I understand the convenience of using GPS units for avoiding construction and major traffic delays.

But, what's wrong with people actually looking at a map before the trip, familiarizing themselves with the roads they'll be encountering, and then driving to their destination. Or actually paying enough attention to their surroundings to know which direction they're going, and reading the signs that the government has spent billions of dollars to install on the highways?

I can't count the times in the last year or two when I've been nearly killed by people fiddling with technology in their vehicles. Talking, texting, pressing buttons, changing channels, putting in the next DVD, etc... Driving is not a right, it is a privilege that carries a responsibility to be aware of one's surroundings at all times, and should be treated as such. The convergence of a lot of technologies into easily obtainable handheld devices is making travel even more dangerous, because lots of people take so much for granted.

I use Google's navigation stuff all the time, it's great! But it almost seems like the people who rely on the gadgets in their vehicle are the ones causing the accidents that the GPS units are trying to route around.

Hmm...if you count software/hardware purchases that included floppy discs for drivers (hard drives, usually), then I'll have to change my answer to sometime less than 10 years ago. I have NEVER purchased any brand-new, blank ones. The first ones i got were when Microsoft had a free demo of what now makes up the Office suite. I ordered my demo, which came with 3 discs each, and I had my parents, and my aunts, and uncles, and sister, all sign up too, so I had a bunch of 1.44MB (screw those 720K disks!!) discs, like 12 of them, for free!!

I set my parents up with an Ubuntu box a few years ago, three or four now, I can't remember. I'd had a windows box for them previously, but it was agonizing, with the amount of spyware/malware floating around, and stupid web-popups causing virus/trojan infections. So I thought to give Ubuntu a try. I got them a $200 box from wal-mart, threw an extra stick of RAM and a DVD drive in it, then installed whichever version of Ubuntu was current at the time. It works great for them, they can browse wherever they need to on the internet, check their emails and communicate with their brothers and sisters. No need for convoluted regular updates of antivirus programs. It 'just worked", was very inexpensive, and my parents actually enjoy the internet and the ability to find information about things they're interested in. Fast forward to the present, still on the same box, running Hardy Heron, still enjoying and using the machine without any problems. I call that good.