GPS
I remember the actual first time I ever saw a GPS system. I was riding in a car with my wife's Uncle Ron, and he was using a Magellan GPS system. At the time, GPS systems were new. This was back in the days when fossils roamed the earth and my favorite sister-in-law was getting married. This was the night before their wedding. These old GPS systems had to have maps downloaded to the internal hard drives, and the displays were adequate but not near the quality of the phones of today.
RECALCULATING
I'm somewhat of a nerdy person, and I had to have one of these early GPS systems. I remember forking over the large dollars to get the Magellan GPS. I also paid extra so that I could download the maps to it. It was fun to experiment and see where and when it would take me places. But there were times when it got confused. And, many times, it would just say "recalculating" and go off into never, never land. This is similar to the hourglass that one often sees when running anything in Microsoft Windows.
OLD LANDMARKS
The Eads Bridge is one of the oldest landmarks in the city of Saint Louis and crosses the Mississippi River near the Gateway Arch downtown. The work on the bridge started in 1867, just after the Civil War, and was completed in 1874. This, of course, was before the car and the automobile and certainly before the GPS. The surface of the bridge got bad back in the late 1980s and was closed to automobile traffic from 1991 to 2003. This certainly was not an uncommon occurrence for Illinois and Missouri bridges. The bridge reopened to automobile traffic in 2003 and can be rented out for parties.
REROUTING
I still remember the panic on the GPS as I was leaving a Saint Louis Cardinals ball game at the old Busch Stadium in 2004. The Eads bridge had just reopened to automobile traffic. But the maps had not been updated yet. I still remember howling with laughter with my kids, as we drove across the water of the Mississippi River on the Eads; the GPS was in full panic, recalculating, and rerouting mode. The GPS system must have been impressed as we made it to the other side and resumed driving through East Saint Louis, which can also be a minefield.
GOING OFF GRID
That was one of my first experiences of truly going off the grid. I was on a bridge over troubled waters, and the electronic monitoring systems around me were recalculating and rerouting. I was never one to draw within the lines, or paint by the numbers, or follow the instructions. I can usually be found finding my own way. It's probably why I like to travel by bicycle so much.
ONLINE CENSORSHIP
With the government, social media companies, media outlets, and other communications companies censoring online content, it seems like people are exploring other approaches. Some seem to hit these roadblocks, resist, and then try to continue to work within the current frameworks on current platforms. You will see people get banned over and over and over again and sent to Twitter jail, Facebook jail, and, in some cases, real jails.
REROUTING
It seems to me that those that wish to communicate freely will eventually have to get better at rerouting. They will need to create new platforms, make rapid and quick adjustments, and reroute against those that would stop them. If this does not happen, all online roadways will be one way. All the billboards will look the same, the traffic signs will be the same, the exits will be identical, without any variety or free thought. Of course, it will all be done in the name of safety and protection. But just because they say it is safe and effective, does that mean it is safe and effective?
MORE THAN ONE WAY
The challenge of the coming decade will be to create more than one way and more than one platform and create them quickly. Instead of having one channel, three channels, five channels, twenty channels, or one hundred channels, we will have unlimited channels, unlimited choices. Or not. We may just end up rerouting and recalculating.
ME
I enjoy the challenges that censorship and monopolization bring, so I say bring it. There may be temporary setbacks, and it may seem that progress is slow at times. But I think it will be fun to find ways to continue to improve messaging and communications, in spite of those that want to limit all choices. Feel free to follow my ramblings at the links listed below: