When I used to teach people how to rock climb and they needed to find a foothold I’d say something like, “There is one near your knee to your left.”. Some would start to move their right foot. Then I’d say, “No your other left”.
Way back in my college days, I knew a guy named Bob (friend of friend). Bob had a fairly large tattoo on his inside left forearm that said “I’m Bob.”
I always found it fairly funny the few times I ran into him… until I found out exactly why he had it. Turns out he had a pretty bad heroin habit, and often forgot who he even was after benders. So he got that tattoo.
You can kind of guess how the story turned out a few years later.
@haydesigner A young friend of my daughter’s proudly showed off a new tattoo. His last name was “John” and he had “JOHN” on his bicep. He asked me what I thought. I said, “Well, usually guys get the name of a girl tattooed on them and if I didn’t know what your last name was…” His face fell. He had not thought of that. I told him to go back and have them put “I’m” on the front of it, but he said it had hurt too bad, and he wasn’t going to do anymore.
A friend and I used to go on short trips together and we were both bad about turning left and right or east and west when quick decisions needed to be made. We found that saying “your side” or “my side” was the best option.
@heartny not directly related but if you find videos of rally drivers in competition, there is the navigator that has the route map and tells driver of every turn coming up. but they are going 100mph on dirt roads.
@heartny That is what I told the student dentist who had trouble with my left and right when she was facing me. I told her to say, “Turn your head towards me” or “Turn your head away from me”. I noticed when I saw her this time she was doing that. Far fewer turning my head in the opposite direction from what she wanted.
I’ve never been one who’d be described as “directionally challenged”, though I know a LOT of people who are. I’ve spent my entire life in rural MN & ND, so it’s just natural to me to know my NSEW “cardinal” directions, that was until I travelled to Montreal, Quebec for work. All signs are in French only, and I knew ZERO of the language other than maybe omelette, or crepe. It wasn’t until I was up there for 2-3 days that I made the connections on the road signs…“Le Nord”, “Le Sud”, “Le’Est”, and “Le’Ouest”…Combine that with very French boulevard/route (avenue/street) names…Talk about a stranger in a strange land!! So, I guess if this girl needs the help, she’s now got it, for eternity…it just seems like there’d be much easier ways to accomplish it.
@tohar1 As a dyslexic person I learned the easy way to remember left was to hold your hand in front of you then open your thumb and pointer finger if it looks like the letter “L” it’s your left hand no tattoo needed
Back in the olden days before GPS, my ex would drive and I would navigate. At least half the time, if we needed to turn left, I would say “Turn right” but point left and vice versa. He quickly learned that the direction I pointed was always accurate, regardless of what I said.
IDK. The county roads and state roads and highways are numbered a certain way. I kinda look at Google maps, maybe remember some exit numbers and just go. I’m going on this direction. Then need to go in this other direction.
If I am familiar with the destination I’ll get there regardless of starting point. If it’s a specific like someones address in a city I’ll remember that last bit.
We used to buy my dad the lastest Rand McNally for Christmas then Microsoft Street smarts and trips cause all the cross country Summer trips
@unksol Yeah, IIRC much of Indiana is mostly flat, like eastern South Dakota where my wife grew up. Much of the SD roads are laid out North-South or East-West and the intersections are right angles and mostly evenly spaced out. Like one huge grid. I’d be driving along a straight SD road and my wife (navigating) would say something like “You’ll need to make a right turn in about 5 miles.”
Big difference from what I am used to as a (virtual) native of NW Oregon, where most of the roads wind and twist around mountains, hills and water features.
@macromeh really curvey stuff can get you. Lots of lakes to drive around if you make bad turn. I hate those stupid windy 25 mph cause we packed a bunch of houses around a lake roads.
Dad was all maps hauling a camper cross country/ lots of niffy off the path travels stops.
I’ve been over the Rockies to Utah and back the southern route. For long trips it’s not a big deal. Cause drive the highway. Fiddly bits at the end/stops you want some details remembered.
@macromeh@unksol I’ve gotten lost in a foothills neighborhood near me just because all the stupid roads go around in circles and branch off in crazy switchbacks and such!
@unksol
Like me then, you’d probably hate Boston, where there are a lot of dead-ends, one-ways, and roundabouts [or rotaries as they call them].
Also the shear number of vehicles and rudeness of their drivers was absolutely stunning.
It was a nightmare trying to learn the quickest routes to each new store I worked at there- this was before the “Big Dig” that in some ways simplified their expressways, but in some ways worsened the surface roads [at least as I recall it from our last trip there in the late 90’s.]
I almost forgot to mention the very steep hills, which could become almost impassable in inclement weather.
Rochester, NY is somewhat better, but still has a lot of one-way and dead-end streets, though less roundabouts.
@PhysAssist@unksol Boston roads are originally just paved grazing paths. As the cost and bureaucracy of changing city plans are impossible, the city layered on extra roads and pathways.
@pakopako@PhysAssist yes. That’s a good example of end of route fidly stuff. I’d probably turn on the gps at that point. Cause I’ve never been to Boston. Don’t know the destination. And I hate driving in cities anyway.
Portland Chicago st Louis… Just id rather not. Haven’t driven through new York/new Jersey /Boston but it would stress me little
@Kyeh@macromeh@unksol roads going around in circles are common in the mountains/hilly areas. It’s like that in Pittsburgh, PA. Also when I lived in northern Idaho my street dead ended at a 300 or so foot cliff where you could only turn left to go down or right to climb higher. Then once you went down, you went around the cliff, went back up the hill and continued on that street. The first time I thought I could go straight through I was surprised. No parachute on my car.
@Kyeh@macromeh@unksol Well there are switchbacks but unlike in flat areas where often roads are laid out in parallel, in non-flat areas and in some other flat areas you can’t get there from here going in straight lines as you have roads meandering all over the place, lots of dead ends, etc.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@macromeh yeah that makes sense. We don’t have many “dead” ends here cause hills not mountains. It’s a semi grid at a county level. Even the windy ones generally head in the same direction. Vs road that gets you to one place.
Never had a problem crossing the mountains. But the real fiddly bits at the end. I’d probably pull up the gps these days
I took up a hobby, it is called orienteering, I could read the map quite well, and find out where the different points were that you had to go by and get a punch (the punch proved that you got to that station.)
@mycya4me Carry a paper punch and you could cheat then.
Back when I used to take people camping for a living I’d visually memorize the map, could rotate it in my head, could take an imaginary compass bearing off of the map in my head and be reasonably close… And I am the person whom if you give me three more than turns to make I am lost as have I forgotten the directions. But follow a map, that I am good at.
If I learned an area by a map first I can operate on north and south. If I didn’t then I need left and right if the sun isn’t out. My sense of direction sucks without a lot of attention to detail.
@Kidsandliz You should try orienteering, it is fun. BTW they have a special paper punch with different designs at each station. So you can’t cheat!
BUT I agree with you "And I am the person whom if you give me three more than turns to make I am lost as have I forgotten the directions_ as I am the same way. Don’t tell me, Write it down & I will put it into the GPS or Map.
BTW before Covid I was on a Job I was told to go to 8 different sites in Boston, Ma. NO GPS. I would prefer to drive in Washington, DC, Rush Hour when it is Raining! than Boston at any time!
@mycya4me I’d always write down the directions. Always. My kid had a better sense of directions than I did and one time when I knew the way (it usually takes me 6 or 7 times reasonably close together to remember how to get somewhere) my kid was wrong she kept arguing with me that I had made the wrong turn. I had so much fun with her (she was an obnoxious teen then) when she was wrong and I was right. Rare occasion with directions but hey that time I knew I was right.
@Kidsandliz@mycya4me orienting sounds like back country map navigation. Were you using a compass? If you have a good map and a gauge and a compass. And your starting point. And know your stride length with adjustments for uphill/downhill/flat. It’s very doable.
In a forest with checkpoints so you can’t get far off it’s kinda fun.
Is def been a while though. If I were ever attempting it in a wilderness I’d def want some peaks/bluffs I could see to triangulate
Yep, my local events have 3 levels, Beginners, 2nd level, Advance/Pro.
Check it out online,
Most of the time I don’t use a compass. 1st/2nd level. I just read the map!
When I used to teach people how to rock climb and they needed to find a foothold I’d say something like, “There is one near your knee to your left.”. Some would start to move their right foot. Then I’d say, “No your other left”.
Way back in my college days, I knew a guy named Bob (friend of friend). Bob had a fairly large tattoo on his inside left forearm that said “I’m Bob.”
I always found it fairly funny the few times I ran into him… until I found out exactly why he had it. Turns out he had a pretty bad heroin habit, and often forgot who he even was after benders. So he got that tattoo.
You can kind of guess how the story turned out a few years later.
@haydesigner HHS nominee?
@haydesigner @mehcuda67
Or FAA chief?
@haydesigner head of the CIA/ NSA
@haydesigner A young friend of my daughter’s proudly showed off a new tattoo. His last name was “John” and he had “JOHN” on his bicep. He asked me what I thought. I said, “Well, usually guys get the name of a girl tattooed on them and if I didn’t know what your last name was…” His face fell. He had not thought of that. I told him to go back and have them put “I’m” on the front of it, but he said it had hurt too bad, and he wasn’t going to do anymore.
A friend and I used to go on short trips together and we were both bad about turning left and right or east and west when quick decisions needed to be made. We found that saying “your side” or “my side” was the best option.
@heartny not directly related but if you find videos of rally drivers in competition, there is the navigator that has the route map and tells driver of every turn coming up. but they are going 100mph on dirt roads.
@heartny Oddly, my wife has an excellent sense of compass directions (N,S,E,W) but occasionally mixes up left and right.
@heartny @pmarin
…and those really fast boats that race in twisty turny canals- but their motor noise is too loud for speech, so they use hand signals.
I’m sorry, but i don’t know what the races are actually called, because I only know of this from seeing youtube videos.
@heartny port over, starboard home (posh)
Nautical terms are otherworldly
@heartny That is what I told the student dentist who had trouble with my left and right when she was facing me. I told her to say, “Turn your head towards me” or “Turn your head away from me”. I noticed when I saw her this time she was doing that. Far fewer turning my head in the opposite direction from what she wanted.
I’ve never been one who’d be described as “directionally challenged”, though I know a LOT of people who are. I’ve spent my entire life in rural MN & ND, so it’s just natural to me to know my NSEW “cardinal” directions, that was until I travelled to Montreal, Quebec for work. All signs are in French only, and I knew ZERO of the language other than maybe omelette, or crepe. It wasn’t until I was up there for 2-3 days that I made the connections on the road signs…“Le Nord”, “Le Sud”, “Le’Est”, and “Le’Ouest”…Combine that with very French boulevard/route (avenue/street) names…Talk about a stranger in a strange land!! So, I guess if this girl needs the help, she’s now got it, for eternity…it just seems like there’d be much easier ways to accomplish it.
@tohar1 As a dyslexic person I learned the easy way to remember left was to hold your hand in front of you then open your thumb and pointer finger if it looks like the letter “L” it’s your left hand no tattoo needed
@tohar1
I can’t begin to count the number of tattoos of compasses with the cardinal directions incorrect that I’ve seen, again- mostly on the youtube.
We watch a lot of FluffeeTalks and Linz bad tattoo videos.
@jkawaguchi @tohar1 I’d never heard that but it’s so clever!
@PhysAssist @tohar1 That eyeball one is outrageously creepy
@Kyeh @tohar1
Yup!
…and I don’t think it was the worst we’ve seen either.
@Kyeh @PhysAssist @tohar1 Comic Sans gets my vote.
@blaineg @Kyeh @tohar1
Actually, I’ve always liked it, and never understood the hate.
But then, I like Nickleback too.
@jkawaguchi I write with my right hand. So I think about grabbing a pen and that is my right. Would not work for a southpaw but is my go to.
Back in the olden days before GPS, my ex would drive and I would navigate. At least half the time, if we needed to turn left, I would say “Turn right” but point left and vice versa. He quickly learned that the direction I pointed was always accurate, regardless of what I said.
@lisagd that’s weird, but cool that you worked out a system.
IDK. The county roads and state roads and highways are numbered a certain way. I kinda look at Google maps, maybe remember some exit numbers and just go. I’m going on this direction. Then need to go in this other direction.
If I am familiar with the destination I’ll get there regardless of starting point. If it’s a specific like someones address in a city I’ll remember that last bit.
We used to buy my dad the lastest Rand McNally for Christmas then Microsoft Street smarts and trips cause all the cross country Summer trips
@unksol Yeah, IIRC much of Indiana is mostly flat, like eastern South Dakota where my wife grew up. Much of the SD roads are laid out North-South or East-West and the intersections are right angles and mostly evenly spaced out. Like one huge grid. I’d be driving along a straight SD road and my wife (navigating) would say something like “You’ll need to make a right turn in about 5 miles.”
Big difference from what I am used to as a (virtual) native of NW Oregon, where most of the roads wind and twist around mountains, hills and water features.
@macromeh really curvey stuff can get you. Lots of lakes to drive around if you make bad turn. I hate those stupid windy 25 mph cause we packed a bunch of houses around a lake roads.
Dad was all maps hauling a camper cross country/ lots of niffy off the path travels stops.
I’ve been over the Rockies to Utah and back the southern route. For long trips it’s not a big deal. Cause drive the highway. Fiddly bits at the end/stops you want some details remembered.
@macromeh @unksol I’ve gotten lost in a foothills neighborhood near me just because all the stupid roads go around in circles and branch off in crazy switchbacks and such!
@unksol
Like me then, you’d probably hate Boston, where there are a lot of dead-ends, one-ways, and roundabouts [or rotaries as they call them].
Also the shear number of vehicles and rudeness of their drivers was absolutely stunning.
It was a nightmare trying to learn the quickest routes to each new store I worked at there- this was before the “Big Dig” that in some ways simplified their expressways, but in some ways worsened the surface roads [at least as I recall it from our last trip there in the late 90’s.]
I almost forgot to mention the very steep hills, which could become almost impassable in inclement weather.
Rochester, NY is somewhat better, but still has a lot of one-way and dead-end streets, though less roundabouts.
@PhysAssist @unksol Boston roads are originally just paved grazing paths. As the cost and bureaucracy of changing city plans are impossible, the city layered on extra roads and pathways.
@pakopako @PhysAssist yes. That’s a good example of end of route fidly stuff. I’d probably turn on the gps at that point. Cause I’ve never been to Boston. Don’t know the destination. And I hate driving in cities anyway.
Portland Chicago st Louis… Just id rather not. Haven’t driven through new York/new Jersey /Boston but it would stress me little
@pakopako @unksol
Totally agree.
@Kyeh @macromeh @unksol roads going around in circles are common in the mountains/hilly areas. It’s like that in Pittsburgh, PA. Also when I lived in northern Idaho my street dead ended at a 300 or so foot cliff where you could only turn left to go down or right to climb higher. Then once you went down, you went around the cliff, went back up the hill and continued on that street. The first time I thought I could go straight through I was surprised. No parachute on my car.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh isn’t that just switchback roads? Pretty common to work up a slope. Or am I missing something?def not common for me to drive
@Kyeh @macromeh @unksol Well there are switchbacks but unlike in flat areas where often roads are laid out in parallel, in non-flat areas and in some other flat areas you can’t get there from here going in straight lines as you have roads meandering all over the place, lots of dead ends, etc.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh yeah that makes sense. We don’t have many “dead” ends here cause hills not mountains. It’s a semi grid at a county level. Even the windy ones generally head in the same direction. Vs road that gets you to one place.
Never had a problem crossing the mountains. But the real fiddly bits at the end. I’d probably pull up the gps these days
I took up a hobby, it is called orienteering, I could read the map quite well, and find out where the different points were that you had to go by and get a punch (the punch proved that you got to that station.)
@mycya4me Seems a bit violent, but to each his own…
@macromeh Unless it is fruit punch, which is more fattening but less violent.
@macromeh @rockblossom @mycya4me
@mycya4me It is like a single Hole punch. You have a Paper Map with a Chart. You make the Mark/Punch by the #4 on the chart.
@mycya4me Carry a paper punch and you could cheat then.
Back when I used to take people camping for a living I’d visually memorize the map, could rotate it in my head, could take an imaginary compass bearing off of the map in my head and be reasonably close… And I am the person whom if you give me three more than turns to make I am lost as have I forgotten the directions. But follow a map, that I am good at.
If I learned an area by a map first I can operate on north and south. If I didn’t then I need left and right if the sun isn’t out. My sense of direction sucks without a lot of attention to detail.
@Kidsandliz You should try orienteering, it is fun. BTW they have a special paper punch with different designs at each station. So you can’t cheat!
BUT I agree with you "And I am the person whom if you give me three more than turns to make I am lost as have I forgotten the directions_ as I am the same way. Don’t tell me, Write it down & I will put it into the GPS or Map.
BTW before Covid I was on a Job I was told to go to 8 different sites in Boston, Ma. NO GPS. I would prefer to drive in Washington, DC, Rush Hour when it is Raining! than Boston at any time!
@mycya4me I’d always write down the directions. Always. My kid had a better sense of directions than I did and one time when I knew the way (it usually takes me 6 or 7 times reasonably close together to remember how to get somewhere) my kid was wrong she kept arguing with me that I had made the wrong turn. I had so much fun with her (she was an obnoxious teen then) when she was wrong and I was right. Rare occasion with directions but hey that time I knew I was right.
@Kidsandliz @mycya4me orienting sounds like back country map navigation. Were you using a compass? If you have a good map and a gauge and a compass. And your starting point. And know your stride length with adjustments for uphill/downhill/flat. It’s very doable.
In a forest with checkpoints so you can’t get far off it’s kinda fun.
Is def been a while though. If I were ever attempting it in a wilderness I’d def want some peaks/bluffs I could see to triangulate
Yep, my local events have 3 levels, Beginners, 2nd level, Advance/Pro.
Check it out online,
Most of the time I don’t use a compass. 1st/2nd level. I just read the map!