Date: June 18th 2010

Westprint Friday Five June 18, 2010  

Included this week:

·    Trip Notes

·    Paper maps vs GPS  

By the time this is sent out on Friday Graeme and I will be attending the 2010 IMTA Asia Pacific Conference and Trade show in Melbourne. We will be back on deck next week.  Sonya, John and Bev will be manning the phones while we are away.  

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Friday Five 18.6.2010  

1. The Lost Men. Kelly Tyler-Lewis. Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to make history with the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. Shackleton sailed into Weddell Sea on the Endurance while his supply ship Aurora sailed to the Ross Sea to establish a lifeline of supply depots. This is the story of 10 men from the Aurora stranded ashore with little more than what they were wearing and their battle for survival and accomplishment of their assignment. $24.95 plus post. Add to Cart

2. Caravan Chef - Travel around Australia with just 30 Ingredients! Eva Stovern’s new Caravan Chef is a fun and quirky book that addresses the issue of cooking and eating well in limited environments such as tents, caravans and holiday kitchens. It is sure to impress with its delicious and practical recipes, 30 ingredients is all you will need to cook everything from Longreach Zucchini Fritters to Lakes Entrance Tuna. Named after Australian towns, the 50 recipes are simple, tasty and nutritious. They have been selected for their versatility, light weight, long storage life and ease of preparation. You can maximize freshness and get the best out of your ingredients with Eva’s clever storage hints. Caravan Chef also provides a guide to selecting the correct utensils for your trip. $19.95 plus post. Add to Cart

3. Caravan Chef 2. Caravan Chef 2 describes another 49 recipes made with the same set of 30 ingredients, each with their own unique character and name. Try the Batchelor Beef Vanburger or the Bruny Island Salmon. $22.95 plus post. Add to Cart

4. Growing Australian Natives. John Mason. 2nd edition. The variety of Australian native plants is enormous. They are found in just about any situation, from deserts to rainforests to alpine regions. Many are tolerant of salt, some of arid conditions, others make excellent windbreaks, withstand polution or tolerate flooding or frost. S/cover. 252 pages $32.95 plus post. Add to Cart

5. Women of the Outback. Sue Williams. Drought, flood, harrowing isolation and horrific accidents. . . the Australian outback is no place for a lady. But the women of the Outback are a different breed: tough, resilient and endlessly resourceful. They're both the backbone and the heart of Australia, keeping their farms going, their families together and their communities alive - and often against overwhelming odds. Maree was left with three small daughters when her husband and young son were killed in a light plane crash. Molly lived alone in a 1920s homestead in the middle of the Simpson Desert for twenty years without even a phone. Alice admits she couldn't tell a cow from a bull when she first went to live in the Outback. This book tells the inspiring stories of fourteen remarkable women. $26.95 plus post.  Add to Cart

Books are allocated on a first-come first serve basis. To reserve your copy of any of the following books please email info@westprint.com.au with the title you are interested in. All emails will be answered during the following week, either with details of how to pay, or a ‘sorry, the item has already sold’ email. Where possible, postage on multiple items will be recalculated to offer you the best price.  

Postage Rates. These items will usually not be found on our website. Orders will be supplied on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. Westprint normal postage rates are now $8.50 for one book, $11.00 for two books, $13.00 for 3 or more books. Free post applies to orders of more than $150.00. Postage rates apply to Australia only. Airmail postage rates apply to overseas orders.  

Friday Forum

Jo’s comments are in green.  

Disclaimer.

Please note that the opinions and articles included in the Friday Five are not necessarily those of the Westprint mob. Nor do we endorse any products (other than our own), or tours listed in contributed articles.  

Trip Notes  

·    Re: your request for trip notes. There is a directory produced by the Land Rover Club of the ACT.  It’s called Camp Ground Corner and is an extensive DVD-based camping and touring guide.

Now in its 4th edition with over 1000 entries covering campgrounds, picnic sites, lookouts and other sites of interest it includes lots of detail based on personal visits, photos, waypoints, contact details and lots more.  It is interactive with the internet and includes many links to other useful sites as well as overlays for Google Earth and OziExplorer.

And because it has been compiled entirely by 4WDers working on a voluntary basis it comes at a very low price of $25.

Roger. Land Rover Club of the ACT

More detail and on line order facilities can be found on the Land Rover Club site at  http://www.lrc.org.au/cgcorner/web/index.htm .   

Gove Permit Info

For those people who wanted information regarding Gove, we have been advised that the permit link was wrong. Lets hope this one gives satisfactory results.

http://www.saafwdc.asn.au/permits/default.htm

Don’t Throw Away Your Paper Maps Just Yet

The following is from the Miller-McCune journalism web site and while the story is American the key points are universal.

While GPS can tell you exactly where you stand, sometimes it takes a bit of dead-tree cartography to tell you where you are.

By John McKinney

 

Paper maps still have value as a navigational tool, so don't throw them out in favour of the digital variety. While a GPS can pinpoint your location, the good old folded maps give you a better picture of where you are. (Pontus Edenberg / stockxchange.com)

Pity the poor paper map. Once admired for its accuracy, it is now scorned for being less precise than digital maps and hopelessly passé when compared to handheld GPS and satellite navigation systems.

Many government agencies and longtime private sector cartographers have stopped or slowed production of paper maps, including the California State Automobile Association, which produced maps that are the standard of excellence for road maps around the world and closed down its mapmaking division at the end of 2008. The U.S. and Canadian governments have greatly reduced paper map production, as have Rand McNally and Thomas Brothers, which joined forces.

But the rush to online mapping is causing some problems. Studies by the British Cartographic Society show that high-tech maps get the user from Point A to Point B but leave off traditional features such as historical landmarks, government buildings and cultural institutions; this could lead to a loss of cultural and geographic literacy, the august body warns.

“When discussing maps of any kind, it’s important to note the big difference between precise and accurate,” cautions Tom Harrison, veteran California cartographer and publisher of paper maps. “We have all seen times when a digital GPS device has told us that we were precisely at a street that did not exist. A device can be precise without being accurate.”

A study comparing paper map users versus GPS users yielded some surprising results. Dr. Toru Ishikawa and colleagues at the University of Tokyo found that people on foot using a GPS device make more errors and take longer to reach their destinations than people using an old-fashioned map. (Although an earlier study by Taiwanese researcher Wen-Chen Lee suggested GPS bettered paper maps in improving driving efficiency.)

Ishikawa, who specializes in human spatial behaviour in an era of advanced communication technologies, says he has long been intrigued with the idea that humans act as if they have “maps in the head” that can be studied scientifically. Most surprising to him about his studies is “the existence of large individual differences in people’s abilities to comprehend surrounding environments in integrated two-dimensional form.”

Some people have very accurate internal maps, others poor ones, explains Ishikawa, whose work traverses both the fields of geography and psychology.

In Ishikawa’s latest study, three groups of participants on foot were asked to find their way to various urban locations. A third of the participants used a mobile phone with GPS capability, another third a paper map and the remainder were shown the route by a researcher before being required to navigate on their own.

The study found GPS users made more stops, walked farther and more slowly than map users and demonstrated a poorer knowledge of the terrain, topography and routes taken when asked to sketch a map after their walks. GPS users also adjudged the way-finding tasks as much more difficult than did map users. Those proving to be most proficient at navigation turned out to be those shown the route by researchers — they bested both map and GPS users by striding to destinations faster and with fewer missteps.

Why might using a GPS be inferior to the use of a paper map?

Researchers say using a GPS, which constantly updates itself, encourages people to stare down at a screen, rather than looking around at their environment. Also, the very size of the GPS screen meant it wasn’t always possible for a user to view both one’s location and destination at the same time.

Digital defenders acknowledge that using an old-fashioned technology — paper maps — might be fine while using an old-fashioned means of transport — walking — but global positioning and other in-car navigation systems are the way to go while driving. Digital maps can be more feature rich — telling you the location of the nearest Thai restaurant or gas station for example. And digital map technologies are beginning to support location-based social networking so that friends can not only make contact online but on the streets as well.

“We seem to be rushing away from using our ability to navigate in the real world,” points out mapmaker Harrison. “Rather than looking at a paper map to get a mental picture of the place we are going, we instead are putting our trust in a gizmo that looks ahead maybe three city blocks.”

Further research is necessary, explains Ishikawa, in order to determine who can make the best use of navigation information in which situation and for what purpose. While intriguing, the paper map versus digital map debate is only a small part of a much larger question: How will technological advances impact traditional ways of human cognition?

As new navigational aids are introduced, how will we — literally and figuratively — find our way?

Many — from academics to highway engineers to hike leaders — are concerned about whether the human sense of direction is fast degenerating in the digital age. “Or has it already been degraded compared to the sense of direction of ancient people who wandered around without maps?” wonders Ishikawa, whose own research suggests that the best way to navigate from one place to another is not with a paper or a digital map, but rather by having a fellow human show you the way.  

Reader’s Stories  

·    TALL STORIES AND DAMNED LIES
There’s a hot north wind that blows across the wheat fields of the Wimmera in December, the locals have a description for such days, “stinking bl**dy hot”. Sometimes the temperature gets so fierce its hot enough to burn the sole off a working mans leather boot. It’s a mischievous howling wind that dances across the earth sending a willy- willy of dust into the atmosphere robbing the soil of its parched crust, stripped of topsoil the land is left stony rendered good for nothing, previously good farmland becomes nothing but a gravel pit. It can only be described as an ill wind in a cruel country and it can break a farmer’s heart.
On days like this it is too hot for birds to fly, even snakes choose to slither beneath rocks or hide in hollow logs, flocks of sheep take refuge in the shade of trees and the pub in the town of Kaniva becomes a welcome retreat for men sharing a thirst for a piercingly cold beer and a yarn with their mates. On days like this it becomes an excuse to swap memories of days that men have experienced that were even hotter. “Hot enough to boil the water in the water bag.” “Hot enough to perish the rubber on a tractor tyre.” “Hot enough to bend a railway line.” “Hot enough to melt the coins in a man’s pocket.” That’s bullshit one bloke replies. It was hot enough to make cannon balls out of dried up cow dung, another answers.
Yeah back in the 30’s and 40’s there was a lot of bulldust talked about the weather but it did get bloody hot, that’s for sure. I remember back then they closed the school for a year or two, it was too bloody hot to let us kids out on the street. There were no footballs to kick they had all exploded in the heat. Cricket bats had melted. Tennis rackets buckled. My mother told me if I ventured outside without a hat the freckles on my face would expand and join up. 
Yeah back then we all grew up telling lies and tall stories about everything even the weather. It’s an Australian thing to do to tell lies; we do it everyday of our lives. And we are good at it. When people ask, “how you going” we usually answer, “good” or “pretty good” or “good as gold”. Even if our best dog has just died we still answer the same way.
It probably goes back to convict settlement days when the only way to escape a flogging was not to get caught or if you did to be a good liar. Have I ever told a lie? Never have, never will. Bob  

·    Here's a true yarn from a book my wife and I recently published that might interest your readers; the book is: MacMillen, R.E. and B.J. MacMillen. 2009. Meanderings in the Bush.

The incident took place in December 1974 when Dr. Peter Greenaway, a Zoologist at the University of N.S.W., and I (A Biology Professor on leave from the University of California, Irvine) were travelling along the Silver City Highway between Fowler's Gap Research Station and Tibooburrra, in quest of the elusive Inland Crab.

"Our initial adventure was early the first day when we spied ahead of us on the road a live Western Brown Snake (Pseudonaja nuchalis), another venomous elapid. As I hoped to photograph it, we stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road before reaching it and got out. As the day was rather warm and the vehicle provided the only shade in sight for some distance, the snake apparently took a liking to it and crawled quickly under. I got as close as was safe to peer under, only to see it climb up the inner wall of one of the tyres onto the rear axle, and then disappear into the underpinnings. We took dead branches and poked here and there, hoping to dislodge it, but not really knowing what to do if we succeeded. They are very dangerous snakes and are known to become aggressive when agitated. This snake had every right to be agitated! The snake had simply vanished up under the vehicle. After waiting around for a while for nothing to happen, our only alternative was to move on. Hot as it was, we closed all the vents and windows and proceeded, hoping that the snake would drop off the vehicle onto the road, rather than suddenly emerging in the cab from some unknown hole. We proceeded northward about an hour and the snake did not appear. Our uneasiness was beginning to wane so we decided to stop off at the Milparinka Pub for a beer, to give us the courage to travel on to Tibooburra.

The publican at Milparinka was the typical sparse-worded type who uttered 'G'day' as we entered and served us each a cold Southwark beer without uttering another word. I hoped that he might know something about the behaviour of brown snakes and offer some comforting insight into our predicament. I explained to him what had happened and asked if he had ever heard of anything like that. He replied 'yup' and said no more. I asked, 'well, who did it happen to?' He replied, 'the postman.' 'Ah', thought I, 'two words, the conversation is improving!'

I asked, 'what happened then?' The publican increased his response to a staccato burst of words, 'crawled into the cab through the floor boards.' 'Well, then what happened?' I asked. 'Bit the postman.' 'My God, this is serious', I thought, and then asked 'What happened to the postman then?' The publican looked at me and said matter-of-factly,

'He died', and then turned to wash some glasses. That was the end of the conversation, and even though we thought we detected a sparkle in the publican's eye, it certainly did not relieve our anxieties."

Needless to say, the snake was never again seen, and Peter and I gradually regained our composures. Dick MacMillen. Talent, Oregon. bidmac@jeffnet.org  

Friday Funnies

From Jill  

·    While shopping for holiday clothes, my husband and I passed a display of bathing suits.

It had been at least ten years and ten kilos since I had even considered buying a bathing suit, so I sought my husband's advice.

'What do you think?' I asked. 'Should I get a bikini or an all-in-one?'

'Better get a bikini,' he replied 'You'd never get it all in one.'

He's still in intensive care.  

·    A guy and a girl are having a drink together in a bar. The man raises his glass and says, "Here's hoping you're in Heaven ten minutes before the devil knows you're dead!"

"What's does that mean?" asks the girl.

"That," answers her date, "is an authentic Irish toast."

"Oh. Well, here's to bread, eggs and cinnamon."

"Bread, eggs and cinnamon? What's that?"

The girl says, "That's French toast."  

·    Finding a woman sobbing that she had locked her keys in her car, a passing soldier assures her that he can help. She looks on amazed as he removes his trousers, rolls them into a tight ball and rubs them against the car door. Magically it opens. "That's so clever," the woman gasps. "How did you do it?"

"Easy," replies the man. "These are my khakis".  

·    "Mr. Avery, don't leave it too late. I have exactly the girl you need. Say the word and you'll meet and be married in no time!" says the Matchmaker.

"Don't bother," replies Mr. Avery, "I've two sisters at home who look after all my needs."

"That's all well and good, but all the sisters in the world cannot fill the role of a wife."

"I said 'two sisters'. I didn't say they were mine."  

 

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