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Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds
Over the last fifty years, humanity has developed an extraordinary shared utility: the Global Positioning System. Even as it guides us across town, GPS helps land planes, route mobile calls, anticipate earthquakes, predict weather, locate oil deposits, measure neutrinos, grow our food, and regulate global finance. It is as ubiquitous and essential as another Cold War technology, the Internet. In Pinpoint, Greg Milner takes us on a fascinating tour of a hidden system that touches almost every aspect of our modern life.
While GPS has brought us breathtakingly accurate information about our planetary environment and physical space, it has also created new forms of human behavior. We have let it saturate the world’s systems so completely and so quickly that we are just beginning to confront the possible consequences. A single GPS timing flaw, whether accidental or malicious, could bring down the electrical grid, hijack drones, or halt the world financial system. The use, and potential misuse, of GPS data by government and corporations raise disturbing questions about ethics and privacy. GPS may be altering the nature of human cognition—possibly even rearranging the gray matter in our heads.
Pinpoint tells the sweeping story of GPS from its conceptual origins as a bomb guidance system to its presence in almost everything we do. Milner examines the different ways humans have understood physical space, delves into the neuroscience of cognitive maps, and questions GPS’s double-edged effect on our culture. A fascinating and original story of the scientific urge toward precision, Pinpoint offers startling insight into how humans understand their place in the world.
While GPS has brought us breathtakingly accurate information about our planetary environment and physical space, it has also created new forms of human behavior. We have let it saturate the world’s systems so completely and so quickly that we are just beginning to confront the possible consequences. A single GPS timing flaw, whether accidental or malicious, could bring down the electrical grid, hijack drones, or halt the world financial system. The use, and potential misuse, of GPS data by government and corporations raise disturbing questions about ethics and privacy. GPS may be altering the nature of human cognition—possibly even rearranging the gray matter in our heads.
Pinpoint tells the sweeping story of GPS from its conceptual origins as a bomb guidance system to its presence in almost everything we do. Milner examines the different ways humans have understood physical space, delves into the neuroscience of cognitive maps, and questions GPS’s double-edged effect on our culture. A fascinating and original story of the scientific urge toward precision, Pinpoint offers startling insight into how humans understand their place in the world.
352 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2016
97 people are currently reading
1714 people want to read
About the author
Greg Milner
8 books39 followersGreg Milner is the author of Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His forthcoming book, Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture and Our Minds, will be published by WW Norton in May 2016. Milner is also theco-author, with filmmaker Joe Berlinger, of Metallica: This Monster Lives. A former editor at Spin, his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Wired, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, New York magazine, Salon, and the Sunday Times of London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
November 24, 2016
This is not the history of the GPS project--or at least, not much. Instead, it is a punch-drunk weave of examples attempting to convince that the existence of GPS has, or "may be altering the nature of human cognition--possibly even rearranging the gray matter in our head." My first thought: is Mr Milner the last believer in Jean-Baptiste Lamarck?
The beginning recounts the now familiar story of Polynesian Eastern migration via a system that those used to Cartesian space --Captain Cook among them -- found almost impossible to grasp. Polynesians didn't move from island to island, but charted turn points by checking the stars *as if seen at those islands*. This was at odds with European views of the Pacific Ocean as a place to get *through* to arrive at their destination. Such navigation skills died long before GPS. This would be one of many quasi-pointless digressions in the book.
The actress Hedy Lamarr gets her due, as the inventor of "spread spectrum" technology in the early 1940s--no patents, of course. I've looked for a book on Lamar-to-GPS-to-Qualcomm, but this isn't it, and was filler here.
The best part of the book is the middle third, telling the history of the fits, starts, and plausible alternatives to GPS. Appalled by the Viet Nam-era waste of munitions, the failure of interdiction, not to mention civilian casualties, an Air Force Colonel/Professor named Parkinson dreamed of a delivery system so accurate it could drop five bombs accurately: four bombs into the same crater made by the first. The design came together in 1973, but funding a 24 (now 31) satellite constellation still seemed difficult.
Until Spring 1999, when President Clinton ordered accurate strikes on Belgrade in response to Serbian aggression in Kosovo. GPS-targeted munitions worked brilliantly. "But there is a corollary to being able to drop five bombs in the same hole: what if you have the wrong hole?" The CIA used an outdated map, and walloped the Chinese Embassy. With great precision. So sorry. Funding GPS thereafter was not a problem.
The other genuinely interesting issue -- one in which I was involved personally -- was civilian access to GPS. The US military argued it made no sense to create a system that could send a missile into the fifth floor, fourth window from the left in the Kremlin, only to allow anyone to use the same technology--possibly against America. But then KAL007 strayed over Soviet airspace, and was rewarded with two missiles up the kazoo, killing nearly 300. President Reagan announced a compromise where the military got a more precise signal (better than 10 m accuracy) than offered to civilians (~100 m accuracy). Civilian GPS also won't work above a certain altitude or faster than a certain speed (I'm not telling).
Almost immediately, the early GPS entrepreneurs, such as Trimble, realized they didn't need to know how to decode the military channel; merely discovering its existence allowed building cheap receivers that could compare the phase shift of the unreadable military channel with the civilian transmission, improving the precision of the consumer product to near equal the military. Plus ground-based transmitters radiate the same GPS signal -- called differential GPS -- allowing, for example, civil aircraft to land via GPS when runways otherwise would be blanketed by fog. The military did that years before; now, the technology exists to allow an autopilot on a Part 121 passenger airline to land at about half the airports in Europe and North America. (Except were the pilot Egyptian or the plane Malaysian…)
GPS is free; paid for by US tax dollars, given to the world. It spawned a multi-billion dollar, global consumer product market. Ford just announced it will build driverless cars, GPS enabled, of course. Such consumer-driven pressure means President Reagan's decision to open GPS to civilians never could be reversed. Yet Russia, Europe and China all have, or are building, their own satellite navigation systems to "compete" with free GPS. Why? One wonders why the EU, in particular, throws € billions at "Galileo", rather than building a better fence around Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.
Anyway, that's the good stuff. The rest of the book is nonsensical, if harmless, speculation, about our ability to navigate devolving to smartphones, with some interesting tidbits about how GPS assists in earthquake measurements and (following all those failed missions to Mars) helped make the Mars Curiosity Lander mission a success--navigating "away from earth by using GPS in the rearview mirror."
The book's psychological padding is both too speculative and too off-course. Two books would be better: a technical history of GPS (for the layman); and a "What If?" that could be filed between Thor Heyerdahl and L. Ron Hubbard.
The beginning recounts the now familiar story of Polynesian Eastern migration via a system that those used to Cartesian space --Captain Cook among them -- found almost impossible to grasp. Polynesians didn't move from island to island, but charted turn points by checking the stars *as if seen at those islands*. This was at odds with European views of the Pacific Ocean as a place to get *through* to arrive at their destination. Such navigation skills died long before GPS. This would be one of many quasi-pointless digressions in the book.
The actress Hedy Lamarr gets her due, as the inventor of "spread spectrum" technology in the early 1940s--no patents, of course. I've looked for a book on Lamar-to-GPS-to-Qualcomm, but this isn't it, and was filler here.
The best part of the book is the middle third, telling the history of the fits, starts, and plausible alternatives to GPS. Appalled by the Viet Nam-era waste of munitions, the failure of interdiction, not to mention civilian casualties, an Air Force Colonel/Professor named Parkinson dreamed of a delivery system so accurate it could drop five bombs accurately: four bombs into the same crater made by the first. The design came together in 1973, but funding a 24 (now 31) satellite constellation still seemed difficult.
Until Spring 1999, when President Clinton ordered accurate strikes on Belgrade in response to Serbian aggression in Kosovo. GPS-targeted munitions worked brilliantly. "But there is a corollary to being able to drop five bombs in the same hole: what if you have the wrong hole?" The CIA used an outdated map, and walloped the Chinese Embassy. With great precision. So sorry. Funding GPS thereafter was not a problem.
The other genuinely interesting issue -- one in which I was involved personally -- was civilian access to GPS. The US military argued it made no sense to create a system that could send a missile into the fifth floor, fourth window from the left in the Kremlin, only to allow anyone to use the same technology--possibly against America. But then KAL007 strayed over Soviet airspace, and was rewarded with two missiles up the kazoo, killing nearly 300. President Reagan announced a compromise where the military got a more precise signal (better than 10 m accuracy) than offered to civilians (~100 m accuracy). Civilian GPS also won't work above a certain altitude or faster than a certain speed (I'm not telling).
Almost immediately, the early GPS entrepreneurs, such as Trimble, realized they didn't need to know how to decode the military channel; merely discovering its existence allowed building cheap receivers that could compare the phase shift of the unreadable military channel with the civilian transmission, improving the precision of the consumer product to near equal the military. Plus ground-based transmitters radiate the same GPS signal -- called differential GPS -- allowing, for example, civil aircraft to land via GPS when runways otherwise would be blanketed by fog. The military did that years before; now, the technology exists to allow an autopilot on a Part 121 passenger airline to land at about half the airports in Europe and North America. (Except were the pilot Egyptian or the plane Malaysian…)
GPS is free; paid for by US tax dollars, given to the world. It spawned a multi-billion dollar, global consumer product market. Ford just announced it will build driverless cars, GPS enabled, of course. Such consumer-driven pressure means President Reagan's decision to open GPS to civilians never could be reversed. Yet Russia, Europe and China all have, or are building, their own satellite navigation systems to "compete" with free GPS. Why? One wonders why the EU, in particular, throws € billions at "Galileo", rather than building a better fence around Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.
Anyway, that's the good stuff. The rest of the book is nonsensical, if harmless, speculation, about our ability to navigate devolving to smartphones, with some interesting tidbits about how GPS assists in earthquake measurements and (following all those failed missions to Mars) helped make the Mars Curiosity Lander mission a success--navigating "away from earth by using GPS in the rearview mirror."
The book's psychological padding is both too speculative and too off-course. Two books would be better: a technical history of GPS (for the layman); and a "What If?" that could be filed between Thor Heyerdahl and L. Ron Hubbard.
December 25, 2017
I found this book at a bazaar. I had never heard of it before, but I bought it anyway. As someone who's working with GPS, I thought the book might be interesting. I've read a lot of articles about how GPS is bad (which frankly infuriates me), and I thought this book would be more or less the same. Especially after reading the blurb about how GPS might be altering our brains (but what technology isn't?). I expected some GPS bashing and shaming.
I was pleasantly surprised to find how accurate the book is. Granted, there are some minor inaccuracies that don't sit well with me (e.g., I wouldn't call an ellipsoid as irregular--geoid definitely is though. And don't get me started on map projections). But overall, the book is a great introduction to the world of GPS. However, I wish there were more explanations about the other global navigation satellite systems, like GLONASS. Most receivers (including your smartphones) can receive signals from both GPS and GLONASS (and even signals from other systems), so I don't see why the book exclusively talks about GPS.
I think Mr. Milner did an excellent job of explaining the many interesting applications of GPS. GPS is more than just the blue dot that tells you where you are and where to find the nearest bookstore (and insisting that you should turn right, even though right is a river). There are so many uses of it that most people are not aware of, such as helping beet farmers, studying earthquakes, monitoring volcanoes, or climate studies. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about GPS.
I was pleasantly surprised to find how accurate the book is. Granted, there are some minor inaccuracies that don't sit well with me (e.g., I wouldn't call an ellipsoid as irregular--geoid definitely is though. And don't get me started on map projections). But overall, the book is a great introduction to the world of GPS. However, I wish there were more explanations about the other global navigation satellite systems, like GLONASS. Most receivers (including your smartphones) can receive signals from both GPS and GLONASS (and even signals from other systems), so I don't see why the book exclusively talks about GPS.
I think Mr. Milner did an excellent job of explaining the many interesting applications of GPS. GPS is more than just the blue dot that tells you where you are and where to find the nearest bookstore (and insisting that you should turn right, even though right is a river). There are so many uses of it that most people are not aware of, such as helping beet farmers, studying earthquakes, monitoring volcanoes, or climate studies. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about GPS.
June 17, 2017
Mostly a waste of time. The beginning on Polynesian navigation was fascinating, as was the description toward the end of uses for earth sciences (plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes) and space. But everything in the middle is pretty boring.
March 31, 2016
GPS is woven into the society of modern life to an astounding degree—much more than I realized. It doesn’t just keep track of location, it also regulates time. The importance of GPS is definitely on par with the internet. Many have suggested that the way we interact with the internet may be changing our brains—and the same may be true for GPS.
Greg Milner’s book provides a fascinating history of the development of the GPS technology. Apparently the Air Force couldn’t imagine a good use for it, which is just mind-blowing. (Reason? “We already have a navigation system.”) It also points out the rather alarming insecurities in the system.
There is so much more in this book than what I’ve outlined above. It’s a fascinating read, and I’d honestly recommend it to anyone who uses GPS. Which is pretty much everybody, at this point. I never realized how ubiquitous the technology is, and how we’re using even when we think we’re not.
I received an ARC of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
Greg Milner’s book provides a fascinating history of the development of the GPS technology. Apparently the Air Force couldn’t imagine a good use for it, which is just mind-blowing. (Reason? “We already have a navigation system.”) It also points out the rather alarming insecurities in the system.
There is so much more in this book than what I’ve outlined above. It’s a fascinating read, and I’d honestly recommend it to anyone who uses GPS. Which is pretty much everybody, at this point. I never realized how ubiquitous the technology is, and how we’re using even when we think we’re not.
I received an ARC of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
October 18, 2016
Milner provides some interesting historical information and explanation of GPS, but he tries to do it all with words. This book would have been so much better, both in terms of reading enjoyment and ease of comprehension, if Milner had included 20-30 cartoons or diagrams, illustrating how GPS and other devices for location and timing work.
September 23, 2018
A surprisingly good book that I picked on a whim. It delves into an amazing array of subjects such as: Geology, Geodesy, Meteorology, Air traffic control, Cartography, Weapons guidance, psychology, orbital mechanics, trigonometry, agriculture just to give a few . All from a small weak signal that the US government thought was going to be useless and the Air Force actively tried to kill on numerous occasions. It shows how private enterprise took a tool the government thought at first was of niche importance to a tool that is central to our way of life.
This book is worth the read and if you are a native of my adopted state of Colorado you will learn how important your state is to world events in a way I'm sure most of us never thought of.
This book is worth the read and if you are a native of my adopted state of Colorado you will learn how important your state is to world events in a way I'm sure most of us never thought of.
February 13, 2022
Informative. Illustrates the endless struggle between technological advancement and legislation. Pretty spooky how much basic infrastructure has come to depend on it too. Disjointed due to lack of overarching theme though.
May 29, 2018
This is a fascinating look at how GPS has come to be such a vital part of our modern world, and I definitely learned a lot about the technology and those that predated it.
April 13, 2017
Enjoyable & accessible science writing! This book filled in plenty of gaps in my knowledge that I didn't know were there. My personal interest in any given chapter's subject matter was hit or miss; I would have loved to read more about the cultural changes resulting from so many individuals carrying GPS-enabled devices around. We learn quite a bit about the ethics and legality of law enforcement using GPS to track individuals, but that chapter just touches on the same technology used by employers on their workers and advertisers on customers (and nothing about individuals following each other around!). Same with the anecdotes and interviews - some were fascinating tidbits and others felt unnecessary, but a different reader might have felt the opposite.
The primary focus is on the history of navigational science and how it's being deployed now despite our limited ability to deal with its risks and flaws. Which really drives home how new this is - I'm guessing most readers grew up and learned to drive firmly in the paper map or maybe the early Mapquest era, and find it hard to wrap our heads around how GPS-dependent seemingly unrelated infrastructure is. I can only imagine how an equivalent book published ten years from now will read...
The primary focus is on the history of navigational science and how it's being deployed now despite our limited ability to deal with its risks and flaws. Which really drives home how new this is - I'm guessing most readers grew up and learned to drive firmly in the paper map or maybe the early Mapquest era, and find it hard to wrap our heads around how GPS-dependent seemingly unrelated infrastructure is. I can only imagine how an equivalent book published ten years from now will read...
September 22, 2017
Good start but stalled. Try again??
Or not. I read some of the critical reviews, here and at Amazon, and I think I'll call it good. The author is no expert, and made some dumb mistakes and silly/nonsensical extrapolations. Or so others think. "Life is Short. Books are Many."
Or not. I read some of the critical reviews, here and at Amazon, and I think I'll call it good. The author is no expert, and made some dumb mistakes and silly/nonsensical extrapolations. Or so others think. "Life is Short. Books are Many."
February 5, 2017
As someone always concerned about privacy while at the same time wanting to utilize the latest in technology, I found this book to be a fascinating and enlightening read. The ethics of GPS as regards privacy and Fourth Amendment rights had been something that had long been bothering me, and I was happy that Milner covered the topic in this book.
The author takes readers on a journey through the beginning of how humans navigated and saw the world into how the use of GPS began with mainly military intentions. Something that we take for granted today was something that many in the Air Force and other scientific fields had to fight for in the arena of funding and at conception level.
The reason I was most interested to read this book and was not disappointed, was the coverage of how GPS is changing the way we think. My best friend lives 50 minutes away from me, and I would not be able to get to her house despite going there many times because I rely solely on my phone to get me there. I have mental maps of other places I frequent in the DFW metroplex area, but I am sure, like the test subject mentioned in several research cases, I could have a vaster and further reaching conception of the area if I didn't use GPS to get me to certain places at certain times.
My husband and I always joke about the incident in the office where Michael literally drives his car into a lake because the GPS told him to do it, but surprisingly incidents like this have happened, some with deadly results.
This book is definitely worth reading for those who are concerned about privacy, like the history of technology, or simply would like to know more about how the brain processes information. I liked that Milner, though his subject is heavily scientific, kept things mostly on an accessible level for all.
Source: I received a copy of this title from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.
The author takes readers on a journey through the beginning of how humans navigated and saw the world into how the use of GPS began with mainly military intentions. Something that we take for granted today was something that many in the Air Force and other scientific fields had to fight for in the arena of funding and at conception level.
The reason I was most interested to read this book and was not disappointed, was the coverage of how GPS is changing the way we think. My best friend lives 50 minutes away from me, and I would not be able to get to her house despite going there many times because I rely solely on my phone to get me there. I have mental maps of other places I frequent in the DFW metroplex area, but I am sure, like the test subject mentioned in several research cases, I could have a vaster and further reaching conception of the area if I didn't use GPS to get me to certain places at certain times.
My husband and I always joke about the incident in the office where Michael literally drives his car into a lake because the GPS told him to do it, but surprisingly incidents like this have happened, some with deadly results.
This book is definitely worth reading for those who are concerned about privacy, like the history of technology, or simply would like to know more about how the brain processes information. I liked that Milner, though his subject is heavily scientific, kept things mostly on an accessible level for all.
Source: I received a copy of this title from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.
January 24, 2017
Quick—guess how many GPS satellites there are up there in space? 100? 200? My wife just guessed 4,000. Well, the answer is 24. All owned and operated by the U.S. military’s 50th Space Wing 2nd Space Operations Squadron. Sixteen monitoring stations keep that shit together day in and day out at 20,000 kilometers up in space. GPS runs more stuff than you know—more than just driving to the Gap over in Willowdale. It does military security, measures the tectonic plates, and plays a huge role in air traffic control safety. It even has some sort of role in how we calculate time. This title provides readers with a primer on the history of navigation and what led to GPS, just enough about the implications of privacy and GPS, and only a little bit on the subtitular “how it is changing…our minds.” Military stuff is paramount and gets a lot of ink, but the appeal is really the clarity with which Milner explains all the science-y stuff that’s related to GPS, like plate tectonics, precision agriculture that uses the technology to boost crop yields, and LORAN, the WWII radio-based navigation system. Milner points out that the signals are “so dependable, so ordered and clean, that GPS has become our heartbeat. If it failed tomorrow, our society would experience enormous disruptions and scientific setbacks.” And it is a fascinating, vital topic: GPS “signals are traveling at the speed of light. A timing error of just a millionth of a second will translate into a distance error of 200 miles.” VERDICT The book gathers just about everything you’d want to know about GPS into one readable, organized place (a place quite unlike my daughter’s bedroom) with clear, logical, explicative writing.
Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.
Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.
July 8, 2016
Pretty interesting. I really enjoyed the history of the Polynesian explorers, the focus on tectonic plates, and the discussions of earthquakes and tsunamis best. Milner also does a good job of explaining GPS tech. I thought I would be interested in that since I learned about in geology class (because of it's relation to measuring earthquakes, but I was not as interested in that as I thought I might be. Though, I can see other people liking a lot more than I did.
One of the best aspects of this book is Milner's constant focus on how innovation and new tech come about. The military always gets their hands on research and tries to destroy the enemy with it. If it can kill enemies, then it has a good chance of getting funded. If it is unlikely to kill the enemy, the funding is less certain. One of my old neuroscience professors tried to drill that into our heads. She said no matter what, even if the studies are funded by non military sources, the military always gains access to whatever they want. Milner really echoed those sentiments.
One of the best aspects of this book is Milner's constant focus on how innovation and new tech come about. The military always gets their hands on research and tries to destroy the enemy with it. If it can kill enemies, then it has a good chance of getting funded. If it is unlikely to kill the enemy, the funding is less certain. One of my old neuroscience professors tried to drill that into our heads. She said no matter what, even if the studies are funded by non military sources, the military always gains access to whatever they want. Milner really echoed those sentiments.
June 21, 2016
I really liked this book. GPS is way more than the blue dot on your phone app. Milner takes the reader on a vast journey from the etak navigation methods of the Polynesian sailors to the guidance systems on the Mars lander. What started out simply as an Air Force bomber guidance project has become an indispensable backbone of modern civilization. Milner introduces the reader to vast variety of non-military technologies that rely on GPS including air traffic control, sugar beet farming, plate tectonics research, earthquake prediction, modern financial systems, weather forecasting, precision time keeping, global warming research and of course mapping and geodesy to name a few. There is also a chapter on whether as a culture we are losing our spatial awareness and what does this mean for our society. Good read if your interested in how the world works.
September 10, 2016
This is a fascinating book that explores how GPS creates cognitive transformation. Milner probes how GPS is impacting on our culture. The section on "Death by GPS" is powerful. It is well written, as we expect of Milner. But I would have preferred greater attention to literacy and theories of geosociality. It is difficult to 'prove' how GPS change our 'brains.' It is more instructive to probe how GPS changes how we think about bodies, space and movement. That is a different book. But this one offers a strong entree into the GPS.
December 21, 2016
I can't really give an unbiased review of this one. GPS is my industry, so I thought the topic was incredibly interesting--I honestly don't know whether someone not in my field would like it or not. The history he goes through is so new that some of it has happened even since I've been working in the field, so I remember it. I found myself not so much reading the book as studying it, marking up almost every page with highlighter of things I want to remember. Mr. Milner is coming to speak at a conference we are hosting in the summer, and I really look forward to meeting him.
February 26, 2022
This book is a collection of stories and ideas about how GPS is changing our life. Not just through navigation. Lot of it has to do with timekeeping, precise positioning, how it's used in meteorology and other associated sciences. To be honest some of the chapters were not that interesting but others were actually pretty interesting. If you're looking for a book on GPS that explains the history and the development this is not that book that was treated very lightly. There are better books for that such as GPS from MIT press or You are Here.
October 20, 2016
Highly recommended for anyone interested in navigation. (I'll confess I didn't understand every bit of the science, but I think that's my deficit and not the book's fault).
December 5, 2018
Modern-day humanity is spoiled. We need not gaze to the stars in order to navigate the way to another city, and we do not need a sextant to traverse the depths of the seas. GPS has our back -- but we rarely consider what goes into it. "Pinpoint", a nonfiction writing by Greg Milner, tells the untold stories of countless contributors to GPS as they worked throughout the second half of the twentieth century to develop a system that provides glue to the foundation of modern technology and was written in order to spread knowledge of the importance of GPS for our society.
One of the most important qualities a nonfiction book must possess is the ability to keep readers interested. Personally, I have a passion for science and technology, so my requirements were satisfied so long as Milner continued to wow me with fascinating facts. However, Milner does struggle with keeping a steadfast narrative and message that can hold the book together and facilitate the reading experience. The number of characters and stories he introduces is simply too large to be fully comprehended, and his shifts in focus can be jarring. For instance, he begins his book with the fascinating tale of the Polynesians, and how their groundbreaking system of travel was a primitive example of "wayfinding, not navigation"(18). He beautifully develops this segment as he fascinates the reader with the wonder as to how the Polynesians managed to blindly travel from Asia to nearly South America without any modern technologies. However, he rather jarringly transitions from this into the history of GPS without providing much of a link to the Polynesians. The whole Polynesian story seemed to have been developed for nothing; it didn't contribute much to the book. In other words, his microscopic writing style is good; readers are to be fascinated by his presented knowledge. His macroscopic writing, however, is very poorly organized and abandons well-developed ideas, leaving the reader with a cloudy perception of the meaning of the book. He does, however, leave the reader with some deep thoughts to ponder at the end of the book, proposing that new navigational systems may arise that will advance humanity, but that "GPS is our rock"(262). This quite nicely pushes the focus to the future after a rather hectic analysis of the past.
I decided to give this book three out of five stars because, while it is still very much worth reading just for the insight and facts provided regarding the importance of GPS, readers may be bored or confused due to his unorganized writing style. He does bring everything together nicely in the end, but by that point readers may have lost interest due to the constant shift of focus from one project to another scientific team to another space mission. For this reason, I specifically recommend this book for those with an especially strong interest in the fields of technology, science, and space.
One of the most important qualities a nonfiction book must possess is the ability to keep readers interested. Personally, I have a passion for science and technology, so my requirements were satisfied so long as Milner continued to wow me with fascinating facts. However, Milner does struggle with keeping a steadfast narrative and message that can hold the book together and facilitate the reading experience. The number of characters and stories he introduces is simply too large to be fully comprehended, and his shifts in focus can be jarring. For instance, he begins his book with the fascinating tale of the Polynesians, and how their groundbreaking system of travel was a primitive example of "wayfinding, not navigation"(18). He beautifully develops this segment as he fascinates the reader with the wonder as to how the Polynesians managed to blindly travel from Asia to nearly South America without any modern technologies. However, he rather jarringly transitions from this into the history of GPS without providing much of a link to the Polynesians. The whole Polynesian story seemed to have been developed for nothing; it didn't contribute much to the book. In other words, his microscopic writing style is good; readers are to be fascinated by his presented knowledge. His macroscopic writing, however, is very poorly organized and abandons well-developed ideas, leaving the reader with a cloudy perception of the meaning of the book. He does, however, leave the reader with some deep thoughts to ponder at the end of the book, proposing that new navigational systems may arise that will advance humanity, but that "GPS is our rock"(262). This quite nicely pushes the focus to the future after a rather hectic analysis of the past.
I decided to give this book three out of five stars because, while it is still very much worth reading just for the insight and facts provided regarding the importance of GPS, readers may be bored or confused due to his unorganized writing style. He does bring everything together nicely in the end, but by that point readers may have lost interest due to the constant shift of focus from one project to another scientific team to another space mission. For this reason, I specifically recommend this book for those with an especially strong interest in the fields of technology, science, and space.
September 4, 2017
A few years ago, I read Greg Milner's "Perfecting Sound Forever." That book, about the history of recorded music, was engaging, funny and often enlightening -- even as it got bogged down in the techno-speak of computer files in its last chapter or so. I was hoping for the same from "Pinpoint."
Well, "Pinpoint" was enlightening in places. But it too often wasn't engaging, and it definitely wasn't funny.
I don't know if I should entirely blame Milner. The subtitle promises much but doesn't quite deliver. Yes, we're probably too reliant on GPS these days, which means that many people can't read a map -- or they trust the godlike voice of GPS so much they end up driving into lakes. That's just one chapter, though. And yeah, there's something about our internal compass that's gotten lost, thanks to GPS -- after all, why bother to memorize star charts or be able to count waves if this digital machine will do it for you? (That's another chapter -- and we've been losing knowledge to machines for ages, including being able to recite Homer from memory the way the old Greek griot did himself.)
But perhaps the bigger problem is that this book is both too small -- a pop history of GPS and accompanying technology -- and too big -- trying to take on every aspect of how GPS has changed modern life. So we get how GPS and atomic clocks are pretty much at the heart of every bit of technology we have these days (and woe is us if they fail), as well as capsule histories of a few companies that made mints from the technology, such as Magellan and Garmin. A deeper dive on either side may have made for a better book.
I didn't dislike "Pinpoint." Early chapters on navigation and satellites were promising. Milner is a fine writer and he obviously did his research. But the book lacks the passion of "Perfecting Sound," which means that I wasn't hurrying back to it when I put it down.
Maybe it would have been better to map out something different.
Well, "Pinpoint" was enlightening in places. But it too often wasn't engaging, and it definitely wasn't funny.
I don't know if I should entirely blame Milner. The subtitle promises much but doesn't quite deliver. Yes, we're probably too reliant on GPS these days, which means that many people can't read a map -- or they trust the godlike voice of GPS so much they end up driving into lakes. That's just one chapter, though. And yeah, there's something about our internal compass that's gotten lost, thanks to GPS -- after all, why bother to memorize star charts or be able to count waves if this digital machine will do it for you? (That's another chapter -- and we've been losing knowledge to machines for ages, including being able to recite Homer from memory the way the old Greek griot did himself.)
But perhaps the bigger problem is that this book is both too small -- a pop history of GPS and accompanying technology -- and too big -- trying to take on every aspect of how GPS has changed modern life. So we get how GPS and atomic clocks are pretty much at the heart of every bit of technology we have these days (and woe is us if they fail), as well as capsule histories of a few companies that made mints from the technology, such as Magellan and Garmin. A deeper dive on either side may have made for a better book.
I didn't dislike "Pinpoint." Early chapters on navigation and satellites were promising. Milner is a fine writer and he obviously did his research. But the book lacks the passion of "Perfecting Sound," which means that I wasn't hurrying back to it when I put it down.
Maybe it would have been better to map out something different.
March 8, 2018
I like history and how that history affects us today. This is a book about GPS, where it came from, how it was built and what is doing to us today. While interesting in the stories, the author keeps pounding the same conclusion over and over again.
The first part of the book is filled with the origin stories of GPS. It is the usual tale of really smart people coming up with something radical. Then those with the purse strings are narrow minded and can't see the benefit. The Air Force hated the idea of GPS and running satellites, but now is a point of pride. This seems to be the story of a lot of amazing wonders in the technology world.
The origin story also shows how inept the military industrial complex can be in building a product for customers. The aerospace companies came up with a hugely complex, physically large and super expensive "portable" GPS systems. Trimble came up with something just as good, for a lot less and could be stuck in the pack of the solider. The Army in Desert Storm was using civilian equipment, some of it personally bought by soldiers and families for them to use. That is pretty sad.
The second part of the book delves into how GPS benefits us in many ways, but also makes us more stupid. Ultra precise GPS helps farmers improve yields. But having it in cars causes "death by GPS" scenarios. I liked the story of etak, the ability to use skills to navigate anywhere. We are losing our ability to etak our way through the world. Like a lot of our technology, what was something that helped immensely is now detaching us from the world around us. Pathfinding and navigation is an important human survival skill, one that we don't use that often in the world of GPS & phones. I know people who feel they would get lost walking the neighborhood if they didn't have turn by turn help. That doesn't bode well for us.
The first part of the book is filled with the origin stories of GPS. It is the usual tale of really smart people coming up with something radical. Then those with the purse strings are narrow minded and can't see the benefit. The Air Force hated the idea of GPS and running satellites, but now is a point of pride. This seems to be the story of a lot of amazing wonders in the technology world.
The origin story also shows how inept the military industrial complex can be in building a product for customers. The aerospace companies came up with a hugely complex, physically large and super expensive "portable" GPS systems. Trimble came up with something just as good, for a lot less and could be stuck in the pack of the solider. The Army in Desert Storm was using civilian equipment, some of it personally bought by soldiers and families for them to use. That is pretty sad.
The second part of the book delves into how GPS benefits us in many ways, but also makes us more stupid. Ultra precise GPS helps farmers improve yields. But having it in cars causes "death by GPS" scenarios. I liked the story of etak, the ability to use skills to navigate anywhere. We are losing our ability to etak our way through the world. Like a lot of our technology, what was something that helped immensely is now detaching us from the world around us. Pathfinding and navigation is an important human survival skill, one that we don't use that often in the world of GPS & phones. I know people who feel they would get lost walking the neighborhood if they didn't have turn by turn help. That doesn't bode well for us.
May 19, 2017
I picked up Pinpoint because I have read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows and am interested in neuroplasticity (especially how the environment - including technology - affects the physiology of the brain via neuroplasticity) and am an avid consumer of GPS based technology such as Google Maps (I use the Google Maps in my cell phone to get anywherewith which I am unfamiliar). Pinpoint was billed as something similar, but with a focus on GPS and how find our way in the world, so I thought would be an interesting read on multiple fronts.
To be fair, Pinpoint was an interesting read, but from the perspective of the history of GPS, the many, many ways in which it used in the modern world and makes modern life possible, and the various potential threats to the operation of the modern world in the event of an attack on GPS. There was some information regarding the physiological psychology of GPS (as well as some alarming stories of people who've followed GPS directions into nightmarish situations, which made me squirm in my seat because I could easily imagine myself bumbling blindly into such a scenario) in the beginning and in a section in the middle-ish portion of the book, but that was about it. Pinpoint was mostly a book about the history, uses, and implications of GPS in the context of the functioning of modern life, which was fascinating in its own way, but only two out of the three major areas specified in the book's title (and that's with my being generous).
Overall, Pinpoint was an educational and interesting read, but if you're looking for a book 'in the tradition of The Shallows' go elsewhere.
To be fair, Pinpoint was an interesting read, but from the perspective of the history of GPS, the many, many ways in which it used in the modern world and makes modern life possible, and the various potential threats to the operation of the modern world in the event of an attack on GPS. There was some information regarding the physiological psychology of GPS (as well as some alarming stories of people who've followed GPS directions into nightmarish situations, which made me squirm in my seat because I could easily imagine myself bumbling blindly into such a scenario) in the beginning and in a section in the middle-ish portion of the book, but that was about it. Pinpoint was mostly a book about the history, uses, and implications of GPS in the context of the functioning of modern life, which was fascinating in its own way, but only two out of the three major areas specified in the book's title (and that's with my being generous).
Overall, Pinpoint was an educational and interesting read, but if you're looking for a book 'in the tradition of The Shallows' go elsewhere.
April 30, 2018
This is a good, journalistic history of GPS technology, covering how it evolved from its military origins, and uses that have proliferated well beyond navigation, from precision beet farming to the detection of earthquakes; and the privacy and security issues that still need to be addressed.
The weakest part of the book is chapter expressing moral panic about how using GPS might impair people's ability to navigate, resulting in physical changes to our brains. A few horror stories about people following GPS directions into lethal or life-threatening misadventures, a few summaries of studies with dubious-sounding methodology, and ominous inferences about risks to basic human capabilities.
It's not hard to imagine plausible alternative hypotheses - the availability of GPS helps people explore and discover more places than they otherwise might, because they no longer fear getting lost. Another perspective is that the harm comes not from using GPS while driving, but from driving itself. Here's a study showing that kids who are driven everywhere have an impoverished mental map of their neighborhood compared to kids who walk and bicycle. https://www.citylab.com/transportatio...
And the affect of cultural practices on brain wiring is definitional whatever people learn how to do: play the violin, make furniture, read and write - is present in neural tissues. When fewer people memorized epic sagas and more people learned to read, those cultural changes also caused changes in people's brains.
The weakest part of the book is chapter expressing moral panic about how using GPS might impair people's ability to navigate, resulting in physical changes to our brains. A few horror stories about people following GPS directions into lethal or life-threatening misadventures, a few summaries of studies with dubious-sounding methodology, and ominous inferences about risks to basic human capabilities.
It's not hard to imagine plausible alternative hypotheses - the availability of GPS helps people explore and discover more places than they otherwise might, because they no longer fear getting lost. Another perspective is that the harm comes not from using GPS while driving, but from driving itself. Here's a study showing that kids who are driven everywhere have an impoverished mental map of their neighborhood compared to kids who walk and bicycle. https://www.citylab.com/transportatio...
And the affect of cultural practices on brain wiring is definitional whatever people learn how to do: play the violin, make furniture, read and write - is present in neural tissues. When fewer people memorized epic sagas and more people learned to read, those cultural changes also caused changes in people's brains.
Read
January 29, 2023This is a really fascinating topic and one I really didn't know much about at all.
Turns out GPS touches on so many topics beyond just loading up Waze or google maps to get me from my house to the nearest grocery store.
Everything from Polynesian migration, missiles, earthquakes, mapmaking, cartography, geology, geodesy, war, farming and continental drift is covered in this book, so there was a lot of terminology, words, and concepts that were new to me. I had to read a few sections multiple times to understand the gist of what was going on and why it was so important. The technical nature of the topic meant that the acronyms flowed fast and thick. There could have a helpful glossary somewhere to make it all make sense.
I could have used a little bit less of the interagency drama between the US Army, Air Force and Navy, the international intrigue during the development stages of early GPS, but throughout the book I appreciated the care the author took to come up with examples of the impact on the development of the technology software.
Before reading the book, I definitely hadn't appreciated how difficult it was to accurately map the world and the relationships between long distances. To me this quote was wild "By... 1969... the position of Europe relative to North America was known to within about 50 meters, roughly half of what the margin of error had been 10 years earlier."
Turns out GPS touches on so many topics beyond just loading up Waze or google maps to get me from my house to the nearest grocery store.
Everything from Polynesian migration, missiles, earthquakes, mapmaking, cartography, geology, geodesy, war, farming and continental drift is covered in this book, so there was a lot of terminology, words, and concepts that were new to me. I had to read a few sections multiple times to understand the gist of what was going on and why it was so important. The technical nature of the topic meant that the acronyms flowed fast and thick. There could have a helpful glossary somewhere to make it all make sense.
I could have used a little bit less of the interagency drama between the US Army, Air Force and Navy, the international intrigue during the development stages of early GPS, but throughout the book I appreciated the care the author took to come up with examples of the impact on the development of the technology software.
Before reading the book, I definitely hadn't appreciated how difficult it was to accurately map the world and the relationships between long distances. To me this quote was wild "By... 1969... the position of Europe relative to North America was known to within about 50 meters, roughly half of what the margin of error had been 10 years earlier."
February 25, 2024
Absolutely fascinating. From GPS' unlikely birth to its current ubiquitous presence in our daily lives, the author shows uses and applications that most of us probably haven't even thought of. As an ex-navigator, I have often worried that if an enemy were to attack the GPS satellites, we have a generation of naval and aviation operators who have never known anything but the pinpoint accuracy and uninterrupted input from a GPS receiver. I've still got a sextant - it's a bit dusty, as is my brain, but it wouldn't take too long to get back up to speed. But, as the book makes clear, precise navigation, battlefield control and command, and weapons targeting might be the least of our problems. GPS is at its heart a very accurate clock, that is used for synchronizing clocks in critical infrastructure worldwide, so if GPS goes down, so do the synchronized relays in our power-grid and the multiplexing switches in our landline and cellphone networks. What was it Curtis LeMay said about "...back to the stone-age"?
August 31, 2019
Three things I learned:
1. In 1980s testing, drivers who used turn-by-turn directions did better than those using maps, routes, or even a combination of modes - because the "spatial" task of looking at a map interferes with driving
2. Physical maps help people build "cognitive maps" in their head - e.g. people know how to navigate best when they're facing north (like the orientation of most maps)
3. The key benefit of the Mercator projection is that latitude and longitude are perpendicular everywhere -- this is good for interactivity (e.g. Google Maps) and works in local areas, but isn't realistic over large areas
1. In 1980s testing, drivers who used turn-by-turn directions did better than those using maps, routes, or even a combination of modes - because the "spatial" task of looking at a map interferes with driving
2. Physical maps help people build "cognitive maps" in their head - e.g. people know how to navigate best when they're facing north (like the orientation of most maps)
3. The key benefit of the Mercator projection is that latitude and longitude are perpendicular everywhere -- this is good for interactivity (e.g. Google Maps) and works in local areas, but isn't realistic over large areas
August 4, 2020
tl;dr: MUST READ for anyone in the aerospace industry.
When I picked up this book, I did NOT expect this much research, scope, or depth of the tool we use everyday. When people ask our industry "What's so useful about space? Why shouldn't we put money for better efforts?" GPS/GNSS is our go-to answer even though we know it's cliched. Yet, the amount of technology GPS enables is FAR beyond simple positioning systems. From stock markets to fundamental sciences, predicting/managing natural disasters to regulating electricity grids, GPS is perhaps the one foundational technology that our modern life is built on. This book traces the history of ancient navigational systems in Polynesia to how a small AFB in Colorado Springs holds the master key to all this traffic.
When I picked up this book, I did NOT expect this much research, scope, or depth of the tool we use everyday. When people ask our industry "What's so useful about space? Why shouldn't we put money for better efforts?" GPS/GNSS is our go-to answer even though we know it's cliched. Yet, the amount of technology GPS enables is FAR beyond simple positioning systems. From stock markets to fundamental sciences, predicting/managing natural disasters to regulating electricity grids, GPS is perhaps the one foundational technology that our modern life is built on. This book traces the history of ancient navigational systems in Polynesia to how a small AFB in Colorado Springs holds the master key to all this traffic.
September 10, 2020
Purchase Pinpoint here for just $10!
This is a wonderful book that explains the history of the GPS and helps to give a better understanding of how your GPS works. If you have an interest in the history of technology, you’ll be sure to find this book really informative and interesting.
Alicia - The Book Grocer
This is a wonderful book that explains the history of the GPS and helps to give a better understanding of how your GPS works. If you have an interest in the history of technology, you’ll be sure to find this book really informative and interesting.
Alicia - The Book Grocer
September 30, 2023
There are not a lot of books demystifying GPS for the common man and this is one of them. Although I would not say that it is the best - I need to find another. The language is accessible but it gets tedious towards the end as a lot of technical stuff floods the pages which makes it kind of hard to absorb. But I can say for sure that it certainly did open my eyes to how the idea of GPS evolved and its functionality. Good science is difficult to present in an accessible language and that’s probably my only issue with this book. The author could have filtered out quite a bit of content; at least in my opinion. But it’s worth a read if you have wondered what GPS is all about….
June 20, 2017
I had no idea GPS was so ubiquitous in society. It's everywhere apparently. This book was a combination of history and technological explanation. It's very technical in some parts and was above my head, but it was interesting to read and a great book for anyone who wants to geek out about satellites, aviation, beet farming, start-ups, truck driving, seismology, plate tectonics, or even privacy law. From its start as an unfavorite military project to its current presence in phones, planes, cars, farming equipment, and drones, GPS has been everywhere.
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