"William Black" kirjoitti
.. .

"Markku Grönroos" wrote in message
i...

I demonstrated in the earlier text (which is most sane indeed) a device
which tells the direction (and effectively distance) to any destination.
Because directions are relative to a destination rather than some
universal object - shall we say the North - they are very easy to read on
the maps which don't support routing. When the direction is 90 degrees
("east", east is east only when you are going to north) in clockwise
unless one wants to introduce negative directions which means that the
destination is where the straight line points to - on your right.
Similarly when the straight line (between you and the destination) points
to left it means - yes, the destination is right there. Whenever the
declination is whether less than 90 degrees or more than 270 degrees, you
are approaching the target. Otherwise you drawing away.

Ever driven in an Indian city?

I have never visited India.

Well.

Reading that obviously not...

Not that it's something I ever want to do again...

My reference doesn't take into account of driving. Tourists seldom drive
cars in India. For all good reason so. The explanation covers situations in
which tourists build and maintain their own routing to destinations. In self
driven cars it is difficult (few drive anyways). In taxis drivers typically
know the way. And when they don't know, they cannot read maps anyways. Buses
take you where ever on fixed routes (passengers make a decision only about
at which bus stop they'll get out).

So, by far the most typical example about a tourist who controls his way
(like Frankie boy) is Fjodor who plies the streets of Jaipur on foot. Just
beware of cow manure.

Last summer I leased a car for almost a week in Egypt. I had a garmin
plotter which supports routing. Unfortunately Navteq who supplies maps to
Garmin doesn't cover Egypt by it's detailed maps but one very small scale
general map and it does not support routing. In Sinai it didn't matter much
because the road network is so scarce and hence obvious. In the Delta region
it was all different. Dense network of roads and directions given only in
Arabic. One day I left from Ismalya town along the Suez Canal to Alexandria.
I had a plan to drive via Zagazig and Tanta (a bit more than 300
kilometres). Well, just before Zagazig I choose a wrong turn and ended up to
a village off track. In Zagazig I missed the right turn to left (Northwest
to Tanta) but continued to north. By reading my plotter I soon realized that
I was on the Al-Mansura road instead of the planned Tanta road. So, I took a
wrong road but I wasn't lost, thank's to the plotter. I decided to drive all
the way to Al-Mansura and from there to Tanta and Alex. I left Ismalya in
early morning and I reached the city limits of Alex around 16:00. Pretty
slow but very illuminating a journey....