One of the most general critiques of technologies is that as we come to rely on them, we become more helpless when they fail or we find oursleves without them.
One of the easiest examples is the technology of GPS. With a GPS one is largely spared the burden of ever being lost. The tradeoff is that if one is not careful, one will also lose the joy of knowing one's way around.
I had a stark experience of this downside recently. I was at the doctor's office and I was going next to a third-party facility for routine bloodwork.
Not remembering exactly how far down the road the facility was, I asked the check-out woman for directions. This woman was probably in her sixties and so she has certainly had to get around for many years before GPS was widely available. Nevertheless, she first appeared flustered, then asked if I had a GPS I could enter an address into. I did, so she handed me a flyer with the address circled on it and sent me on my way.
The thing was as I discovered momentarily the place was on the same street a mere two traffic lights farther down. To have entered the address into my phone and waited for it to tell me to go a thousand feet before turning left would have been quite the opposite of thinking.
But that's just the point. With GPS we have essentially outsourced the problem of navigation from our brains to our computers. That has obvious benefits, but the cost of not being able to distinguish simple cases from complex ones or of not building a mental map of our surroundings at all are significant. It is also apparent from this example that just as muscles atrophy from idleness, we can lose faculties we once possessed. I guarantee that twenty years ago that woman could have told me to go down the street two lights and turn left.
The implication is not that GPS is a bad thing that shouldn't be used. Rather, we should be critical in our use of it. I prefer to use it more like a compass, giving me an idea of a route before I set out on a trip and then going back to it if I stray or become uncertain. In the meantime I do my best to follow along with the route, to know where I am and where I am going. Additionally, if I am giving directions, along with just giving an address to be plugged into a computer, to those that will hear it I give an overview of the way.
On a recent trip to San Francisco I was quite gratified to know enough of my way around to be guiding other visitors and driving them around town. I felt like I had more ownership of the place I was visiting and that I understood more what makes it tick. And on a recent trip to Washington D.C. after giving an address to a friend I was glad I called him back and told him the simple directions. As a result I had a stake in his journey and our shared experience started as soon as he left. I felt like we had acheived something special in this day and age.
In both locations I used my phone as a GPS quite frequently. But I feel I was much more its master than it mine. Let us likewise wield all of our tools.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Stop worrying and love the road.
It helped that we took a scenic route, driving through Delaware and the Delmarva Peninsula across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (it's both!) through Virginia Beach. It was beautiful countryside on a textbook June day. It helped too that the best of those things were on display. The Wawa folks knocked it out of the park with the breakfast burrito; it was all of the sensual gratification and visceral satisfaction that fast food aspires to be. And the road trip is the automobile at its best. I felt real camaraderie with the stranger in the BMW who for thirty miles wove with me past and around traffic that seemed to know nothing of the "drive right, pass left" principle.
Something else was at play though. A big reason the road trip was so enjoyable was the peace that came from living for one day as an American and not as an individual. I did what I was supposed to do, and what I was supposed to do was drive. For a century this ritual pilgrimage to wherever has been more American than apple pie, unless that apple pie was served at a McDonald's drive through. Taking part in it made me feel like a properly turning gear in a precisely tuned clock.
I felt this peace most acutely at a rest stop in Delaware. After getting out of the car I paused to take in the well-groomed lawn and the 1950's classic cars that were trundling into the parking lot at that moment. I continued in past a procession of vending machines each tempting me with a different variety of saccharine, preserved, and caffeinated satisfaction. The bathroom experience with its automatic flushes and antibacterial hand foam could not have been more tranquil if I had been brought through on a conveyor belt. On the way out I paused again to smell the tiger lilies ringing a spurting fountain.
At no point was there any doubt what I was supposed to be doing. I with all others present fulfilled my calling. We sustained America and thus were Americans together. That felt good.
Monday, March 8, 2010
City Planning Fail
Order is nice, but not if it doesn't make sense.
City planning is a classic example of simplistic type-A thinking gone dangerously awry. Especially in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, many of the most influential ideas in planning came from people who disliked the messiness of cities. Blocks full of varieties of uses in a variety of architectural styles, used by a variety of people at a variety of times, seemed unseemly.
And so a tendency emerged, especially when planning large initiatives, to cluster similar uses together. For an example in Philadelphia, see the Avenue of the Arts. In one stretch can be found the majority of the performing arts theaters and centers in the city. It makes a certain simplistic sense in that if you want to see a performance you know where to go.
Unfortunately, such ideas do not respect the actual forces which govern what makes city life vital. Exactly the disarray of diversity which the planners scorned is necessary for economic viability, for safety, for anything but quite literally oppressive dullness.
I have read about these concepts in Jane Jacobs's seminal 1960 work on city planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But I was reminded of them this weekend when I encountered exactly these deficiencies on a visit to Washington, D.C.
My friend Pat and I set out to go sightseeing, with a mind to visit national monuments as well as museums at the Smithsonian. All of these are located in the same general area referred to as the National Mall. Here the impulse toward order and uniformity I mentioned earlier is made manifest. Whether you want to see Lincoln's or Washington's memorial, whether the Hirshhorn Museum or the Museum of American History, you go to the same general area.
I would be remiss if I did not point out the advantages to such a layout. Pat and I started at Arlington National Cemetery and were able to spurn the metro in favor of a lovely walk across the Potomac River in the emerging spring sunshine. Without effort we soon found ourselves amazed by Lincoln's second inaugural address as inscribed on the wall of his memorial, and in short order humbled by the names of Vietnam veterans on their memorial. Later we met with a friend at the National Gallery of Art, where we didn't intend to visit but where was just a short detour from our planned destination.
All of these things were made easier and happily car-independent by virtue of each place's proximity. For monuments and memorials, proximity may make a particular amount of sense, since each is not likely to occupy attention for more than half an hour, and would not draw nearly as many visitors as in isolation. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.
However, we were starving.
From the Vietnam memorial, we intended to walk into the neighborhoods and find a place to eat. We walked and found nothing but a food truck which would have been shamed out of Philadelphia for its inventory of hot dogs and bad soft pretzels. Walking farther we found ourselves in the midst of a complex of Federal office buildings, which on a Saturday were perfectly deserted.
Further walking brought us no more options than clones of that same sorry truck from before. We finally broke down and bought candy bars, hoping the carbs would be good for something.
Soon we met my aforementioned friend at the Cascade Cafe inside the Gallery of Art, which we passed up on account of our desire for food other than coffee and gelato.
On our way to American History I remembered that my family and I had the exact same problem years ago. At that point we turned to a lone popcorn vendor to be sated. No sooner had I recalled this fate than we found ourselves facing the exact same vendor, unchallenged and unchanged in a decade. More popcorn followed, along with more hopes for the sufficiency of carbohydrates.
Finally, two hours later, after thoroughly enjoying the museum, we found ourselves at Dupont Circle for dinner. By this point my hunger pangs had turned into a roaring migraine, and ironically I found myself unable to eat. My friends ate hurriedly and we left, headed not to Stefanie's for dessert and catching up, but home for darkness and Advil.
In short, the overuse of segregation in planning the National Mall led to a shortage of viable food options, which led to a headache and a missed chance at seeing two old friends.
Though without certainty, I can guess at some of the roots of this situation. The dearth of respectable food trucks around the mall leads me to suspect that the networks which allow such vendors in Philadelphia to stock up and sell cheap food at a profit do not exist in D.C. The dearth of any commercial restaurant leads me to suspect that such a presence is deemed undesirable in the presence of such hallowed grounds and thus barred, despite its considerable utility.
Moreover, as the metro station's thronged state at 5:30 pointed out, there is virtually no good reason to be at the mall outside of monument and museum hours. In the void left by good reasons, bad reasons creep in, and I would not be surprised if the area is dangerous during such times.
Next time we will be sure to remember our peanut butter sandwiches.
City planning is a classic example of simplistic type-A thinking gone dangerously awry. Especially in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, many of the most influential ideas in planning came from people who disliked the messiness of cities. Blocks full of varieties of uses in a variety of architectural styles, used by a variety of people at a variety of times, seemed unseemly.
And so a tendency emerged, especially when planning large initiatives, to cluster similar uses together. For an example in Philadelphia, see the Avenue of the Arts. In one stretch can be found the majority of the performing arts theaters and centers in the city. It makes a certain simplistic sense in that if you want to see a performance you know where to go.
Unfortunately, such ideas do not respect the actual forces which govern what makes city life vital. Exactly the disarray of diversity which the planners scorned is necessary for economic viability, for safety, for anything but quite literally oppressive dullness.
I have read about these concepts in Jane Jacobs's seminal 1960 work on city planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But I was reminded of them this weekend when I encountered exactly these deficiencies on a visit to Washington, D.C.
My friend Pat and I set out to go sightseeing, with a mind to visit national monuments as well as museums at the Smithsonian. All of these are located in the same general area referred to as the National Mall. Here the impulse toward order and uniformity I mentioned earlier is made manifest. Whether you want to see Lincoln's or Washington's memorial, whether the Hirshhorn Museum or the Museum of American History, you go to the same general area.
I would be remiss if I did not point out the advantages to such a layout. Pat and I started at Arlington National Cemetery and were able to spurn the metro in favor of a lovely walk across the Potomac River in the emerging spring sunshine. Without effort we soon found ourselves amazed by Lincoln's second inaugural address as inscribed on the wall of his memorial, and in short order humbled by the names of Vietnam veterans on their memorial. Later we met with a friend at the National Gallery of Art, where we didn't intend to visit but where was just a short detour from our planned destination.
All of these things were made easier and happily car-independent by virtue of each place's proximity. For monuments and memorials, proximity may make a particular amount of sense, since each is not likely to occupy attention for more than half an hour, and would not draw nearly as many visitors as in isolation. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.
However, we were starving.
From the Vietnam memorial, we intended to walk into the neighborhoods and find a place to eat. We walked and found nothing but a food truck which would have been shamed out of Philadelphia for its inventory of hot dogs and bad soft pretzels. Walking farther we found ourselves in the midst of a complex of Federal office buildings, which on a Saturday were perfectly deserted.
Further walking brought us no more options than clones of that same sorry truck from before. We finally broke down and bought candy bars, hoping the carbs would be good for something.
Soon we met my aforementioned friend at the Cascade Cafe inside the Gallery of Art, which we passed up on account of our desire for food other than coffee and gelato.
On our way to American History I remembered that my family and I had the exact same problem years ago. At that point we turned to a lone popcorn vendor to be sated. No sooner had I recalled this fate than we found ourselves facing the exact same vendor, unchallenged and unchanged in a decade. More popcorn followed, along with more hopes for the sufficiency of carbohydrates.
Finally, two hours later, after thoroughly enjoying the museum, we found ourselves at Dupont Circle for dinner. By this point my hunger pangs had turned into a roaring migraine, and ironically I found myself unable to eat. My friends ate hurriedly and we left, headed not to Stefanie's for dessert and catching up, but home for darkness and Advil.
In short, the overuse of segregation in planning the National Mall led to a shortage of viable food options, which led to a headache and a missed chance at seeing two old friends.
Though without certainty, I can guess at some of the roots of this situation. The dearth of respectable food trucks around the mall leads me to suspect that the networks which allow such vendors in Philadelphia to stock up and sell cheap food at a profit do not exist in D.C. The dearth of any commercial restaurant leads me to suspect that such a presence is deemed undesirable in the presence of such hallowed grounds and thus barred, despite its considerable utility.
Moreover, as the metro station's thronged state at 5:30 pointed out, there is virtually no good reason to be at the mall outside of monument and museum hours. In the void left by good reasons, bad reasons creep in, and I would not be surprised if the area is dangerous during such times.
Next time we will be sure to remember our peanut butter sandwiches.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A First Approximation
"You say, 'I don't know how to solve an elephant, but I do know how to solve a mouse.' And so you start with a mouse and build to an elephant."I may not have mastered introductory quantum mechanics, but Professor Drndic's words have remained with me. She speaks with regard to problem solving (perturbation theory, to be precise), but I think of them now with respect to travel.
Dr. Marija Drndic, professor of physics, University of Pennsylvania
On Sunday I will leave for six weeks in Seoul, South Korea. I have studied Korean. I have some Korean friends. But by no means do I profess to understand Korea.
For the sake of this analogy, let's call Korea the elephant. And let's call Pennsylvania, my home state, the mouse.
Wikipedia affords some comparisons:
So, while Pennsylvania has about 20% more space, in Korea reside almost four times as many people. It's liable to feel a bit crowded over there. Also, to the extent that GDP per capita is a reflection of wealth, your average Pennsylvanian is a little wealthier than your average Korean.
Judging by latitude, climate should be similar, though Korea's peninsular nature and other geographic features should make for differences.
How about each locale's respective largest cities?
Yikes. Like I said, it might feel crowded.
How about a comparison of the depth of history in each place? I remember a conversation with my Korean conversation partner in which I told her the various, mostly European lineages from which I descend. She replied, "My 58th grandfather is Korean."
Hmm. Perhaps statistics will only get me so far.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A Great Commission
I saw a site in Scotland.
No, I am not speaking of the Loch Ness, nor of the loping, sheep-whisped countryside, nor of the centuries-old cobblestone Royal Mile of Edinburgh, though I saw all of these things.
This was a site you could see anywhere. And that is precisely the point.
On a commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, I sat next to a man. A man in a suit. A man at work.
It is hardly news to find someone working away from the office. That he worked electronically is similarly passe to report. What struck me was that this man did his work, not on a BlackBerry, not on an iPhone—
—but on both.
At the same time.
Is it accurate to say I was next to this man? Can we even speak of being embodied in such a case?
Granted, he made good use of each. With the iPhone and its superior display he browsed, while with the BlackBerry and its superior keyboard he communicated. But what a sacrifice for such productivity!
Truly, the Space of Flows marches onward to the ends of the Earth. Amen and amen.
No, I am not speaking of the Loch Ness, nor of the loping, sheep-whisped countryside, nor of the centuries-old cobblestone Royal Mile of Edinburgh, though I saw all of these things.
This was a site you could see anywhere. And that is precisely the point.
On a commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, I sat next to a man. A man in a suit. A man at work.
It is hardly news to find someone working away from the office. That he worked electronically is similarly passe to report. What struck me was that this man did his work, not on a BlackBerry, not on an iPhone—
—but on both.
At the same time.
Is it accurate to say I was next to this man? Can we even speak of being embodied in such a case?
Granted, he made good use of each. With the iPhone and its superior display he browsed, while with the BlackBerry and its superior keyboard he communicated. But what a sacrifice for such productivity!
Truly, the Space of Flows marches onward to the ends of the Earth. Amen and amen.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Keystone Solution
Gorgeous. The weather isn't bad, either.Thoughts while I visit California:
In Pennsylvania, weather varies primarily in time. There is stark variation across the four seasons, or across patterns from one week to the next, or even within one day. On many occasions, a look into a clear sky has led me to lock my bike in the open, only to return to it later soaking.
In California, weather varies primarily in space. The part of San Francisco in which I'm vacationing is often covered in thick fog. However, a drive of twenty minutes across the Golden Gate Bridge brings me to sun and another fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in Marin County.
Humans have developed fast and convenient ways of traveling through space. Disappointingly, they have developed no way to travel through time. Surely this is one reason real estate in California is so sought after.
Pennsylvania struggles with losing people, especially college graduates, to the Sunshine Belt. Surely the best way to alleviate this problem would be to invent a time machine.
Governor Rendell? Anyone?
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