A Child of the Magenta Line
Technology is continually changing, that's for sure. In modern times the rate of change has been changing too - it's been accelerating. In college I was issued both a slide rule and a calculator (guess which one I used more?). During my times in the Navy I had to learn semaphore and Morse code, but that was immediately obsolete with VHF, and HF radio communications. As a pilot I read about flying the null and actually did fly VOR's, but the first was gone even before I pushed a throttle forward and the second is withering as I type, replaced by GPS. Even typing has gone through the flux-gate. I have a MANUAL typewriter with ribbon and tack-a tack-a keys and a bell at the end of the line, which was replaced by a thermal dot matrix printer, then a computer keyboard and now a touch screen txt-ing smart phone.
Where does it end?
Is it worth it?
The speedometer on my motorcycle starts with a gear attached to the drive shaft, which spins a cable in a housing, which spins a disc with a magnet, which affects another disc and magnet which moves a needle over the instrument face with numbers. The only 'magic' is the magnetic connection (so you don't break the needle when you move backwards). For distance that same cable drives a gear which rotates numbers on a column. It will count backwards.
If you know a motorcycle rider, you know that two of the most important topics of conversation are Speed and Distance. The problem is that that mechanical connection between the rear wheel and the speedometer has 'slop', sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and there's reader error as well. So two riders can travel together exactly the same rate and one will claim to have been going 80mph and the other may claim 85mph and both will be telling the truth, as best they can.
Put a GPS on the bike and see what happens.
Now the bragging rights of traveling 85mph all day long becomes 77mph, and a little of the wind has been taken out of our hero's sails. Along with that are the little cookies which the GPS leaves behind as a TrackBAck feature (so Hanzel and Grettle can find their way home). Goose the throttle up a little bit and do 85 on the GPS and get pulled over by State Trooper Rock Hammer and try to explain that you were only doing 77 in a 75 and watch him highlight a cookie reading 85 on the GPS.
Tag, you're it!
Even more, put an emergency locator, like SPOT, on your bike to keep folks at home appraised of your location and voila! Not only is your speed available, but when you decide to visit a location not approved by she-who-must-be-feared, it is impossible to sweep over the GPS track with a bushy branch and claim innocence.
Don't ask me how I know.
Whatever you may have paid for your device, it's screen will never be the size of a folding road map, and so another small problem, no pun intended, is that to see where you are you have to cut away where you could go. I mean, the scale is so large that you see but a postage stamp map and can easily pass by the World's Largest Ball of String or Biggest Frying Pan and never see it though it was only 3 miles to your side!
Then there's the idea of sharing your travels with friends.
Oh, the Internet is a wonderful place full of information and communication. There's email and facebook and blogspot. There's also cell phone coverage for person to person calls, texting, and tweeting. But the thing is, how do you cover them all? And more importantly, do you really want to?
My daughter likes to send me a message via my facebook wall. So I get a note posted there, but then I get an email telling me to look at my facebook wall. So why couldn't she just send me the email herself? Or, since she's doing this on her smart phone, why doesn't she just call and speak to me directly?
These things puzzle me as I ride along at 77mph.
The Magenta Line?
In recent pilot training one of the grey heads who was tasked to instruct us in the newest forms of navigation (now there's another subject for discussion: why are those tasked to teach the NEW-est usually the OLD-est?) coined the phrase. Early aviators flew above roads or tracks or along rivers. To identify a town they would circle a water tower proudly announcing MEMPHIS, HOME OF THE FIGHTING ELVISES, or even (gasp) turn off the engine to shout to stupefied ground walkers for directions. Radio came along and we flew invisible beams between stations with little relation to ground features. We no longer open maps to plan a route, select navigation radio stations, tune them in, identify them by Morse code, and fly a compass bearing or radial. The navigation system does all that for us, and checks with GPS as well, reducing our aviation maps of aerial highways down to a single magenta line which the autopilot tracks with plus or minus a tenth of a mile accuracy. Maps? We've got 'em, but they are as pristine as when they came out of the mailer.
Hey, Captain, what's that lake on the left?
Uh..........?
I am a child of the Magenta Line.
Where does it end?
Is it worth it?
The speedometer on my motorcycle starts with a gear attached to the drive shaft, which spins a cable in a housing, which spins a disc with a magnet, which affects another disc and magnet which moves a needle over the instrument face with numbers. The only 'magic' is the magnetic connection (so you don't break the needle when you move backwards). For distance that same cable drives a gear which rotates numbers on a column. It will count backwards.
If you know a motorcycle rider, you know that two of the most important topics of conversation are Speed and Distance. The problem is that that mechanical connection between the rear wheel and the speedometer has 'slop', sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and there's reader error as well. So two riders can travel together exactly the same rate and one will claim to have been going 80mph and the other may claim 85mph and both will be telling the truth, as best they can.
Put a GPS on the bike and see what happens.
Now the bragging rights of traveling 85mph all day long becomes 77mph, and a little of the wind has been taken out of our hero's sails. Along with that are the little cookies which the GPS leaves behind as a TrackBAck feature (so Hanzel and Grettle can find their way home). Goose the throttle up a little bit and do 85 on the GPS and get pulled over by State Trooper Rock Hammer and try to explain that you were only doing 77 in a 75 and watch him highlight a cookie reading 85 on the GPS.
Tag, you're it!
Even more, put an emergency locator, like SPOT, on your bike to keep folks at home appraised of your location and voila! Not only is your speed available, but when you decide to visit a location not approved by she-who-must-be-feared, it is impossible to sweep over the GPS track with a bushy branch and claim innocence.
Don't ask me how I know.
Whatever you may have paid for your device, it's screen will never be the size of a folding road map, and so another small problem, no pun intended, is that to see where you are you have to cut away where you could go. I mean, the scale is so large that you see but a postage stamp map and can easily pass by the World's Largest Ball of String or Biggest Frying Pan and never see it though it was only 3 miles to your side!
Then there's the idea of sharing your travels with friends.
Oh, the Internet is a wonderful place full of information and communication. There's email and facebook and blogspot. There's also cell phone coverage for person to person calls, texting, and tweeting. But the thing is, how do you cover them all? And more importantly, do you really want to?
My daughter likes to send me a message via my facebook wall. So I get a note posted there, but then I get an email telling me to look at my facebook wall. So why couldn't she just send me the email herself? Or, since she's doing this on her smart phone, why doesn't she just call and speak to me directly?
These things puzzle me as I ride along at 77mph.
The Magenta Line?
In recent pilot training one of the grey heads who was tasked to instruct us in the newest forms of navigation (now there's another subject for discussion: why are those tasked to teach the NEW-est usually the OLD-est?) coined the phrase. Early aviators flew above roads or tracks or along rivers. To identify a town they would circle a water tower proudly announcing MEMPHIS, HOME OF THE FIGHTING ELVISES, or even (gasp) turn off the engine to shout to stupefied ground walkers for directions. Radio came along and we flew invisible beams between stations with little relation to ground features. We no longer open maps to plan a route, select navigation radio stations, tune them in, identify them by Morse code, and fly a compass bearing or radial. The navigation system does all that for us, and checks with GPS as well, reducing our aviation maps of aerial highways down to a single magenta line which the autopilot tracks with plus or minus a tenth of a mile accuracy. Maps? We've got 'em, but they are as pristine as when they came out of the mailer.
Hey, Captain, what's that lake on the left?
Uh..........?
I am a child of the Magenta Line.
posted by Randy Masters at 11:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home