Washington Post article on GPS

A moderately informative, moderately amusing, article on GPS technology in the Washington Post: Now we know where we stand, and it's about time. Not sure what to make of the combination of a primer on GPS combined with lots of tongue in cheek stuff:

Happily, however, these innovations are arriving just in time for America's impending Geezer Boom, in which a growing number of senior citizens spend a growing fraction of their lives looking for misplaced items -- or, indeed, misplaced geezers themselves. As our demographics get grayer, GPS will be there to help, confirming the noted philosopher who succinctly said it all: "No matter where you go . . . there you are."

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I suspect the writer, a geezer himself, is a little bitter as he watched his retirement money dwindle knowing he missing the investment curve in GPS technology.

I do agree that the “geezer” backcountry market has not yet peaked.

I expect Doug can comment further, but I wonder if we are going to have some issues with GPS availability as the solar sun spot cycle impact ramps up in the next few years. A lot of the current technology was put into commerical operation during a historically very low cycle in sun spots that is currently predicted to ramp up over the next few years to potentially the biggest cycle in over a 100 years. At a minimum the satellites that supply the signals are going to have to go into "safe" mode frequently when a burst is detected, so that will potentially shut down a portion of the system on the side of the earth facing the sun until the burst has passed. In general I wonder with a higher level of EM in the atmosphere, how well an imbeded GPS will function. To further the paranoia, the FAA is switching to GPS for airtraffic control and its already currently being used in high risk flight corridors.

Is it time to buy stock in Silva?