Word: mapped
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Such fuzziness has hardly dissuaded road warriors. Dozens of sites offer free directions and related services and are thriving. During the past two years, the American Automobile Association has recorded a 7% drop in requests for its paper TripTik maps (those handy, personalized route maps that even tell you when you're approaching the birthplace of the inventor of the mechanized reaper), even as AAA membership has increased. A spokesman attributed the dip to competition from the Web, and to the association's Map 'n Go software, a $60 navigation package that can be installed on PCs. If you want...
...from Big Book had been, so far, flawless. But now the printout was advising that I detour to the south; all the traffic, however, was proceeding due east. What to do? Heed the computer's advice, or follow the herd? Stupidly, I hadn't packed an atlas or road map. "Ella pinched me!" someone shrieked in steerage. Tick-tick-tick. "Follow the traffic," hissed My Wife Who Is Never Wrong...
...must report, comrades, that at the last possible moment, I betrayed the information revolution: I followed the traffic. That turned out to be a wise move. I subsequently consulted a paper map and can only conclude that the road I and my fellow travelers took hadn't been built when Big Book's database was created...
Clearly, I am not the only person burned by bad computer-dispensed advice. Map sites are only as good as their data, and roads have a way of changing. Indeed, on Switchboard's mapsonus.com--which I consider the best of the freebie directions sites--users are asked to click on a form and agree not to blame the website for mistakes. "Our routes can be, well, creative," the disclaimer advises...
...years ago, I saw the future. I saw that I wasn't going to spend another summer in South Texas ever again, an area that prompted people to say things like, "You mean that's still the United States? I thought that was Mexico!" when pointed out on a map. I saw that I was going to stay in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area every summer, somehow, some way. I saw my future fold out before my eyes...