<story><title>Six ways to never get lost in a city without GPS or Sat Nav</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15125287</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>Interesting that of these six methods, only one or two would actually work in the United States, and then only in a few cities.&lt;p&gt;- England doesn&apos;t really do Cable TV like America does, so you actually do see these dishes everywhere.  In America, you don&apos;t ever see them.  You&apos;d probably violate your lease for installing one.&lt;p&gt;- American cities have hardly any churches compared to Europe, where 5 out of every 7 buildings you pass will be a Church of some form.&lt;p&gt;- America is 20 years old.  Anything older than that is due for replacement.  Hence no weathering.&lt;p&gt;+ (1/2) People.  Cool.  American cities do in fact have crowds, so you can follow them.  But unless you&apos;re in NYC, you&apos;re probably going to end up at a parking garage.&lt;p&gt;- American cities tend to follow a grid, and are much more decentralized.  Everything you need to get to is in every direction.  Every road is six lanes wide, even the dead ends and alleys.&lt;p&gt;+ (1/2) New York might have clouds, but I&apos;ve never seen one in LA.&lt;p&gt;So yeah, if you&apos;re lost in a US city, you might as well just ask somebody.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blahedo</author><text>This is a bizarre post that is wrong in almost every detail.&lt;p&gt;o &lt;i&gt;&quot;In America, you don&apos;t ever see them.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;  This is just screamingly false.  There are satellite dishes all over the place in both urban and rural areas all over the country.  (Suburban too, but there they&apos;re often in backyards and harder to see.)  They may be sparser than in Europe, I don&apos;t know, but they exist in America and are not rare.&lt;p&gt;o American cities have &lt;i&gt;lots&lt;/i&gt; of churches.  A much higher percentage than in Europe are low-church Protestant (and thus without the eastern alignment) or constructed in the last half-century or so (and thus without the eastern alignment), but I think the overall percentage of buildings that are churches is actually higher.  It&apos;s certainly not radically lower.&lt;p&gt;o The idea that nothing in the US is older than 20 years is clearly meant to be an exaggeration, but it goes beyond mere hyperbole; in any city there are a few buildings that are almost as old as the city itself and plenty others that are a lot older than 20 years.  New stuff too, but there are old buildings.&lt;p&gt;o Semi-true, but in the parking-garage cities the crowds would be moving in no clear single direction, right?  Anyway, there are many cities with at least some subway/tram/commuter rail system, not just NY.&lt;p&gt;o Even in the grid cities, the expressways tend to be radial, and they do point toward a heavier &quot;downtown&quot; area.  If you want &quot;decentralized&quot;, try Paris.&lt;p&gt;o The vast majority of US cities have weather that includes clouds, not &quot;only in a few cities&quot;.&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, your point really was &quot;these don&apos;t apply very well in LA&quot;, but that&apos;s not because the points mostly don&apos;t apply to the US, it&apos;s because LA is an outlier.</text></comment>
<story><title>Six ways to never get lost in a city without GPS or Sat Nav</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15125287</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>Interesting that of these six methods, only one or two would actually work in the United States, and then only in a few cities.&lt;p&gt;- England doesn&apos;t really do Cable TV like America does, so you actually do see these dishes everywhere.  In America, you don&apos;t ever see them.  You&apos;d probably violate your lease for installing one.&lt;p&gt;- American cities have hardly any churches compared to Europe, where 5 out of every 7 buildings you pass will be a Church of some form.&lt;p&gt;- America is 20 years old.  Anything older than that is due for replacement.  Hence no weathering.&lt;p&gt;+ (1/2) People.  Cool.  American cities do in fact have crowds, so you can follow them.  But unless you&apos;re in NYC, you&apos;re probably going to end up at a parking garage.&lt;p&gt;- American cities tend to follow a grid, and are much more decentralized.  Everything you need to get to is in every direction.  Every road is six lanes wide, even the dead ends and alleys.&lt;p&gt;+ (1/2) New York might have clouds, but I&apos;ve never seen one in LA.&lt;p&gt;So yeah, if you&apos;re lost in a US city, you might as well just ask somebody.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>riffic</author><text>&amp;#62;You&apos;d probably violate your lease for installing one&lt;p&gt;And your landlord would be violating FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>