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GPS unit. The GPS unit was not always so reliable, however. This has as much
to do with politics as with technological feasibility.
Until about the year 2000, the military deliberately introduced an
error into the civilian GPS signal—to thwart terrorists and rogue
nations possessing guided missiles—so it was accurate to only half
a mile or so. And in the spirit of true American can-do, the Coast
Guard spent millions of dollars every year broadcasting a
correction. Now the signal is accurate to 12 meters—the length of
a smallish racing yacht—but, of course, the Coast Guard is still
broadcasting a correction, so that the corrected signal is accurate
to 3 feet (Gerard 2002, p.144)
In some countries, civilians need a special license to use a GPS unit; in others,
they are prohibited altogether (http://www.confluence.org). The knowledge that
this technology affords is the object of struggle. Yet its accuracy is the source of
wonder for many an explorer: “Three feet. The span of your arm. You can stand
up, extend your arm straight out in front of you, spin slowly and touch your exact
position” (Gerard 2002, p.144). With the help of satellites that keep watch from
above, it is the navigator’s body that is brought down to rest on the grid.
With GPS unit in hand, you can go anywhere on the earth and you are still
tied into the grid, connected to the satellites floating above the night sky. If
you’re far enough into the wilderness, away from the light of the city, you may
even see those satellites. You stand on the earth and, at the same time, view
yourself from above: a pinpoint on the grid. In Indifferent Boundaries, Kathleen
Kirby writes that mapping “separates the subject conceptually from his actual
location” (1996, p.50). Her argument centers on the travelogues of Samuel de
Champlain. She writes that the explorer’s vision “is suspended above the globe,
up in the heavens someplace where he can see the whole world, view the
network of longitude and latitude, and place topographical features within its
Convention