GPS

Okay, ever did something so simple and stupid and had the most fun ever? Well that's what I did this afternoon. After work I met with a friend for Lunch, we had a lovely St. Paddy's day lunch at a Pub in St. George. After that we decided to go for a little drive, go back to town and all this while travelling according to their new GPS. A Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS was originally intended for military applications, but in the 1980s, the government made the system available for civilian use. GPS works in any weather conditions, anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. There are no subscription fees or setup charges to use GPS.
GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day in a very precise orbit and transmit signal information to earth. GPS receivers take this information and use triangulation to calculate the user's exact location. Essentially, the GPS receiver compares the time a signal was transmitted by a satellite with the time it was received. The time difference tells the GPS receiver how far away the satellite is. Now, with distance measurements from a few more satellites, the receiver can determine the user's position and display it on the unit's electronic map.A GPS receiver must be locked on to the signal of at least three satellites to calculate a 2D position (latitude and longitude) and track movement. With four or more satellites in view, the receiver can determine the user's 3D position (latitude, longitude and altitude). Once the user's position has been determined, the GPS unit can calculate other information, such as speed, bearing, track, trip distance, distance to destination, sunrise and sunset time and more.
Well these things are quite fascinating, and you can do pretty much everyrthing with it, we switched the information language to German and I was the translator, of course we had to make it difficult and didn't follow the route the GPS lady told us to follow, after we made a few wrong turns, you almost had the feeling she was getting mad at us and started to yell. I was just wondering when she gonna ask "who is the idiot driving?" and make comments about "must be a man driving, he doesn't know how to follow directions". Well even if she did yell at us, we wouldn't have understood a word anyway, because by then we were listening to Korean instructions. It was so funny. She always tried to get us back on the right track and not once did she give up regardless how far and twisted the way we took was from our original goal.