I want to buy a verbally abusive windshield-mounted GPS unit.
— Turn right on Fifth Avenue in 4.3 miles.
— Now approaching Fifth Avenue. Turn right.
— No, no, right. Right, you moron! I said right!
— The other right!
— Sigh.
— Recalculating route… dipshit. Next time just walk, bokay?
Jay P said,
April 18, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
That’s exactly what my wife and I imaging our GPS thinking, whenever we go against its directions. We’re waiting for the day where TomTom gives up and refuses to speak to us anymore.
Scott Bronson said,
April 19, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
You can already buy it! With John Cleese’s voice even. http://www.tomtom.com/plus/service.php?ID=5&BID=14
It’s nicely abusive. It’ gets old pretty quick though.
Andres Salomon said,
April 21, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
I think you spelled ‘okay’ wrong.
Yep, now I’m sure of it.
- yfn dilinger
Daniel Weinreb said,
April 23, 2008 @ 7:53 am
The good ol’ MIT Multics system had a command called “olc”, meaning “online consultant”, which would put you into a chat with someone who could help you. My friends and I created a command called “oli”, a ‘bot that would appear to try to help you but would actually be abusive. It stood for “online insultant”.
My teenage son loves to use our car’s nav system and deliberately disobey its instructions, to see what it will do. Of course it calculates a new route. We once drove home, doing what it said not to do, just to see how it would route us.
My wife, meanwhile, can’t stand the whole thing. Every time the car talks to us, she sighs. I, on the other hand, love it; it’s one of my favorite toys, and it has been quite helpful.
C. Scott Ananian said,
May 6, 2008 @ 11:17 am
Hence the need for an open-source GPS system: I have a deep-seated need to hack it to have more *personality*. And, no, pre-canned “Mr. T” GPS voices don’t count. It doesn’t count until it can make *my* inside jokes and wise-ass remarks.
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