "recalculating", they just show it on the screen. And it seems to catch on fairly quickly if I choose to go a way I know better, rather than the one it thinks I should use.For $25, I really can't complain (and if I did, it would do no good!)

I have also been led to a ferry, and have managed to correct a database error which led many to assume my address didn't exist (the road I live on has a section in the middle which is passable only by four wheel drive jeep or HMMWV, except for Spring, when the mud hole will swallow anyone who tries). House numbers start at one end and continue after the impassable section. Getting NAVTEQ, Google, Garmin, and the others to fix their databases took me almost 3 years of posting and reposting detailed corrections to their websites. They DO look at them, but very rarely.

// one question nobody has been able to answer: if you stop, roll down your window, and ask directions, what guarantee do you have that the bloke giving you directions knows any more than you do?

what guarantee do you have that the bloke giving you directions knows any more than you do

Going to Ballymuck? Well, I wouldn't start from here...

Oh come on. Nobody is going to call a company Silly Auto.

And what's with the "every day billions of people are using smartphones naturally with their thumbs" claim?

I use my finger to poke and caress my phone screen. Phone held in left hand, right index finger doing the pointing and clicking bit.

Aren't phone too long these days for thumbing the keyboard. Won't they just tumble out of your hands? Could explain the number of texting-teenagers with shattered screens I see.

Dabsy needs this satnav:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xLR5mjkfs4

... seem somewhat fragile.

For example - my 2018 Toyota C-HR hit a pothole a while back. I though nothing of it until the next time I used it and it informed me that the collision detection system was no longer enabled. Next power-on it informed me that a different system was no longer enabled but collision warning was..

All through this the proximity sensors wouldn't work - although the blind spot elimination system did - which is odd because that system uses the rear/side prox sensors..

So I booked it in to the Toyota garage to find out what was going on. Turned out that the jolt had caused a 'system event' that prevented things working properly - the fix was to reset the controller which cleared the system event. Sort of like turning it off and on again!

To be fair to the garage (Toyota Swindon) they didn't charge me anything for the fix since it only took 5 minutes to do - long enough to plug in the diagnostics and reset the system.

But it shouldn't really have happened in the first place - if the embedded systems in the car can't take a jolt without throwing an exception thn they are not really fit for purpose.

After all, it doesn't happen in the Morris Minor! (It barely has electrics let alone electronics.. And survived lockdown 1 whereas the C-HR completely ran out of charge and required another system reset as, even after being recharged, kept giving hybrid system error messages..)