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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."
NOOOOOOOoooooooo...
I'm Canadian!
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
Glad to find out I *DON'T* live in San Francisco after all, couldn't take another one of those summers
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Wherever you go, there you are!
>
maybe that can solve the India-Pakistan problem....
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Your either trolling, or overly paranoid.
I have a GPS receiver. Note, I said RECEIVER! It doesn't transmit anything.
Kinda fun to use on commercial airliners too! (I have an interesting trace of a recent trip, its only partial but shows us flying in anything but a straight line. (We were avoiding some rough weather).
I'm always in the State of Confusion.
I used to work in the Oil-n-Gas business (petroleum, not Taco Bell) and that industry is grappling with the same question about well spotting -- the exact surface location of a well. Historically, they are identified via footage calls from a known location (e.g. 354' N, 287' E of SW corner of such-n-such)
While the state agencies would love to have nice, precise lat-lon coords, the property owners often refuse access to the survey crews because an accurate survey may show that the property line is incorrect, and Farmer Smith never really owned the well, it's on Farmer Johnson's land.
The real financial impact can be huge.
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
We're currently having issues at work with that silly GPS, as it's nowhere nearly as reliable as we'd need when it comes to field use. You know where you stand, but you can't quite know where most of the limits are supposed to be, thanks to the napoleonic era cadastre that is still used. So, while getting the data to map again, the surface we get for a given plot can be wildly different from what was previous declared, with no way to know which is right. So what good are precision tools when you still have to rely on your eyes and ancient maps?
From Garmin's website "The 24 satellites that make up the GPS space segment are orbiting the earth about 12,000 miles above us. They are constantly moving, making two complete orbits in less than 24 hours. These satellites are travelling at speeds of roughly 7,000 miles an hour. GPS satellites are powered by solar energy. They have backup batteries onboard to keep them running in the event of a solar eclipse, when there's no solar power. " About GPS
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
In writing the manual for some civil engineering software back in the 80s, I found that there are some very oddly laid-out survey markers out there, especially in the plains states. The client explained that most of these were laid in the mid-19th century, which was the peak period of American alcohol consumption.
rj
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
Just make a 51st state that includes Everyone Living on the Thick Black Lines of the US Map. Think of all the interstate commerce with all the states they'd border! Oh, but wait, what about the people living on the border between the new Border State and the other states? Let's create another...ouch. **Brain implosion**
there was an episode of West Wing where that happened...Donna (Josh's secretary) found out that where she had grown up in Minnesota was now considered Canada because of a border change....it ended up she was grandfathered in as an American citizen, and had to take some stupid american history or something test to make it offiicial...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Yup.
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
And if not, WHY not?
how would this be any different than cities/counties/whatever annexing land like they do now?
Borders change all the time - maybe not usually in a state border situation - but certainly often at lower government levels.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
The comparison is of no value. The dispute between the Palestinians and Israelis involves much much more than the location of borders. It involves the creation of a state and the relationship between that state and Israel. Your fears are misplaced.
More accurate means of surveying are good. That we can be more accurate and do so w/less resources and effort is also good. As the population of the world increases I would imagine that the demand for such services will grow as well.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It is not news that the Can-US border is inaccurate. That has been known for decades upon decades. Though the border was most likely stated where it was in a treaty or something similar (I dont feel like doing research), it not matching up to the actual physical location means nothing. When they establish the border it is set in stone and it doesn't matter where it actually ends up.
:)
I understand that this is a joke, but people changing countries is just not going to happen
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
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.
If a border has been agreed upon for 160 years it should be left alone. The markers their basing the new lines on seem to be doubtful and sometimes movable! Wouldn't it be better to use the established borders? It sure would save a lot of headaches and "wasted" tax payer money that would be spent straightening this thing out.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
What about plate shifts etc.. the relative distance between two points on Earth does change, even if it's only a little bit.
First off, c'mon RI is so small anyways, just let them have a little more land. You know that little chunk that Massachusetts has along the top of CT, I think CT is still pissed off about that and taking it out on RI.
The other amusing thing is this quote: "It bothers me giving up my low-number license plate with my initials on it." It's kind of a hobby, maybe even an obsession, of some people in RI to try and get a low number (or as they say in RI "low numba") license plate, for example if you had w-12, you would be all the envy in the state. License plates are typically two letters and three numbers in RI.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
This may be a stretch, but some people affected by this discovery may benefit from the confusion. If you are in this situation and were arrested/convicted by the state that you weren't really in at the time, it is possible--though IANAL & YMMV--to have your conviction overturned due to lack of jurisdiction.
I'm just throwing that out there because a lot of people with DUI, indecent exposure, drug possession, etc... run-ins from their teen & college years will have an unfair disadvantage for the rest of their life because of the fanciful association potential employeers make between a police record and future job performance.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Not only are borders inaccurate, but the earth moves too. For exampe the San Andreas shifts two inches a year- sometimes in violent jumps all at once. This adds up to 16 feet in a century.
Boundaries based on waterways are prone to sfting also.
GPS is used a research tool to observe earth shifts on a minute scale.
When my home state was still a territory, the river that separates it from one of its neighbour states changed course. That boundary dispute is still in the courts more than a century later.
So those of you who think you've recently moved, don't rush out and buy new stationery just yet....
I used to work for a surveyor in RI, and this situation doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Surveying is really more than just right-angle trig, it also involves a careful assesment of existing markers, the path of previous surveyors, and "known-good" boundaries to measure from (ones whose choice will be accepted by a court). In a rural town like Hopkinton, there are no good comprehensive plans to reference-you have to search back in the title records (in some cases, back to the 1640s) when "legal deed" could be as vague as "my property is five rods by the Old North Road on the west, five rods by Farmer Joe's land to the North, seventeen-hundred cubits by the land of Cooper Ptarmigan III in the east, and finally five rods bordered on the south by the property of the Widow Fenimore, now deceased, to the Old North Road and the point and place of beginning."
The rest of the properties in town are similarly well-described, which means you have to start your measurements further away from the actual property you are concerned with, in some cases, starting in New York would be a good idea:) The local governments tax property on the assessor's best guess of how much land you own, so there is no incentive for accurate public land data. Hell, the City of Providence can't even prove where it's own north border is-most of the markers are gone and the records are non-existant.
Oh, and one final thing: until GPS receivers have 1/100" precision _and_ accuracy, don't expect measurements taken using one to stand up in court-adjudicated property dispute.
Here in Sydney. People get into A big hooha when suburb boundaries are updated/corrected/change & they end up with a less exlusive postcode. Take the leafy Northshore suburb of Wahroonga, some claimed their properties were devalued $40,000 because of the change from the Wahroonga postcode to the Turramurra postcode.
Yeah, human-drawn artificial border line is a big mess, and can have a very negative impact on people's life.
I had a friend at college who could really tell his country of birth. It all depends on the season and the result of the guerilla war. He was born in a village in the Golden Triangle (the border of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand). He would be cambodian or laotian and thai citizen, depending on who controlled the area. And when the drug warlord controlled the area, he would be stateless (in a no-man's land, and had to pledge allegiance to whoever controlled the area).
They'd be able to track you down in the middle of Antarctica.
RMN
~~~
wouldn't happen.....there are buildings built arround the country that straddle state lines. Meaning the owners must split their taxes proportionately between two states. A certain resort with the pool on the border of California and Nevada comes to mind
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
You had it right on up until the end. Four satellites are enough for any receiver regardless of clock type. You need three if you have a disciplined atomic clock available to the reciever.
Also, if you have an atomic clock and can make an assupmtion about your altitude you only need 2. Early GPSs on Navy submarines used that trick, since subs always carry (multiple) atomic clocks and since they could only get a GPS track on the surface their altitude was always 0 MSL. They could surface or get to periscope depth and get a super-accurate position fix in just 3 or 4 seconds then dive again.
Is there a way you can just be exempt from the new borders and cite the original declaration of land ownership from when you bought the property?
~ now you know
I remember reading a newspaper article a few months ago about a town that straddles the US/CDN border. The article discussed specific people, such as a lady who lives on the US side but works on the CDN side (or the other way around), or neighbours who live across the street from each other and are in different countries.
The article then discussed some of the ramifications of this, especially in light of September 11. Before that, people were fairly relaxed about "crossing the border". Now, however, they can't afford to take such things lightly.
Moving more on topic, the article pointed to in the story mentioned a certain Iva Crider.
Iva Crider, 78, has more serious concerns. She and her husband built a house near the border 60 years ago. She'd always considered her house -- and five chicken coops -- in Rhode Island. The North Stonington survey would bump her into Connecticut.
"It's a shame. I'm a mile from the Hopkinton town hall, the post office, the police, two miles from the ambulance," says Mrs. Crider. "If they put this house in Connecticut, I'll have to sell. I can't go 15 miles [to town]. I'm in a wheelchair. After 160 years, I think they should just leave it alone."
This is someone who is facing her whole life being turned upside down for the sake of what must seem to her like purely arbitrary definitions.
Unfortunately, there's no simple question. Jurisdiction demands that these questions be defined precisely (especially in such a litigious society as America; what police officer is going to want to risk getting caught in a jurisdiction battle over disputed boundary lines when he is responding to a violent crime which may require him to draw his sidearm?). And simple politics demands that politicians protect their territory, valid or invalid, sensible or insensible.
correction... that's more than US$250,000 per square metre. Yes, I was off by a factor of 10^3 before.
If this was not the U.S., but just a hodgepodge of 50 or so countries?
And they go to war, not for land, not for mineral or 'natural' resources, but for fucking (pun intended) -people- and the taxes they represent.
Why can I see this happening?
Somewhere, on some planet or continent even more boneheaded than ours, this has, or will happen...
I am a science fantasy fan
Well, at one time you folks wanted it all, and at one time, you folks didn't want parts of MI or WI... Make up your minds!
(Actually, I'm not so sure where this fabled "inaccuracy" would come in, since the Canada/US border follows the 49th parallel through most of the countries, and bisects the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway for most of the rest of it.)
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
I don't think my magellan for my palm v has an atomic clock.
What I do think is that every satellite probably just transmits their time in a signal, and judging on when you get that signal, you can re-assemble where you are - I don't believe the unit even has to worry about time, other than "time between signals".
Karnal
Never happen, but it's fun to think about. Throw a blur on those black lines on the map. "Well, you appear to live 70% in Israel and 30% in Palestine, please split your taxes, votes, political leanings, religious doctrines, prejudices, and so on accordingly."
My take: people live where they think they live. For tens of thousands of years, people have defined places using prepositional phrases. Now we can use coordinates, great. But if the numbers conflict with those definitions, it's the numbers that need adjusting.
Oddly enough, this is germain to my germaine to my half-baked, nowhere-near-ready-for-public-consumption personal project, which involves trying to represent places both with GPS coordinates and phrases like "down by the riverside".
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.
Of course, articles about GPS always highlight the fact that they are "military satellites" up front to suggest to the reader that some official military operation was involved. The WSJ article even calls GPS "new technology" -- which is really stretching the idea that "new" is a relative term. I used the same network of military satellites, "new technology" and a $100 device that runs on two AA batteries to drive from San Francisco to the Grand Canyon last year. Doesn't sound quite so official now, does it?
Neither team's findings would change the fact that the border established between the states 160 years ago was based on observations on the ground, not GPS. It would take an agreement between the two states or a drawn-out legal battle before the U.S. Supreme Court similar to the case that resulted in New York and New Jersey splitting Ellis Island right through the middle of an existing, historic building. Ellis Island was arguably more important financially to the states than a handful of houses, and I suspect the Supreme Court would rule that the indigenous residents of those houses have a greater right to choose their state than a bunch of abandoned buildings.
On the other hand, Connecticut and Rhode Island could always go to war over this. Yeah, let's do that. There's nothing good on TV tonight anyway.
I can't believe these "surveyors" are that bad. I mean it's not as if the states aren't all different colors! I live in central PA so it's all green. New Jersey, as we all know, is orange! Perhaps we should get some non-color blind folks out there to define the borders!
Hint: Black line=new state!
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
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?
Hmm.. border disputes, Rhode Island... where have I heard this before?
Oh, yeah - Family Guy!
Man, talk about life imitating art..
Not only that. There are a lot of Canadian Connections in the Simpsons.
check this:
http://ccr.ptbcanadian.com/simpsons/
This site goes through all of the episodes and lists all of the Canadian connections in the Simpsons.
~ kjrose
I agree with most of what you said, but I think you have the details of the fingerprinting thing wrong. They fingerprint your kid, and then hand you the print cards in case your kid turns up missing. They don't keep a copy, you (as the parent) do, in case the unthinkable happens.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
For surveying and high-precision positioning they switch to "carrier phase" processing, which is both more expensive and can be accurate to less than a centimeter.
More information on Magellan's site
fencepost
just a little off
Illinois can frickin' have it! Bad enough to have to admit that Gary is in the same State that I live in. Come on!! Let's clean up Indiana!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
All superheterodyne receivers have some miniscule level of IF leakage. For a typical FM radio, it's at 10.7 MHz. TVs are at 45 MHz. AM radios are at 455 KHz. For commercial gear, it could be 30, 45, 70 or any other freq (or freqs) the designers choose. Many receivers have several IFs, therefore several possible 'transmit' frequencies.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The people caught in the middle simply want to know where they'll send their kids for school.
Send 'em where you always sent 'em before.
It's like when the electricity goes out and the traffic lights stop working - don't panic, it's not the end of the world.
I'm a 2000 man.
I always knew there was something odd about that side of my family...
No... And what's my name? Who are you!?! Where am I??? Arrrgggggg!!!!
I'd rather be sailing...
They came out and surveyed the land and pounded stakes in the ground at the corners of the property. That's my land. I don't care if it moves over time. Or shifts from the earths plates moving. Everything inside those markers is mine.
You go down to the courthouse and dig through a room of really old books. Last time I was there I talked with the librarian(?) and he mentioned that he was trying to figure out how to scan in all the documents so they wouln't have to be handled so much. That, he said, would have to be done out of his own pocket since the county didn't have the budget to do it.
If you ever get a half-day off from work you should take the ferry from Willimsburg to Surry. You can eat lunch at the Virginia Diner(be sure to eat some hush puppies) then walk across the street and look around the courthouse. Its kind of neat to read all the old legal papers.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Calvin: [Daydreaming]
Mrs. Wormwood: Calvin! What state do you live in?
Calvin: Denial!
Mrs. Wormwood: I guess I can't argue about that...
-mz
GPS is informative.
A few years back (when I lived in San Jose) I got ahold of a GPS unit and a marine navigation software package (Cpt something).
The nice part of the package was that you could fire up the GPs unit (and since it was for marine navigation) it would plat your course over time on a map.
Well. This was too tempting.
So, (in my house) I set up the antenna and unit and began to plot my course.
Well. Hey, this was around the time of the recent earthquake in Oakland around 1992 or so, but still, my place is not going to move, right?
Wrong.
My place moved. Over a day or so, plotting my movement, my place moved as much as a quarter mile or so in several directions. No, I did not notice any more earthquakes during that time.
And, no, I do not think the military had their satelites set to the 10 meter or better resolution. But, a "quarter a mile".
Nice cruise is all I could conclude.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
I just got home and looked. It is "Fire Station 5 Brewing Company". A damn good beer, not a issy IPA like a lot of them are.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
The borders in this part of the country are almost precisely aligned with major lines of latitude and longitude. Which can be fun if you have a GPS and are on a road heading directly towards (or away) from a border.
But if you get a very large-scale map, you'll see that the lines aren't quite straight. There are small jogs, just enough to include a mining claim or spring or other natural resource. It makes you wonder what sort of backroom deals occured to make sure that property was in Utah instead of Colorado, etc.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
It's not easy to get that accurate. Or cheap either. It requires a very expensive GPS theodolite rig. When these things first showed up, they didn't work in real time either. You had to dump a bunch of observation data a computer and combine it with obersvation data from a special base station receiver (that had to be placed on a surveyed spot) and let it finish the number crunching before you would get usuable location fixes. Those first units were claiming sub-centimeter accuracy, don't know how well they delivered though.
Or, given that the source is MSNBC and they, like most journalists - print, web, and broadcast - must target audience with the collective average of a sixth grade education, it is possible that such details were ommited.
I can never understand why the border between states in US would be so controversial. After all, what is the difference between one state and its neighbors? Same people, same issues and the same two political parties fighting it out.
Makes me curious, are there any neighboring states which don't get along very well? Any states that fight over water or any other natural resources?
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This gem is probably from sometime in the century before last:
Surveyor: Do you own this farm?
Farmer: Ayuh.
Surveyor: Well, we have some news for you. We took a survey of your property and it turns out your farm isn't in New Hampshire after all.
Farmer: 'Taint?
Surveyor: No, we resurveyed the border and found out that your property is actually on the Vermont side.
Farmer: So you're sayin' mah fahm is in Vermahnt?
Surveyor: Yes, that's what we're saying.
Farmer: Good. Nevah could stand them New Hampshah wintahs.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I actually thought of this, strangely enough. But I think it's not relevent. Within Louisiana, they are well within their rights to use Napolianic code to setting common disputes, but a case about state borders, is for the federal courts, which is based off English Common.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Check out Point Roberts, WA to see an example of an outcome of treaty-making without good surveying. The outcome of the war of 1812 caused the Americans and British to firm up borders. Finally, in 1846 the border between the US and what is now British Columbia was established at 49 degrees North. Apparently they didn't realize Point Roberts would be an isolated outpost of the US!
Apparently the border markers along this part of the world were done with 1800's technology, and the generally accepted border in the area is about 300m too far north. So there is some strip of "Canadian" territory being "occupied" by Americans just south of Vancouver. This is an academic joke because both countries have since agreed that the border stands where the markers are. However, the State of Washington, until fairly recently, had officially defined the border as 49 degrees North, and a number of court cases for crimes committed in this 300m strip, notably illegal fishing just off-shore, were thrown out due to lack of jurisdiction!
Anybody want a peanut?
My GPS receiver is accurate to about 15 feet. So, I can't tell if my property line has moved for at least 150 years. But since my zoning mandates a minimum of 400 feet of road frontage, it doesn't bother me that much. Folks crammed into cities or suburbs like sardines (why is it never anchovies?) would probably be more concerned.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
PS - I want some of that 'probabe cause' you mentioned! 8-)
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.