My favorite application of dead reckoning is the early 80's Honda system to display the car location on a map. While testing the system, there were times where the car showed itself off of the road. After looking into it further, they learned the map maker had taken some liberties with the exact position of the road, and the vehicle was correct.
Interestingly, if you have good map data, the relative "shape" of you previous trajectory is enough to locate your position globally, without GPS, even without knowing where north is.
Thank you for sharing this. I do work in this space and had not come across this before.
ir77 · 7h ago
that's literally no different than what Google Maps does in my car while in CarPlay mode. It's like Apple neuters it and don't give it full gyro/compass data, because when driving it constantly moves the "car" anywhere from 90 to 270 degress and keeps it there for a few seconds until it figures this out again. I checked all possible permissions and still can't figure it out.
Never happens on the Apple Maps, although I have 0 trust in siri and apple maps, especially when we travel to europe, i feel like i'm an experiment for apple to see how much off straight forward route it can make me take.
jermaustin1 · 6h ago
I have the same thing happen on Google Maps - on top of my car just spinning in circles, it will also show up 100-300 feet to the right of the road I'm driving on, constantly doing navigation updates to the nearest street. When I unplug from carplay, it's fine, and back on the road, then when I plug it into the car it pops to the right again and starts doing updates.
pixl97 · 5h ago
Interesting. A number of years ago google maps on apple didn't behave that way. Then one trip I noticed my wife's maps were freaking out in a city with a lot of large curves and clover leaf onramps.
Of course my android with Google maps behaves as expected, though in a few places with stacked interchanges it can get confused if traffic is moving slow.
chneu · 11h ago
Not dead reckoning related but for some reason your comment made me think of this.
Map makers make mistakes on purpose. This way they know when someone copies their maps. They look for these little tiny "mistakes".
My favorite are the trap towns that didn't exist, but because of the maps with the trap towns on them a form of citogensis occurs and the town is bootstrapped into existence in the real world.
calvinmorrison · 8h ago
This seems like it's happening more and more with google maps. I see tons of "Trap Towns" and can't figure out of its realtors making up new neighborhood s to sell houses or them going on google maps, and putting google maps into reality.
beAbU · 12h ago
My favourite example of some humorous dead reckoning, from this old copypasta:
-----------
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.
The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
-----------
mistersquid · 7h ago
Made me think of Doolittle philosophically provoking Bomb 20 in John Carpenter’s _Dark Star_. [0]
Someone put a beat behind it and it's now the source for an in-joke of "Missle Knows Where It Is Monday": https://youtu.be/6iBeRfOAAwk
eloisius · 10h ago
This is like James Joyce describing a Kalman filter.
YouWhy · 4h ago
What I find remarkable is the way the Admiralty - a very imperfect system with multiple facets that are downright clownish is nevertheless principled as a whole when it comes to strategic interests - the nation's foes are harassed, leadership positions are manned by technically competent individuals, regulations are amended to incorporate major learnings and so on.
Also, the banality of how the system treats sailor lives as expendable is almost incomprehensible from a 21st century perspective.
danw1979 · 10h ago
> the castaways had not seen any women in months, and based on the resulting unwanted attention, the indigenous people opted to evacuate before the English seamen became a problem.
chef kiss
thoroughburro · 10h ago
The western barbarians seem to have been quite an uncivilised menace.
seanhunter · 8h ago
My favourite dead reckoning anecdote[1] was there was this British naval captain who found himself in the Atlantic just a bit south-west of the Canary Islands in a lifeboat. He knew that the ocean currents would be against him and too strong to row against, so he set off for South America and made it there by rowing with the current and using dead reckoning to course correct.
[1] And this is from memory and a bunch of googling around hasn’t turned it up so pardon me if I get some details wrong.
It's an incredible story and deserves to be told. 1500miles at sea in an overloaded open lifeboat using stellar navigation and managed to save more than half of the people aboard. So they were sailing rather than rowing but other than that I had remembered it substantially correctly.
nicwolff · 1h ago
"McVicar, a non-swimmer"!!!
lmm · 8h ago
Transatlantic by dead reckoning alone sounds impossibly difficult. Captain Bligh navigating 3500 nautical miles from Tahiti to Kupang in an open boat after being mutinied against was a celebrated feat of navigation, and he had the aid of a compass and a pocket watch.
mannykannot · 5h ago
So long as one can see the sun and stars reasonably frequently, I imagine a competent navigator could estimate his latitude and know which way is West accurately enough to stay in the trade winds and make landfall along Brazil's coast, which I suppose was McVicar's only hope, given the extreme shortage of water and rations.
I really enjoyed The Wager by David Grann about this story. Grann was also the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, which was made into the movie of the same name by Martin Scorsese, and Scorsese is now making The Wager into a film, although I don't think they've even settled on a release year yet.
defrost · 16h ago
Notable for deadpan correct use of Ear regardless . . .
Worth the read.
heresie-dabord · 10h ago
Agreed, this article is well-written and rewarding to anyone capable of enjoying prose. Take the time to enjoy the article.
And for HN in particular, there is an ancestral link from the suffering crew of the ill-fated ship to the category of jobs that we have today.
I won't spoil it. But here is a clue: A.L.
card_zero · 13h ago
Oh irregardless. Clever. I admire how Alan spins these puns up with such casual breeziness, but of course I would say that because I'm a big fan.
someone7x · 7h ago
Thanks for the nudge, a well told story well worth the read.
foobahhhhh · 10h ago
Spoiler alert! That was brilliant. I read it then went back and like "hold on...."
louwrentius · 13h ago
Damn interesting has an amazing collection of high-quality podcast episodes with amazing story telling. They haven’t released new episodes in a while, but their back catalogue is worth investigating.
card_zero · 13h ago
It bugs me that the last episode is ominously called "A trail gone cold", and I wonder what went wrong.
DamnInteresting · 6h ago
Alan Bellows here, author of this article, and founder of Damn Interesting. For years I kept the site going by working a part-time coding job, along with occasional contract work. Combined with donations to the site, this brought in enough income to survive, while allowing me to dedicate 5-6 hours per weekday to writing/editing/etc.
Early in the pandemic my job wrapped up, and when I went looking for a new part-time or contract gig, there was absolutely nothing. I networked and searched for a year and a half, and never found a single part-time opening. In the meantime, donations to the site were on a steady downward trajectory. I was burning through my savings at an alarming rate.
Eventually I had to take a regular full-time job just to have income again. I hoped I could find some plausible approach, but so far it's been unworkable. I also have a six year old, so evenings and weekends tend to be spoken for. And after the little one's bedtime, there's not much left in the fuel tanks. I'm approaching 50 now.
Maybe I'll find a part-time gig, or perhaps some anonymous wealthy benefactor will fund the site for a while. Both have happened before. If not, we may need to pack it up soon. 20 years is a pretty good run.
card_zero · 5h ago
Dammit. Maybe some wealthy benefactor could give you a part-time job, at least, for the common good. What sort of coding?
DamnInteresting · 4h ago
Well, lots of kinds. I work a lot in front-end web dev, so I'm immersed in HTML, CSS/SCSS, Javascript, etc. Server-side, most of my experience is with PHP, but I've also worked with Python. I can code in Java, but I find it to be a joyless enterprise. At my current day job I mostly work with Perl, which is antique but charming.
My beard is getting gray enough that most tech places don't want me anymore, experience be damned. And my other skills (writing, editing, illustration, sound design, narration) are unlikely to earn me a living. It's an uncertain place to be.
eirikbakke · 7h ago
Reminds me of "In The Heart of the Sea: The Comedy of the Whaleship Essex" (a musical book report)
Incredible article really well done. Amazing story and was not expecting the connection to ada lovelace.
seandoe · 8h ago
Amazing story. I read the book and couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.
DamnInteresting · 6h ago
If by 'the book' you are referring to David Gran's The Wager, it's worth noting that the article linked here (which I wrote) was published about 3 years before that book was published. I mention this only to dispel any impression that the article is derived from Gran's book.
SamBam · 3h ago
This is from (2019)
albert_e · 13h ago
> the Drake Passage was the least impractical route for large European ships to travel around South America to access its west coast.
"least impractical"?
Unintentional double negative, I think?
Currently it conveys the meaning of being "most practical" whereas it was the opposite.
throwanem · 10h ago
It's correct and as intended. "Least impractical" denotes "most practical" but the double negative, which you accurately note is unusual but which is grammatical in this usage, calls attention to the specific connotation that all options are bad and this, though also bad, is nonetheless the most potentially serviceable of the lot.
542354234235 · 9h ago
We all know that language contains a lot of subtleties, but it is always interesting when someone breaks down exactly how those are used in some interesting prose.
And the prose itself is good too.
throwanem · 9h ago
I've been an eager student of grammatical nuance in English since my introduction to the written language at age two. I'm always happy to take apart an example of same and show its workings!
louthy · 13h ago
I had to read that twice, but it’s correct I think. It’s an impractical route, but all the routes are… the Drake Passage was the least impractical of all of the routes.
sanderjd · 3h ago
Although I did wonder later on why they couldn't have gone through the Straits of Magellan on the journey west. Presumably it was even more difficult for large ships to navigate that narrow and presumably shallow passage.
louthy · 3h ago
It was impractical ;)
sanderjd · 2h ago
Or at least, more impractical :)
louthy · 25m ago
At most.
* brain explodes *
andyjohnson0 · 12h ago
I read "least impractical" as meaning "least worst" -- the best bad option.
mattclarkdotnet · 13h ago
Yeah, the thrust of the story is that it was the worst of all options
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38135979
https://ad-publications.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/GIS_paths...
Never happens on the Apple Maps, although I have 0 trust in siri and apple maps, especially when we travel to europe, i feel like i'm an experiment for apple to see how much off straight forward route it can make me take.
Of course my android with Google maps behaves as expected, though in a few places with stacked interchanges it can get confused if traffic is moving slow.
Map makers make mistakes on purpose. This way they know when someone copies their maps. They look for these little tiny "mistakes".
-----------
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
-----------
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LXen-07Qds
Also, the banality of how the system treats sailor lives as expendable is almost incomprehensible from a 21st century perspective.
chef kiss
[1] And this is from memory and a bunch of googling around hasn’t turned it up so pardon me if I get some details wrong.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-capt-will...
It's an incredible story and deserves to be told. 1500miles at sea in an overloaded open lifeboat using stellar navigation and managed to save more than half of the people aboard. So they were sailing rather than rowing but other than that I had remembered it substantially correctly.
Worth the read.
And for HN in particular, there is an ancestral link from the suffering crew of the ill-fated ship to the category of jobs that we have today.
I won't spoil it. But here is a clue: A.L.
Early in the pandemic my job wrapped up, and when I went looking for a new part-time or contract gig, there was absolutely nothing. I networked and searched for a year and a half, and never found a single part-time opening. In the meantime, donations to the site were on a steady downward trajectory. I was burning through my savings at an alarming rate.
Eventually I had to take a regular full-time job just to have income again. I hoped I could find some plausible approach, but so far it's been unworkable. I also have a six year old, so evenings and weekends tend to be spoken for. And after the little one's bedtime, there's not much left in the fuel tanks. I'm approaching 50 now.
Maybe I'll find a part-time gig, or perhaps some anonymous wealthy benefactor will fund the site for a while. Both have happened before. If not, we may need to pack it up soon. 20 years is a pretty good run.
My beard is getting gray enough that most tech places don't want me anymore, experience be damned. And my other skills (writing, editing, illustration, sound design, narration) are unlikely to earn me a living. It's an uncertain place to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDU2I9fp_8
"least impractical"?
Unintentional double negative, I think?
Currently it conveys the meaning of being "most practical" whereas it was the opposite.
And the prose itself is good too.
* brain explodes *