Super Useful / Cool Orienteering Tip

I just ran across this tip for using your watch as a compass over on Lifehacker, and I thought it was just neato. I thought it was the sort of thing MacGyver might make use of when he was lost in the woods. But thinking about it made me wonder just how useful the tip was.

First of all, you get into the whole "this tip is opposite if you're in the southern hemisphere" thing. Not really a big deal, since I'm pretty much never in that half of the world, and I kind of expected it, having learned at a strangely young age that clocks only go clockwise because they are built to mimic sundials and were developed in the northern hemisphere. Had they been created south of the equator, they would go counter-clockwise. Or, I guess, they would still go clockwise because saying that a clock goes counter-clockwise in normal operation would be stupid, but clockwise would be the opposite of what it is now. ANYway, ruminations aside, I'm thinking that the hemisphere caveat makes the tip a little more complex, and tips ought to be simple in order to be memorable and, thus, useful.

Even more complex is that you're supposed to subtract an hour if you're in daylight savings time. Originally hailing from Indiana, where they absolutely ignored daylight savings time until a year ago (I always thought that TV stations just moved their schedules up for the warm part of the year), since I moved to the land of changing clocks, I have always had to be told when daylight savings time started and ended because I just never had a good grasp of those dates. Then, last year, They went and changed the dates on me just as I was starting to get an idea of when to expect them. So I'm all sorts of confused, and that doesn't help me make use of this tip.

I'm imagining being lost in the woods somewhere, wondering which way is North, finding a clearing (so I can see the sun ... duh), pulling my watch off and orienting it with the 12 to the left, aligning the hour hand with the sun, and thinking ... lessee, it's March 2nd ... has daylight savings started yet ... dammit! I don't know! How can I find which way is South, so that I can then deduce which way is North?!

And what if I happened to be in the southern hemisphere? Do they even use daylight savings time down there? And, if so, do they do it opposite of when we do? How can I possibly figure all this out?!

Of course, that example is ridiculous, in that there is no way I'd be anywhere near the woods on March 2nd because it's difficult to watch absurd amounts of college hoops from the woods. But let's not focus on that right now.

Still, maybe this whole discussion is moot because my cell phone has become a modern day pocket watch, and my wristwatch has been sitting in the console of my car for 2 years wanting a new battery and a better clasp on its band. (Strangely, it has not managed to procure those things from the console of my car, even though it has had two years to do so. I thought putting it there might make it get out and help itself if I ever ventured near a mall. That was not so smart, though, because how can it possibly get out and help itself when its battery is dead?) Sure, I could go to the car and pull out my watch, then go through the placing, orienting, and kvetching, but if I'm at the car anyway, I might as well just turn it on and look at the nav system. That's why I bought the damned thing. (Fine, I bought it because it's a cool gadget, and I like cool gadgets, but I did think it might be useful if I ever wanted to know which direction was North.)

So while this tip may be neato, I'm thinking it's not particularly useful to me, except for breaking my writer's block. Namaste!