GPS

"Right turn in one point five miles."
"Recalculating route." (For when I've dorked it up or it's gotten confused. It's not always my fault.)
"When convenient, make a legal U-turn."
"Approaching destination on the left."
"You have arrived."

I want it to yell at me. That would be very funny. She's always so calm when I go off the path to hit a drive-through or something.

Yanno, I have OnStar, but I've never used it. One time, last summer, I got a little teensy bit turned around in New Brunswick, of all places (I went to Rutgers -New Brunwick campus, you'd think I'd know that area...)

It freaks me out when OnStar talks to me - it comes out of the radio. It's weird when you talk to the radio and it talks back.

In 1 mile, make right.
Drive .1 mile to destination on left.
Arriving at destination.

Whenever I'm driving home, and I finally get to a road that I know and try to go off and take a different route home, it drives me crazy: "recalculating.... recalculating.... recalculating..." I constantly talk to it and tell it to shut up.

One time my husband had it in the car with him and I called him and wondered who was with him. Our GPS is a "she" with a very sexy voice.

Mine has a touch screen. You put in the address and it calculates three different routes for you to choose.

Rainy Night said:

When a GPS system "talks" what sort of phrases does it say?

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Huh???



OOOOOOHHHHHH, you mean one of those computer navigation things with internal maps and stuff, as well as a GPS receiver that tells it the current position and date and time from sattelite data. I think of GPS as just the receiver thingie, but I suppose word meanings change as new things are made. A transistor was originally the name for an electronic device, but in the '60's that word became the name for a small portable battery-powered radio that used those newfangled devices. I;ve heard people use CPU for a box with a hard drive, CD/DVD R/W drive, power supply, fan, video interface, RAM, and a, uh, CPU.

But anyway (digression and rant over), I bet you could Google navigation systems, find a few manufacturers, look at some models, download the manuals in .pdf format, and look through then to see all the things they say...

I even found a manual for MY GPS, but they didn't talk back when this one was made...
http://www.usersmanualguide.com/icom/marine__navigation/gp-22

Jersey Chick said:

...It freaks me out when OnStar talks to me - it comes out of the radio. It's weird when you talk to the radio and it talks back.

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There's a name for this disorder, but I forget what it is. Please consult your psychologist.

Also cool, change the language. I changed a friend's car to French. The speaker was a guy.
He was *this* close to flirting.
Spanish and English options on that car (A Merc, maybe) had a female speaker.

"Please make a legal u-turn"
"In one half mile, turn left"
"Route guidance cannot be provided in this area" (did I tell you that we live in the boonies?)

And, the coolest thing - my son's gps actually knows what the speed limit is suposed to be for Interstates and for hiways. If he goes more that 5 mph over the limit, his says:
"Caution. Speed limit is __"

And, if there is scheduled road construction in the area, his will warn him before he gets there and offer him a different route.

Depending on the model, you can actually select the type of voice that speaks, Male, Female and the accent it speaks with AMerican English, British English. We have a Garmin, and the voices that are able to 'read' the street names, also have names themselves.

Thus, if you pick "Susan" as the voice, she will talk to you in American English.

We have a Brit accent on ours - it's very distinguished. Its also funny to hear it mis-pronounce all the spanish words for street names here in California.

"El Camino Real" - which should be "Ell Cuh -MEENo Ree-AL"

comes out "El CAM -ino Reel"

Funny

WriteKnight said:

We have a Brit accent on ours - it's very distinguished. Its also funny to hear it mis-pronounce all the spanish words for street names here in California.

"El Camino Real" - which should be "Ell Cuh -MEENo Ree-AL"

comes out "El CAM -ino Reel"

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I can't believe I'm not the only one who does this.

My dad calls his Betty. Well, actually he puts a certain alliterative curse word in front. Does anyone else name theirs?

Antelope Freeway, one mile...
Antelope Freeway, one half mile...
Antelope Freeway, one quarter mile...
Antelope Freeway, one eighth mile...
Antelope Freeway, one sixteenth mile...
Antelope Freeway, one thirty-second mile...
Antelope Freeway, one sixty-fourth mile...
Antelope Freeway, one one-hundred-twenty-eight mile...
Antelope Freeway, one two-hundred-fifty-sixth mile...

(Heh... Did Firesign Theater invent GPS?)

Dale

Firesign Theatre

"We're all Bozos on this bus."

I've heard you can get them with Bart Simpson voices and such these days...

Rainy Night said:

Just curious if the boonies you're referring to are South Dakota... My wife is Lakota and most (all) of her family came from that area.

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I was born in SD, but haven't lived there since I was 6.

hammerklavier said:

My dad calls his Betty. Well, actually he puts a certain alliterative curse word in front. Does anyone else name theirs?

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We named our's Phyllis. I wanted to call her Mark because the truck is a Mark LT, but hubby said that was "stupid". So now I call her Phyllis.