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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Nov 4, 2008 16:50:48 GMT -4
Cleese = cheese! Ya!
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raven
Jupiter
That ain't Earth, kiddies.
Posts: 509
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Post by raven on Nov 4, 2008 18:11:31 GMT -4
I think GPS should have the voice of Cap'n Barbosa...... be making a left.... arrrrrr. The Tom Tom units have customizable voice prompts (although presumably not the bit that reads street names [text-to-speech]). There are lots of voice prompts you can get; among the free ones are Yoda, Darth Vader, Sean Connery [don't know how good it is]; for-purchase ones include John Cleese *. * Firefox spell check thinks this is a spelling error; first suggestion: cheese. Darth Vador: "You Will Turn Left Here." <breathing sounds> Driver, "But I am not going that way!" "I Have Altered The Deal, Pray I Do Not Alter It Further." <more breathing sounds> Yoda: "Turn left you will, next at intersection you be." Driver:"@#%&$!!"
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Nov 4, 2008 19:30:26 GMT -4
Darth Vader: "Turn left here." <breathing> Driver: "Are you sure?" Darth Vader "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
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Post by grmcdorman on Nov 4, 2008 21:14:59 GMT -4
I actually tried the Darth Vader one. Most of it is pretty mundane; unfortunately. The message when you've arrived, though, is the cliched "Your journey to the dark side is complete". (Yes, I know he never said that).
And Yoda: "At the next intersection turn left you must."
There may be a free John Cleese one; haven't checked that one out.
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Post by tedward on Nov 5, 2008 3:48:20 GMT -4
Think I need help. Being a paper finding your way lover I could do the voices in my head......
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Post by dragonblaster on Nov 19, 2008 14:33:40 GMT -4
Darth doesn't need to persuade the driver to turn left. He can just use the old Jedi mind trick.
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Post by nomuse on Nov 19, 2008 19:40:59 GMT -4
"These aren't the stores you are looking for..."
Actually, that's one of the worries about the new crop of navigational aids. You might find the directions clearer or more obvious to, say, the district with a stronger business association (for all and good reasons, nothing illegal; they made a better effort to gather data on their business community and send it out to the mapping company).
I'm reminded of the tale of Mr. Strowgar. He came out well, though....when his invention replaced the switchboard operator that had been sending clients to his competitor!
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Post by dragonblaster on Nov 21, 2008 11:43:21 GMT -4
That was an inside job in a hick town with two undertakers. It might be a little more noticeable if every time anyone plotted a route to the nearest five-star restaurant they always ended up at MacDonald's.
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Post by nomuse on Nov 22, 2008 7:03:41 GMT -4
Yah. My feeling is that it would be subtle. Like the never-ending war between ever more refined tricks to drive up Google indexes, and the ever-refined algorithms Google crafts to not get suckered. And, at that; most communications and database technologies have a slant, and most of them are driven by unabashedly commercial forces. And it's not even use worrying about GPS or Google Maps or whatever being "special" because they create a map, which can mislead the end-user to think that map is the territory. Again, most communications also maps some form of territory.
In short -- no more trustworthy, nor less trustworthy, then Yellow Pages or the old Arco road maps. Just deal with the fact that there will be errors both unintentional and intentional. And vote with your feet if the amount of error crosses your personal threshold.
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