Outside?

[Sakka]

Had a customer call in having problems with a gps unit.


Me: *opening spiel*

Customer: Yeah, I bought a gps unit from you folks a couple weeks ago, and it keeps showing that I'm in Toronto (Canada, and opposite side of the country from me) *customer then trails off into a rant about what kind of crap are we selling, general insults, that it shows the customers condo as being nowhere near where it actually is, etc*

Me: *when I can finally get a word in edgewise* Where does it say you are when you are outside?

C: ..... *quietly* outside?

Me: Yes, outside. It needs a clear view of the sky to get a signal from the satellites.

C: *click and a dial tone*

Me:

[dalesys]

Also, "What does it say when you peel the protective plastic off the screen and turn it on?"

[Pixilated]

*busily taking notes for when I get myself a GPS ...*

[bhskittykatt]

I once had a woman calling asking for directions. Her GPS said we were nearby and gave her our phone number, but we were on the other side of the country. Okay, that's a weird glitch. She wouldn't accept my explanation and wanted to know WHY her GPS referred her to me. I'm a desk clerk, not a GPS expert (and I really kinda hate GPS units...except for geocaching!).

Ah, the clear signal needed...here in the perpetually cloudy (and forested) PNW, it can make geocaching very interesting at times.

[Chromatix]

Some GPS receivers - and I like to use that as correct terminology - are better than others at resolving a weak or noisy signal. So occasionally you find one that can pick up signals indoors, where others have to be put on the windowsill.

And sometimes that ability changes over time - for example my old iPhone 3G no longer picks up *any* GPS signals, even when I go and stand on top of the tallest and barest hill I can find locally. Fortunately it can still get some indication of position from cell triangulation and wifi databases.

[Zaiida]

I hated it when my old one would have a crisis when on an unmapped road. Recalculating recalculating recalculating ad infinitum or until we were off the unmapped road. The map would also spin in all directions having a shit fit. The general consensus was it had an acid trip it went that insane.

[wolfie]

And sometimes that ability changes over time - for example my old iPhone 3G no longer picks up *any* GPS signals, even when I go and stand on top of the tallest and barest hill I can find locally. Fortunately it can still get some indication of position from cell triangulation and wifi databases.

Be careful if you're around a dock where cruise ships stop. One that appeared in the Risks digest was a case where a guy's navigation device that used wifi databases suddenly jumped him from North America to Europe. How did that happen? It seemed that when the database was made, a cruise ship that offered wifi for passengers was docked in a European port, and now that ship had the strongest wifi signal that his device was picking up.

[AccountingDrone]

I hated it when my old one would have a crisis when on an unmapped road. Recalculating recalculating recalculating ad infinitum or until we were off the unmapped road. The map would also spin in all directions having a shit fit. The general consensus was it had an acid trip it went that insane.

Our joke is that when GPS units go AI, we will cause ours to have a psychotic break. Sometimes I am in the habit of turning mine on for our destination, even though I may actually know where I am going for the first few hundred miles. My route may not be their optimum route, we might have errands or something to run along the way.

Poor little thing ... "I keep telling them to go left, *why* won't they ever listen to me ...." <gives directions to off the nearest cliff>

[bhskittykatt]

Our joke is that when GPS units go AI, we will cause ours to have a psychotic break. Sometimes I am in the habit of turning mine on for our destination, even though I may actually know where I am going for the first few hundred miles. My route may not be their optimum route, we might have errands or something to run along the way.

Poor little thing ... "I keep telling them to go left, *why* won't they ever listen to me ...." <gives directions to off the nearest cliff>

My GPS likes to lead us through weird side streets. I often use Google Maps directions to get the right exit number, and then use the GPS. Until we get off at the exit, though, my GPS will be freaking out, wanting me to take all sorts of other exits. Google Maps usually gives me better directions than my phone, but it sometimes misses big turns that my phone doesn't, so I use both.

I have been in the passenger seat before, with my phone on navigation in one hand, and printed Google Maps directions in the other, screaming "Fight! Fight for my love!!!" Hubby threatened to make me walk home...

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Two fun GPS stories from me.

There is a bridge in a nearby town that apparently was down when the map was loaded into the GPS. So it will try DAMN hard to make you go around, even though the bridge is there now. We like to pretend to be the GPS when we go over it going, "TURN. TURN NOW! OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING WE'RE ALL DOING TO DIIEEE-- oh, recalculating."

My friend's parents had a GPS that would get mad when you ignored it. I was in the car with them when they were playing with it (they had just gotten it) and turning the wrong way to see how fast it could catch up. At one point, it said in a very nasty robo-fem-tone to "Turn right, NOW!" Her dad was too scared to not to.

[AccountingDrone]

I rented a Ford Kuga in Germany a couple years ago, and I am sure that if we had videoed teh first hundred km or so it would have gone viral.

Imagine self, hubby and a 20 year old Romanian buddy with me driving and Jin'Ente [the Romanian, I can't spell his real name =) ] in the passenger seat trying to figure out the GPS unit. It was refusing to vocalize in anything except german though we finally got it to give us screen info in British English. I can deal with imperial gallons and miles. Then we got it to speak british english but then the stuff on screen was back in german. Jin got it to finally do screen and voice in Romanian so he stayed navigator for the rest of the vacation

[Jay 2K Winger]

But I don't want to go outside! The cursed Daystar, it burnssss ussss!

[Ironclad Alibi]

We recently got a new car with a navigation system. On the way home from the dealer we took our favorite route, which is a toll road. The navigation system keep trying to reroute us to a nearby Interstate which, at that time a day, was much more congested. Upon arriving home, I discovered the navigation system was programmed to avoid toll roads. I reprogrammed it.

A Russian friend has a GPS that speaks in Russian. The tone of voice is very commanding, "You WILL turn here!"

[bhskittykatt]

We recently got a new car with a navigation system. On the way home from the dealer we took our favorite route, which is a toll road. The navigation system keep trying to reroute us to a nearby Interstate which, at that time a day, was much more congested. Upon arriving home, I discovered the navigation system was programmed to avoid toll roads. I reprogrammed it.

On a recent trip, we missed the boat back to the mainland, and had to drive around the peninsula. I didn't print maps for that, so as we were driving in the general direction we wanted to go, I was fighting with my GPS. It wanted me to do a U-turn and go back to the ferry terminal, and I was like "No! The boat is GONE! I want to go AROUND! TELL ME HOW TO GO AROUND!!!". I didn't even realize it did ferry routes until that day! Finally figured out how to turn off ferry routes. (It sent us on a toll road...I was like "$6 to cross a bridge?!?!", but later I realized it would have been MUCH longer without that route, so I will pay it when they mail it to me.)

(I like to refer to my phone's GPS as "the bitch who lives in my phone", and I will get into verbal arguments with it and yell at it. We have a sort of love/hate relationship.)

[Mer-Mer]

My grandpa's gps always starts the directions off in alsaska. We live in Virginia.