A CNN video news story about a truck that was 13’ in height hitting a tunnel that has a 12’ max height limit.  He passed by several signs that said the max height is 12’ (as a truck driver you better darn well know how high your load is) he even ignored a flashing warning light that was telling him his load was too high for the tunnel.

So, what happened?  Well, what you would expect to happen.. he wrecked the trailer and got himself stuck.  But WHY did he go down such an obviously well marked road that was telling him he shouldn’t?  “My GPS said I should go this way.”

Well, apparently.. they know a less than 1th of a mile savings when using “Shortest Distance”.

This summer I have seen a huge increase in out of state traffic going up my 20mph residential road to get to a main road when they could have gone less than .1 mile and gotten on the same road.  I know they were following GPS unit directions because 1) all out of state 2) doing the speed limit or slower 3) they all have GPS units stuck to their windows and turned on.

I have tried it with two GPS units I have, using shortest distance it will take you up the residential road, using shortest time you go the main intersection and go up that way.

They are gonna hate it when we finally get the road closed off…

Last Thursday was a good day for navigational related comics it seems.  Well, at least in my paper it was.

First up was an Argyle Sweater comic, playing on the old adage “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

And next up in the same day was a Beetle Bailey comic, showing that the best navigational aids, are sometimes the oldest.

Well, Shawn Gano has created my new favorite use of WWJava: GPS Inspector.  It is a Java based application that displays a connected GPS receiver’s signal data.  In general it is a pretty nice application in it’s own right, but with his addition of WWJava for the mapping display of the GPS location and track data, makes it even nicer.  I have used other similar tools before, but this is the first one I have used that has an included map display.

I may have this running and tracing my drive down to DC tomorrow (If I remember.. I am leaving at 2am to go down)

Not really mentioned in the news, no real announcements on their web site.. but since I went through a first round interview I do know that starting this spring the Census Bureau will be using GPS units in PDAs to accurately map all addresses for the 2010 census.  This could make the next major update to the Tiger data the most accurate maps out there.

The map section of the test was interesting, you really should have an understanding of map reading (which is a dying art anymore).  Now, to just wait till the end of the month (but they only contact you when they are going to hire you).

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story where some Carnegie Mellon students and a professor are working on a  project to use GPS units and Telemerty devices to enhance football officiating by providing more exact readings on where the ball was at all times and when it was caught and by whom.  This technology could also help with training by allowing coaches to analize how their players throw and catch.

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Imagine watching a football game in WorldWind…. or Google Earth!

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