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Do You Know Where You Live?
An anonymous submitter writes "Thanks to GPS, it seems quite a few people are discovering they don't live where they thought. Prior to GPS, state, county and city borders were part law, part measurement, and part guesswork. Now, they're able to go back and discover where actual borders should be, and it's making many people unhappy. Some familes in Rhode Island are finding out they may actually live in Connecticut. Each state, county and city wants as much land as possible, because it means more tax income. The people caught in the middle simply want to know where they'll send their kids for school."
I believe that Sprint's (and other manufacturers') new third-generation phones come out soon - many of them are bundled with GPS capability.
It's touted as a convenience (calling assistance and saying "find me an ATM") and/or safety feature (Calling Cell 911 with "I've just been probed by aliens and have no idea where I am, come save me!"), but I wonder how soon marketing people (and Big Brother) will get a hold of the info... "Hm, this person spends 10 hours a week at supermarket A, let's SMS-page him with sale announcements for our client, supermarket B!"
*shrug*
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
i can see where this could matter to states or municipalities in terms of tax revenues, etc...but when it comes to interfering with people's lives, common sense should be used...for intance, if a kid has been going to a school in one district for a while, then they find out that the family actually lives somewhere different (becuase of a redrawn line), let the kid stay in his old school...make it some sort of grandfather clause...the other things, such as taxes, etc, that's fine...they don't directly effect your day-to-day life...and if the two disputing parties want to sort out who collects taxes and what not from you, that's fine me...of course, i can already see the problem arising where a student goes to school in township A, but his family pays taxes that support schools in township B...i didn't say it was is perfect, but every effort should be made to not interfere with people's daily lives becuase of some poorly drawn boundry line many, many years ago...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Would be an easy case to present, and keeping common agreed boundries is a no brainer. If one starts using fixed points on boundries, who's to say a narrow river that is used as a boundry will not just move entirely into another state or county...imagine the implications for water management...
No rational person wants that.
Burn Hollywood Burn
I bought a piece of peopery in Surry County Virginia a few years ago. I had a hell of a time because the recorded deed goes back more than a hundred years and refers to chops in trees for markers and distances measured in chains.
Most mortgage companies wouln't touch it without a recent survey. I finally found a farm credit company that would give me the mortgage. I've had the road frontage surveyed but I still have to survey the other 60+acres. Researching the sale was quite an education.
I could go down to the city office and pull up three different aerial surveys of the area, but no land surveys. Reaally sad because the county taxes me on 40 acres and acording to the surveyer I used for the frontage, I probably have 80+ acres.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Last year, I went through Four Corners - for those of you not up on your US geography, Four Corners is the point at which Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah all meet, being the only place in the US where 4 states meet.
I was struck by the arbitrariness of this location - it was nothing but a meeting of fictional lines on a map. There was no magical property of this location - c was still 3E8 m/sec (to 1 significant digit), 9.8 m/sec^2 acceleration, no majestic peaks, poles, or pyramids rising from the ground. Save for a decision made by a bunch of beaurcrats there was nothing special about this location.
This article strikes me the same way. Due to a complete non-event (the changing of a line on a map), people's lives are going through upheaval.
So we are able to more accurately define these imaginary lines. Why do we need to change the location of the border - why not just more accurately define existing practice. Look at a map of Kansas - the state USED to be a simple rectangle, until somebody decided to use the river to define the northeast corner. Now we have the silliness of "Kansas City, Mo!"
It just seems so wasteful!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Than obviously you haven't had to work with a lot of surveyers. Without any intention of maligning that industry, I can say that surveyers are as prone to error as any other profession. In the course of checking legal descriptions for clients, I have run the descriptions through computer programs that plot them and have found some of the craziest plots imaginable. In one case I found a closure error of over 5 miles - the legal description described a big open-ended U. And while a mere meter or two might not be all that bad out in the middle of nowhere, much smaller distances (even a few inches) can become very important in downtown metropolitan areas.
Between 1820 and 1842, the boundary between Maine and Canada was disputed.
In 1903, the border between Canada and the US along the Alaskan "pan-handle" was finally decided.
In 1925, a treaty with the UK clarified the boundary through the Lake of the Woods (Minnisota), resulting in the transfer of a few acres between countries. US residents in this area actually wanted to secede from the US at one point due to fishing regulations.
Several towns straddle the New York/Quebec border, where the border can run through a library. That page also mentions that many people in the region have dual citizenship because they were born in the States.
So, it ain't that much of a joke.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
What's always been funny to me is that the state agencies that care about well locations don't care at all about property lines. One of the most effective efforts involved establishing fixed points for differential GPS, then sending backpack-sized receivers in with the well maintenance crews. It's a nutty industry all around.
From the article: The receiver, which typically is portable, calculates its distance from the various satellites and triangulates to determine its own location within an inch.
Uh, is there really such a thing as a non-portable GPS receiver?
yes but old jim boy there is my bud from high school, and he married my cousen. If it comes down to him or you some city slicker that comes in here with all his fancy equipment. Ill help him shoot yee.
If you dont think the good-ol-boy system doesnt exist your dreaming. IT DOES.
Then he may just throw you in jail for a few days just because.
There are places like this. In large cities these people are just different. But they exist there as well. They will follow the law to suit them...
Who burnt down who's capital building buddy!
The British burned down the American's. Did they get the Capitol Building or was it just the White House and miscellaneous other buildings? (Not that any Americans would know, since they aren't taught about wars they didn't win.)