do you mean fingering (yarn weight) or fingering (instrument hand position) or fingering (nsfw) or fingering (mispelled potato)
i’d get so much done if it wasn’t for the overwhelming urge to not do anything
Not just any paper maps, they had textbook sized atlases of the entire delivery area with each street meticulously mapped out.
These were insanely handy and a new edition came out just about every year to stay up to date on construction and road changes. I remember stocking my car with these for any of the cities I tended to travel to because they were the only way to actually get anywhere unless you wanted to call a friend and get very in depth instructions on how to get there.
AAA is now mostly known for roadside assistance, but at one time their primary business was MAPS.
For a few bucks a month you could become a Triple-A member and yeah, roadside assistance was one of the perks. BUT ALSO you could pick up the phone, call their 1-800 number, and tell the human operator who answered that you were planning a road trip.
They'd get your starting and destination address. Ask a few questions: what kinds of hotels you liked, preferred gas stations, any interest in touristy things?
Then in 7 to 10 days you'd get a thick package in the mail of carefully customized maps. Each map was the size of a paperback book cover, perfect for holding in the passenger's or driver's lap. Each was enumerated starting at #1 and ending at #whatever number of minimaps the trip required, with a hand-drawn highlighter path drawn on the map marking the route from one edge to another; entrance & exit points for that section of the route.
Motels, gas stations, and (if requested) tourist traps were indicated in color coded ink -- again, by hand. Sometimes detours were drawn in red marker, overriding the printed map because AAA kept up to date on road closures & regional disasters.
These maps were customized for your particular trip, and were invaluable since GPS did not exist. Unless you were familiar with the local region, the alternative was buying a map at the next gas station and guessing.
GPS is amazing and I wouldn't want to give up the ease & simplicity of Google Maps, but my god the old tech was miraculous too in its own way.
Refidex my beloved - that's the Aussie version, the big book of maps that got my ass everywhere until years after I got my first smartphone. It has a full index of street names in the back with a map and grid reference, so you could flip forward and easily find it.
I was told by a taxi driver that in the old days they had to basically memorise the Refidex to pass the Taxi Licence test, since they weren't allowed to use it during the test.
BUT searching for a picture of the 2023 Refidex led me to this!
Brisbane and environs in 1951! Fully digitised with machine readable text and high quality images! I can buy it for 19.50 - nay, I'm GONNA buy it for 19.50! (Although I wish it was $19.51).
Holy cow, they've also got 1926.
Yoink!
in the UK all London taxi drivers have to do 'The Knowledge’. It takes 3-4 years of study before being able to pass the test, and is considered one of the hardest driving exams in the world
The Knowledge was first introduced in 1865 but has changed little. Drivers must memorise all the roads and landmarks within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, around 25,000 streets.
I read the OP and was like, I wonder how many notes before someone mentions The Knowledge.
London cabbies who hold The Knowledge experience changes to their brains that are explained in every Neurobiology for Babies course. It’s a wickedly difficult skill: rather than the pizza delivery people in the OP, starting in one defined zone (pizza place) and radiating out from there, a cabbie starts a route in any position and has to navigate across a partially-medieval city with no grid pattern, deranged place names, and not many bridges across a very large river. It would be useless to refer to a paper map, so cabbies were required to have all the Knowledge memorized. This means that the paths and optimized routes would have to be at the top of one’s brain, ready for instant access. As a result, the cabbies develop materially different brain regions as they study and use the Knowledge. They have detectable, measurable changes in their hippocampi, with an increase in grey matter forming in those who pass the Knowledge test and use it.
When asked to navigate a route between two points, they describe the mental process as instantaneous and explosive visuals: it sounds as if the map generates itself behind their eyes. (One potential tradeoff, though, is the decrease in associated brain matter in areas associated with other forms of memory.) After retiring, the brains of London cabbies would appear to return to “normal” - when not exercised, the brain region dedicated to holding the Knowledge seemingly rewires itself - which is exciting because it indicates that brains are still capable of rewiring and adaptation even in later life.
That’s all very interesting for neuroscientists, which is why it’s in all the textbooks and underpins a lot of our understanding of brain plasticity (adaptability) especially in old age. After all, it’s only ever adults who go through this process: babies rarely do a PhD in becoming a human Google Maps.
Some science-fiction series, like Dune, have explored the idea of no-longer-human navigators. still, it’s under-explored. Today, researchers are interested in seeing how London cabbie brains could help with Alzheimer’s research, or other progressive brain conditions that deteriorate the hippocampus.
Cute concluding sentence, sci-comm joke, rhetorical question intended to provoke reflection but mistaken in the comments for an actual question.
when I started delivering pizza, it was still before smart phones were a thing. like, just by a few years, but they weren't common until I was well into my delivery career, so I can actually speak on how this works.
One of the first things you get taught is which side of the street which numbers will be on. In the town I worked in for a while, odd numbers would be on the north side of a street that ran east to west, and on the east side of a street that ran north to south. it's probably very regionally dependent, I don't think it's standardized. (Also, if it's not east-west or north-south it's either close enough to count to one of them, or a damned weird exception.)
Then you learn the major cross streets. I actually made a little sing-songy thing up for the some of the ones where I delivered, and I still sing it to myself when I drive down the section of road where those streets are.
Then you have to learn where the numbers are. If you want to go to 900 east walnut, you need to know that the 900 block for east-west streets starts on georgia and ends on texas. you need to know that the east west divide is at main street and the north south divide is at the railroad tracks.
Which means if you get a delivery for a 945 east willow street, even if you've never been to willow street, you know that there's one narrow column of your delivery area that this address can be in. If you know that street numbers don't typically run up over the 50s on the east side, you even know that this address is closer to texas than georgia.
this can help you find it on the maps, but also if you go 'well I know the area south of walnut pretty well, and I know willow isn't there, so I just need to go north of walnut and I'll find it' and you can just go up texas until you find willow, if you're fairly sure you know what you're doing.
then you get more into the details. if you know all the tree streets tend to be numbered in fours, and that they always go to -48 on the south side of the street and -49 on the north side of the street, then you know that you need to go up texas until you hit willow, turn left, it'll be your second house on the right. you may still not be certain of where willow is, except it's probably with the tree streets, and those start at walnut.
While you're doing all this, you're learning about the weird ass fucking exceptions, because there's always some weird ass fucking exceptions.
eventually, you get to the point where you only need the map to double check the odd address that you don't quite remember where it's at- a street that doesn't order often, or one of those weird ass exceptions that you always have to check, because the goddamn street is broken into three goddamn sections and you can't remember where the numbers stop and start at which broken section because it's not done according to the blocks it should be done as, and who the fuck planned this city, anyway?
(or to check apartment complexes, because most delivery places I've worked at had apartment complex maps. because a lot of apartment complexes were clearly numbered by someone drunk throwing numbered darts at a map. the same is true of trailer parks. some of them are great and sensibly numbered, and you will treasure them)
the maps are extremely useful! but the whole point of the thing is that you don't want to use maps, because maps slow you down and you want to get that shit there as fast as you can, because the more deliveries you make, the more money you make.
the worst thing in the world is doing things. the second worst thing in the world is not doing things. how has no one ever come up with a solution for this
‘bread is bad for you’ ‘rice is bad for you’ sorry im not subscribing to the idea that staple grains that have been integral to cultures for centuries are evil. i love you carbs
Ha I wonder how many strokes the most complex Chinese character has like maybe eightee-
Has a Chinese son, names him bèng-dá, and he hates me
My beloved son 䨻龘 just trying to write his name in kindergarten
