It is important to recognise how vulnerable our technology is and how over-dependent we have become to fragile systems, some of which was built during a more trusting era.

Many things we do today, and much of our economy, relies on global navigation satellite navigation and time keeping. Much of the western economy relies on the Global Positioning System (GPS), an aging, fragile, and vulnerable US military project. Turns out that it can be easily be jammed, hacked, and turned off. And has been. Sometimes unintentionally.

All this makes for a good argument to learn how to use an old-fashioned compass and read a map. Continue reading