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Time for a Beer?
i am fartacus writes: "Good news for thirsty beer lovers in a strange town, this will help you find the nearest pub... hmmm beer .... and help you stay on time.
" The gist of this is that it's a watch with a GPS transmitter
that can show you the distance and direction to the 4 nearest
pubs. Ingenious!
Ofcourse we'd need a watch with a GPS to track where the 4 nearest bathrooms are
The day I need a device to find me beer...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
...operating a GPS device in order to bar hop while completely stone drunk, and swaying all over the pavement shouldn't prove a challenge at all.
Man I have to hold my wrist with the other hand just to look at the time.
And another thing; Who wants to bear witness to such truly horrible pick-up lines as:
"Hey baby! Wanna see my GPS device?! Yowzer!"
:)
In my opinion the watch needs two key features before it can be succesful.
1. The ability to track my house so I can find my way back home.
2. An ugly girl detector, so the previous feature doesn't allow me to make it home with the wrong girl.
Figure it out Mr. Scietists and sign me up!
MikeAtIF*ckStuffedAnimalsDotCom
find the nearest pub.... and help you stay on time
Aren't those two mutually exclusive? Unless, you're trying to get to the pub for happy hour or something.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Finding beer pubs.
And idea who's time has finally come.
Ingenious, and tasty.
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
Wow, I didn't know they could make GPS *transmitters* that small!
I can't go into a bar without losing a few hours. Sometimes I go into some kind of wierd time/space warp where I suddenly wake up in strange places.
It's a GPS receiver, not a transmitter. GPS works passively by listening to the timing differences of time-encoded signals from up to 12 satellites at once (there are 24, but generally the most you'll be able to "hear" at once are 12). Here's the dummies guide to it.
It is funny though how GPS is a basic technology, but every application of it is treated as some new discovery: i.e. I'm going to make a piece of software that has a database of all movie theatres, and when you have a GPS on your PDA it'll point you to the nearest theatre: Whoopee, I've developed a new theatre detector! Blah. As a sidenote: MapPoint 2002 is a very nice product. The breadth of information in it is astounding.
This is great! We can integrate into Woz's new handheld - and you'll be able to work at the local bar, no matter where you happen to be travelling!
I can feel my productivity rising...
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
So THIS is what Woz has been working on?!
For example, in France, you can't just advertise for Health-hazardous stuff, so you see, this is not only a matter of talibanism.
But if they added the possibility to just find whatever with this, I'd be interested, especially for
So, let's just do it the old fashioned way : ask people, you may even make friends
Trolling using another account since 2005.
as craig kilborn said: "who needs GPS when all you have to do is follow Prince Henry"
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
A decent use for the TSP - finding the fastest way to get drunk.
Of course, the heuristic would be changing over time.
mick
I bet a a buddy of mine a pint that the link would take me to the product on thinkgeek. Good thing we didn't shake on it!
maskirovka
Something really useful would be a device that would help you find your way back home from the bar and/or make a taxi appear with a push of a button. Finding a bar has never been the problem, atleast for me :)
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
the four closest nudie-bars. The thing would sell like hot cakes!
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
For instance: If you're pubbing, and you've just heard that the Earth will be destroyed by aliens in 12 minutes to make way for a new space highway...
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Looks like someone beat Woz to the punch here... and he just started a new company and all...
Finding beer in unfamiliar locale is usually fairly easy. Something to help one find weed, THAT would be useful.
What about getting back home???
~.Evanrude
One feature that would make this way more useful as well would be the number of a local cab company made available.
That way, you could get there for sure (if you don't have a car) and in a flash you have the number to call for a ride home, if you have one too many beers...
Granted though, this looks more or less like a test project, never to be released to the public.
And how much of a drunk would you have to be to know where the closest 4 bars are, anyway??? =)
Mark
I think this is about as useful as the Matrix Binary Watch reported on Slashdot here.
Seriously, if you have a couple hundred dollars to waste on device like this, perhaps you should think about donating to a charity or something at least worthwhile.
--Metrollica
Now we just need to modify it to show the closest Linux User Group. Of course, that might be somewhat redundant with the advertised function ;-).
When activated, the screen shakes, and becomes double, in exact opposite to what your eyes may see after a fair few pints, thereby cancelling out the effect, and giving the sozzled user a valuable aid to get back home afterwards.
How big of an alcoholic do you need to be before you can buy a gps watch designed soley for the purpose of getting wasted?
--Metrollica
My search only took 0.10 seconds.
pub crawls.... just imagine.
"follow me guys, this thingy says the next pud is THAT way!!!" *walks headlong into a wall*
: D
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
Please warn me of the following stages:
- I'm the best looking guy here
- Damn! When did all the hot chicks get here?
- Brother! I love you man! You've always been there!
- Let me buy you a beer!
- Let me buy EVERYONE a beer! I'm rich!
- Oh man.. look at me.. I'm a wicked dancer!
- Hey! I'm a good drummer! Seriously!
- Oh yah?! Well f*ck you too man!
- But officer, I only had a couple beers!
- You want one?
- But honey, I know I didn't come home last night, but it wasn't my fault. Honest! I forgot where we lived.
I have no signature
If you have a handheld (Pocket PC, Palm, and certain internet enabled cell phones) and live in a major city, this has been available for months from a free app called Vindigo. Its even better in that it tells you directions to the nearest bars, restaurants, stores, and movies and it doesn't even need GPS as long as you know what block you're on. It also has reviews for everything -- which is extemely useful.
I don't want to sound like a marketing guy, but IMHO Vindigo is indispensible if you live near a place like NYC and often have trouble finding places.
Downsides: It is currently only offered in 18 cities and has ads but I bet that watch doesn't work all over the place either. The upsides are tremendous, though. Having a bar finder in a watch is all well and good, but if you already have a Palm you might as well get all the other useful info as well. You'll never have to wander around the Village looking for the Original Ray's Famous Pizza again.
No brain, no pain!
...is a GPS transmitter that can locate the nearest four drunken cuties in the bar.
Why do I want to be stumbling around in a bar full of drunk MEN?
Can't you smell your way to the pub, like everybody else ?!
and it will make you walk a bit more, or beep, when alcohol level is over or below a certain limit...
It's just a BloJJ
I never said i was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Riiiiiiiight....
Get your own free personal location tracker
Truely worth a mod of +5 funny.
Advertising I want to get on a regular basis. They should also put the technology into a watch that can also detect stress levels and then direct you to the nearest watering hole. I wonder if anyone who uses Northstar ever called in to find out where the nearest pub is.
For those having very few friends.
If you manage to hack the gps/database system you might be able to redirect people to your birthday party instead of the nearest pub.
Or if your up to practical jokes...
Redirect them to nearest AAA center....
-----
An easier way is to paint arrows on the ground...
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
...is that it will never stop working, no matter how much Guinness you drink. Forgetting to keep a charge is no longer one of the unfortunate side effects (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/22322 10&mode=thread), just as soon as we figure out how to shrink the damn thing.
For more information on the watch and other Bristol uni wearable stuff look at http://wearables.cs.bris.ac.uk
GPS devices are pretty cool, but the last thing I want to be carrying arround is a GPS transmitter broadcasting my location! Maybe we can hack this thing so it's just a GPS receiver?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
2. An ugly girl detector, so the previous feature doesn't allow me to make it home with the wrong girl.
Your posting on slashdot your not gonna make it with any girls.
Mess Stuff Up
Truely worth a mod of +5 funny!
Why does this sound like something from Wheels of Zeus? I'm waiting for "Beers of Zeus" myself! The BoZ is back!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
The usefulness of this device depends entirely on the kind of pub it takes you to.
It would be a tragedy if such a device were only able to offer the locations of trendy bars which only sell loathesome fizzy piss.
Obviously, it should use the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) database of pub locations, so that you can always be assured of a good beer at the end of your journey.
"Information wants to be paid"
In Dutch 'gist' translates as 'yeast' (which of course is used in beer brewing). Should bring a smile to a Dutch speaking person's face.
This isn't advertisizing, it's more like an intelligent phonebook. Who are you kidding?
Publishing ads concerning this device (which only functionality is to lead you to any pub) will be an implicit invitation to get drunk.
Another good news for all of you that visit / work in Vienna. I found quite a good "Publocator" that features the 32 finest Irish and English Pubs in Vienna. You can find it under Schlucken.org. There are also rating of the pubs, approximate prices and last but not least a detailed descritpion how to get there (including map) have fun jl
".Sig Stealer" was here
Is can it be made to interface with the guidance system on your Beer Scooter?
Well, looks like we finally found some use for GPS! I wonder when we get that service available in Finland.
Isn't this over-specalized? Wouldn't it be much simpler just posting waypoints for current GPS instruments? Then I could just download it to my Garmin/Magellan/Whatever GPS receiver? What next? Another Gizmo for strip clubs?
J.
1. Steal GPS device from drunkard.
2. Steal house keys from said drunkard.
3. Point GPS device towards "home"
4. Steal cool geek stuff from drunkards house.
5. Repeat
"Aww, bugger" - Unlucky Alf
Must remember to talk to those GPS guys, their obviously doing useful work.
France is a bad example ... There is tons of advertising for alcohol in France, there are just regulations and guidelines to follow, such as including some fine print saying that excessive consumption is hazardous ... blah blah blah ...
... wish i had one of those watches now!!! Oh wait this is France ... i can buy liquor anywhere ... and drink it anywhere!!! ... what a repressed society i tell ya!
very much the same as advertising for tobacco products on the US...
The fine print dosn't work too much though... its 11:36am in Paris and seeing those ads in the metro made me damn thirsty
Slashdot readers will only be interested when they can search for FREE beer :-)
You can do that and a lot more with a bog standard GSM mobile phone.
Why would I buy GPS on a watch?
Deleted
Finally a watch which not only tell me when, but also where IT'S TIGER TIME !
...but i always got this message after leaving a pub:
*** goonies left the pub. (quit: connection reset by beer)
.sigh
Interestingly enough, here in buffalo, new york, this thing would blow up on chippewa. Bar here.... here.... here.... and here....
Literally an entire street if bars. Doubt that this is uncommon, but it rang a funny bell in me.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
I have an eTrex by Garmin. It has MapSource installed, giving it points of interest data. Finding the nearest bank machine or pub or gas station is pretty cool, and has proved truly useful at times.
If anyone is interested, you can browse the maps online; e.g. Like Here
I'm just waiting for the kabab van update.
If you're looking for 99 Bottles (99 actual different beers and about 40 on tap) in Santa Cruz, CA it's at N36 58.402, W122 1.590, you'll see something like 990 @ (lat, long) when they put up my brick for finishing 10 cards of 99 each. To think I could have spent all that money on a killer PC.... sigh... I need a beer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You can see a picture here:
Pub Watch
If only it could point you to the ones with a Male/Female ratio of less than 2. I'm sick of sausage fests!
REAL beergeeks dont need a watch, they use the force!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Its a space station!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Nice idea, but personally I'm going to hold out on buying one of these until they've developed a nudie-bar add-on.
How about a starbucks locator, so I can find the nearest place to go for a caffeine fix? Of course, if you are in a major US city, it is only necessary to walk a block in any direction to find one.
I presume you're impersonating the robot on "Lost In Space". The family's name is Robinson.
No they need to change the law in Arizona so they won't close all the gps locatable beer locations at 1 AM since the GPS reading might become misleading.
Wow, that's amazing technology.. to be able to have a GPS transmitter on your wrist. Other than the radiation concerns, I'd wonder about how effective it would be to have a precision time transmitting device in a bar on the surface of the earth...
In Wisconsin, every other building is a pub; :)
My Garmin Emap already has this feature. It's a GPS receiver that has the ability to have downloaded to it city data, which includes roads, restaurants, and bars. It fits in my shirt pocket and has a nice LCD display...
Didn't Heineken have something like this years ago? It was for palm pilots with a GPS. Only worked in Europe but this was back with the original Palm III. Told you where the nearest bars were. Always handy when you get kicked out of the one you're in.
I'm not all that impressed. Although your precise location is not known, Palm.net uses your rough location, zip code I believe, to provide all sorts of similar services. One particular application, BrandFinder, provides locations of Banks, all sorts of stores, Food, Hotels, Gas Stations, Auto Repair shops and more. Other programs provide directions to the nearest In-N-Out Burger or Starbucks. One program, GasFinder, provides both location and prices of local gas stations. These services have been available for a few years now, but it is still cool to locate that particular fast food restaurant while driving down the highway or to send email while mountain climbing...
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
back when i was in high school, and civilian gps was still becoming mainstream, i had a rather daft science teacher try to explain it to the class.
"you know, with gps," he started, "it's really scary because they can always know where you are." he went on to explain how gps receivers rely on a transmitter to figure out your location, and as a result, the government can quite easily track anybody who has a gps.
"you realize there's no transmitter in there, right?" i asked, jaded by other in-class lectures such as (the one about how we can go as fast as we want in space, the only thing stopping us is that we don't know how to stop the rocket at high speeds comes to mind)
"come again?" he asked
"a gps device uses no transmitters," i said, and then went into a quick, beginners version of 'how gps works'.
my science teacher scoffed.
and people ask why i am so hard on public education.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
Now if I could just get it into stationary orbit so it would be usefull...
...and getting up there to change that watch battery is going to be a real bitch.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I've got a buddy who's working on a similar concept for cellphones: a GPS receiver/transmitter that will allow the user to, for example, locate the nearest hotel and(eventually) provide driving directions to get there. Unfortunately, the electronic database of hotels isn't anywhere close to being up to date. If there isn't an up to date hotel database, is there an up to date pub database? Personally, I hope so... but I have my doubts...
I'd rather be flying
Oh, wait....
-Legion
SELECT coffee_shops FROM locations WHERE coffee_shop_owner!="Starbucks" AND radius(1,km);
People have been working on the infrastructure for this kind of stuff for ages. I'd hate to see it all patented by the first halfway competent company that manages to get a vaguely workable implementation.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
This would sell really well in Australia.
A famous song with a tragic motif: "The Pub with no Beer".,
first performed by Slim Dusty.
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"