• humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Yes. Maps always have up as north. So just hold a map in front of you, and forward direction is north. Easy.

  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    North is W
    West is A
    South is S
    East is D

    … unless you hit Q or E and rotated the camera, in which case you’re fucked.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    One time I called 911 because I was following a drunk driver that had collided with multiple vehicles and kept driving. The operator asked me what direction so I looked at my maps app and it said I was going west so I told them west and they said “Sir that street doesn’t run west.” I was speechless after that.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      So you might’ve been going west, but not westbound. Roads curve often in the USA (i’m guessing you are from the USA because 911)

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    What? You don’t have an internal compass that keeps you oriented? For some reason I seem to be a lucky person that just knows which compass direction I’m going no matter where I am. And it’s a very weird and frightening feeling if I do get disoriented. I had some pain meds after a surgery that did that to me. Flushed them damn things down the toilet after the first 2 I took.

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        While I’m sure there is learned effort, I do feel like there is something inside my brain that just has a connection to north somehow. Kind of like how ducks and geese know which way to travel when migrating. I can’t really explain it well.

    • gnu@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      And it’s a very weird and frightening feeling if I do get disoriented.

      I know what you mean, there has been a couple of times in my life where my internal idea of direction has been turned off course and it is a very weird feeling indeed trying to reconcile the direction you internally believe you’re facing against the different direction a map or compass is telling you is actually true.

      As a kid I also once spent a weekend in Melbourne feeling somewhat disconcerted due to not being able to get a sense of direction. I’d never been there before and flew in on an overcast day which never ended up letting up until I flew out so never ended up getting my bearings while we were down there (didn’t help that this was before the smartphone era so maps weren’t available at the drop of a hat).

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I have a similar experience when I go a city in my state - St. Paul. If I go downtown for any reason, I always feel a bit uneasy walking about and I didn’t know why for the longest time. I finally found out that the streets in the downtown aren’t laid out on the cardinal points-- They were laid out on a slight bias due to being right up against the Mississippi river. And that makes me a little uncomfortable when looking down a block of buildings or from one street to the next at an intersection. It’s always a little bit wonky feeling.

    • ATDA@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I’m with you. Short of that one day dead noon Hawaii or the middle of a forest I feel like there are clues to approximate North and South even when I’m discombobulated.

    • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Do I look like the person who would get lost in a familiar place?

      Actually, don’t answer that.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It hurts me that people don’t realise you know where the sun rises and sets (roughly), anywhere, by looking up and roughly knowing what time it is. Other than midday, then fair enough.

  • Reyali@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    At one point in my childhood, my dad made the comment, “Women don’t know compass directions.” I took offense to that and made a point to learn them to prove him wrong.

    I felt vindicated in high school when he was coming to pick me up from a friend’s house and said, “I’m at the gas station. Do I go left or right?” I told him there were several gas stations on the way, and asked which direction he was facing to figure out which one he was by. He couldn’t tell me and finally hung up on me in a huff.

  • ShaunaTheDead@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    East is sunrise. West is sunset. The sun will also always be slightly south and even more so in the winter (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere then it’s slightly north).

    If your local area has some kind of landmark like a big tower, or a big lake, learn where that is relative to you and use it as a reference point. For me, I live near a big lake and it’s always south of me. It might be easier for you to ask yourself “which way is the lake?” instead of “which way is south?” or whatever your landmark and direction happen to be.

  • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    This is the best part about growing up in Colorado. The mountains are west. It’s like having a cheat mode compass enabled all the time.