What you quoted was my response to wisnoskij, who said, "A map gives you a position on a globe." So when you replied to me with "Military grids on a map IS a system", the obvious question is "a system for what?" Given the context of this thread, and the fact this whole story is about global positioning systems, the obvious interpretation of your comment is "Military grids on a map IS a system [that gives you a position on a globe]". If you didn't mean that, then why did you reply in a thread that was about global positioning?

Regardless, the map itself still isn't a "system". It's just a map, no matter how many grid lines you put on it. Given a map, you still need to figure out where you are on the map. That part *in conjunction with a map* is a system for localization. That's even something GPS can help you with!

No, I'm saying what you do with your maps is what I do with my robots. And yes, it's very easy to do better than GPS especially in a city, where there are significant multipath errors. All you need is a laser range finder, some robust perception, and kalman filtering.

Battery life is at 9 hours, enough to get you through the day without recharging. Plus there is a keyboard with an extra battery in it that bring battery life up to ~13 hours. Even with that, the Surface 3 is still thinner and lighter than most laptops.

No the point was to show a map isn't a "system" to find where you are on the globe. See the start of this thread:

"A map gives you a position on a globe." -> "A map is not a system." -> "Military grids on a map IS a system."

Now you have you map and you have a human making all kinds of measurements, inference, and correlations. Now this kind of task is exactly what my robots do and is a system. Many of the robots I've built don't even use GPS because it's not accurate enough.

So you need the correct map to begin with. That's pretty much cheating, because you're already semi-localized to begin with. That's not a global positioning system, that's a regional positioning system.

So your system is no longer just "a map". You first have to know a general region, then have the appropriate map for that region, then have the ability to identify several landmarks, abstract those landmarks, and then find a correlation on the map between features in the map and the landmark you see in order to localize yourself.

FYI the problem I proposed is known as the "kidnapped robot problem" to us roboticists. It's basically a benchmark for localization problems for robots. You say you would be SOL if you had no idea of your general location, but robots can solve the problem using GPS and some additional perception easily.

Oh I see now. Then I propose we need to retire Global Positioning System in favor of global positioning system.

So if I kidnap you and drop you out of a plane at a random location in the world with nothing but an atlas of the world, how do you tell me your location to the nearest 10 meters just using a map?

Maybe. When I think of the word "system" it usually implies automation to me. Humans are unreliable, use a lot of intuition, and often give different outputs for the same inputs, so they are usually not a good idea to incorporate into any sort of "system" you want to be reliable and consistent.

Capital letters are used to denote any acronym whether it's a proper noun or not. IMU refers to any inertial measurement unit, for instance.

This is only true because before the array of satellites deployed by the US military, there was no other system for finding your global position. With the advent of new technology that does the same thing, GPS should be generalized to refer to any system that does the same, not just one particular system.

Cartography produces a map, not a localization.

A map is not a system.

Then it's a "Global Positioning System"... GPS.

But do you? I put myself through undergrad and 6 years of gradschool using all forms of digital ink devices, including the Galaxy Note, which was the smallest and by far the worst device for the purpose. I've seen others with the Note start the semester using them, only to invariably fall back to pen and paper after it gets too cumbersome. The full version of OneNote is a killer application in this area.