Re:The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan
by ryanmercer on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @08:54AM
(#17608845)
Indeed. If anyone is interested in just how much GPS is used in our daily lives I recommend reading the book Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds by Greg Milner. It's a neat read on the development of GPS as well as other navigation throughout history.
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Re:The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan
by jsoc815 on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @11:21AM
(#17609949)
Having long ago heard that most of the satellites were long past their intended 'expiration' dates, I'm still a little surprised to see articles like this appearing today.
As for your book rec, does it add much substance to his Time piece?[1]
[1] http://time.com/4309397/how-gps-is-messing-with-our-minds/
Re:The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan
by ryanmercer on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @12:37PM
(#17610577)
It's a good general-history book on GPS, he does go back to the theme of it's changing our minds (mentions the impressive sea navigation abilities of cultures that have traditionally lived on the water spread out over hundreds of small islands for example) and IIRC he touches on some of the people that have died, or nearly died, trusting GPS instead of common sense, but that's by no means the majority of the book.
It's been probably close to 2 years since I read it but I enjoyed the history aspects of it.