I *mostly* heart my GPS

This past Memorial Day weekend, I went on a long, awesome five-day road trip. One of the things that made it go really smoothly was the fact that we bought a cheap GPS system. Now, I know that many people have these in their cars, but I am totally new to this technology, so this is exciting stuff for me. Here's how my GPS works: the GPS itself is this hockey-puck like thing with a USB cable coming out of it. I hung the GPS on that thing above your head in your car that you hang onto when you're scared, because that way it can connect to the satellite more easily.

The USB cable goes into your laptop, which is loaded with GPS software. When the software connects to the satellite, it sees exactly where you are on the road to within, like, 15 feet. You can literally see yourself driving on the map. Then, you pick a destination and type in the address, and it tells you (w/ voice prompts) all the maneuvers you need to get to your destination, as you are driving, with plenty of time to react.

Is this something I bought that I love? No. Unlike this and this, the GPS is something that I bought that I merely *like*. But I do like it a lot. Here are the specific things that I like:

· It optimizes your route to get you there the fastest, or in the shortest distance (whichever you choose)

· You can elect to stick to mainly highways, or mainly side roads or you can have it optimize your trip using whatever makes the most sense.

· While you are driving, you can search for amenities (food, lodging, gas) that are near wherever you happen to be, and then get directions to those things. It even provides phone numbers for these places. You can also find these things around your destination so you can plan for what you need before you get there.

· It’s surprisingly accurate. I found it much more reliable than Mapquest, in fact, as far as map information and also how it knew what side of the road to be on when you needed to enter or exit a highway, or what side of the road a business was on.

· You always know exactly how far you are away from your target, and about how long it will take to get there.

Here are the things I did NOT like about it:

· The satellite cuts out constantly. Fortunately, it would usually come right back, but when I tried to navigate in a downtown area for the first time with this thing, we just got really lost. It would lose the connection, and then recalculate the route based on where we now were, and by the time we started following the new directions, it would cut out again. And so on… There is a way to deal with this though, I found. The software has a “directions” tab which lists all the directions on your route, so if you lose the satellite you can go by that, much like a mapquest printout.

· The amenities database is two years old. This means a lot of important stuff isn’t in there (like new Starbucks stores!!!), and it also means some of these places are no longer in business (which we found to be the case a couple of times)

· You need someone to sit with this thing in the passenger seat and navigate. There is no way a driver can blindly go by this system; not only because of the problem with the satellite cutting out, but because the GPS will get confused if you are in a parking lot. It assumes you are on the road when you are driving around in the parking lot, and if you happen to be going against traffic, it thinks you are on the other side of the road, and the directions it gives you will send you in the opposite direction that you need to be. (It will, however, prompt you to u-turn as soon as it sees you are on the wrong track)

Overall, I found this to be a great purchase, and for only $129 at Best Buy. This is definitely a poor man’s GPS, but it totally made our lives easier while driving in a bunch of states we’ve never seen before. One last note: If you don’t have a power inverter for your laptop that plugs into your cigarette lighter, this is a MUST. Best buy had one for $50, but knowing better I dropped by Wal-Mart and bought the very same one for $30. (but if you think ahead--unlike me--you can find it cheaper on the internet)

If this is true, I am SO not plugged into the community.....

This article saddened me greatly. It makes me wonder... why are our young people drawn to supporting (at least in principle) terrorism? (I'm not going to say "extremism" because suicide attacks are not consistent with any part of Islam, much less an "extreme" form of it)

One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances

Well.. it says one in four "younger Muslims," rather than "one in four Muslims" so it's not as big as it sounds on the surface, but still.... this is messed up.

But what really got me was this:

Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Who do SIXTY PERCENT of the Muslims they spoke to think carried out the attacks?? SIXTY PERCENT!!?? (please don't say the Jews.)

click here for full article

For the Prevention of Special Feelings...

OSLO (Reuters) - Muslim and Christian leaders in Oslo scrapped a soccer match meant to foster understanding between religions Saturday after the imams refused to play a team that included women priests.

When I read the first paragraph of this article, my immediate reaction was, "Oh, great.. Once again Muslims are showing how freakin' BACKWARDS we can be!" But as I read further, I started to feel that this situation is just a case of cultural misunderstanding, rather than the usual "Muslims being stupid."

The imams didn't want to be put in situation where they could have physical contacts with the female priests. I, personally, would not have a problem playing soccer with men, but... I always go to a female doctor if I have the choice, and I generally don't feel comfortable hugging guys that are not related to me somehow. The average American may find that this is too conservative, but that's what my comfort level is, and the imams have their own comfort levels as well.

Unfortunately, to anyone not familiar with Islam or Muslim cultures, this is going to look and feel like the classic case of excluding women from anything not having to do with cooking, cleaning, or having babies. And given the Muslim world's track record on women's rights, it would be understandable for the female priests in this story to come to this conclusion. Go to any mosque in America, and women are more likely than not stuffed behind a barrier, or excluded completely. And just forget about hearing a woman actually *gasp* SPEAK in front of a congregation!

But I don't think this is the case here. Nor do I think it's a case of Muslims unfairly shoving Islam down the throats of those who are under no obligation to follow Islam (see earlier posts here and here). This is a simple cultural misunderstanding.

So the question is.. how could this have been prevented? Better planning, obviously. I have helped to plan a couple of Muslim-Jewish picnics, and in both cases, representatives of each group got together and went over every detail of the event ahead of time. As a result, both events went smoothly.

Obviously, it didn't occur to the Christian priests that the imams would not be able to play soccer with the women for due to the preservation of their *own* modesty. And the imams didn't think for a moment that there would be women playing on the soccer field. Better communication could have prevented this embarrassing situation from happening in the first place, and the two religious groups could have done what they came together to do--get to know each other better.

By the way, I found the wording of this quote from the article absolutely hilarious:

"Some say that bodily contact is the problem. It leads to special feelings that can lead to something forbidden," imam Senaid Kobilica told NRK public television.

click here for full article