Brain dead 'blobs' will have no need for libraries.Well, it saves a trip to the library, I guess.
On my recent Ireland trip, I planned a route to "Black Valley". If you look on any map, there is literally nowhere else to go. I still ended up on some random farm having to turn around
My VW system is the same. I ask it to do something, it has a think including a little while light going across the dashboard below the windscreen. Then it sulks and switches itself off. Can't blame it. Ask a Belfast man to say power shower.......and you get par shar the wer syllable is not pronounced. When I had my first graduate job in Gray's Thurrock the typing pool had audio typists. I sent them tapes to be transcribed and what came back typed bore no relation to what I wanted and generally made no sense which indicated they didn't proofread anything.........I resorted to longhand
Get an UberWhy not.
The bikes almost ride themselves.
Sat Navs do all the routing.
Might as well take the last bit of thinking out of the equation too.
Romantic Wapping? Suppose so but I'd say that was on the nose for an old twat like meThere was a time ...
when a man could ride a motorcycle simply because he wanted to ride a motorcycle. He needed petrol, a reasonably sound machine (a 31 guineas Tiger Cub!) and somewhere to go, though the last requirement was negotiable.
The road provided the rest. There was sunlight, wind, the smell of fields, burned hydrocarbons, rain and the drying off bit smelling like a wet dog in some road side cafe as well as the small satisfaction of knowing that for a few hours or weeks nobody knew where you were and you were free really enjoying new sights, sounds and smells. Remember those times? No event required a warning tone, a coloured line on a screen or a well meaning mate with a download. Today we believe that we have improved the experience considerably... or have we?... We are told where to go (!) , often by someone we haven't even met and, presumably, whether we are enjoying ourselves correctly...
The motorcycle has become a convenient platform for attaching devices whose functions few of us could ever explain and in whose absence, until recently, nobody considered a problem. Now, rather than riding, we struggle endlessly trying to get all those devices to talk to each other and end up mostly nervous wreck;. but they are fitted with great enthusiasm at phenomenal costs on grossly overpriced machines. It seems we have become marketing victims, yet we display them with quiet pride and remove them only when the next motorcycle arrives, at which point they are transferred like the insignia of a regiment. It is difficult to say whether the rider owns the equipment or the equipment owns the rider. Perhaps this is progress? to travel further while seeing less, to know your position at every moment while having no particular reason to be there nor any understanding of how you got there and to spend the journey surrounded by information while forgetting the peculiar pleasure of simply going somewhere.
Once, a motorcycle offered the possibility of disappearing. Now it seems increasingly designed to make sure you never lose contact with anything at all.
Thank goodness I belong to the 'older' generation where you kept well worn maps filled with fantastic memories.
although I will confess to a mild bit of hypocrisy here as I do use a Satnav on my GS (Gone Shopping!) connected only to orbiting satellites. Quiet bliss!
I'll get my coat...feel free to bring on the
