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Visiting Every Latitude and Longitude Intersection
Kevin A. Pieckiel writes "The Degree Confluence Project's goal is to visit every latitude and logitude degree integer intersection in the world and journal it on this web site. An excerpt: 'The project is an organized sampling of the world. There is a confluence within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you're on the surface of Earth. We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles, but there are still 12,889 to be found.' A neat project, indeed." As Timothy noted, I've posted before, and in Slashback form; a while back.
...take loads of photos at each one to make a 360 degree photo. would be a nice way of seeing what the world is like.
Why?
How is this project any more interesting or useful than a confluence of any other human-specified arbitrary classification, e.g. visiting every peak who altitude in cubits is a prime number?
Some of these are going to be on private property and restricted access (e.g. military) sites. A local GeoCache was on a confluence, but pulled because it was on private property. Probably best to ask permission before tresspassing, lest the intrepid explorer find their butt full of rocksalt or buckshot.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
half way through this project this guys will wonder, "why are we doing this again?"
I think a Slashdotting counts as "two or more streams"...
confluence n.
1. A flowing together of two or more streams.
2. The point of juncture of such streams.
3. The combined stream formed by this juncture.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
it intersects in the center of the White House?
It would be interesting to see a summary listing spots that are the most extreme in any way.
Simpy
I don't mean to be overly-critical of this, but while I think this is a very interesting idea for a project, but I'm not sure the result is half as interesting as the idea. I think it would be a more interesting read if it were just one person or a small group of people visting all of these intersections.
Actually, that's a lot to read, I think somebody should do the same type of thing, but with intersections of lines that are multiples of ten. I mean, you would still get a reasonably complete view of the world and all of the places in it.
Another idea to make the product of this more interesting would be 360 degree panorama shots at each intersection. Again, this would be somehting more easily accomplished if it were just one person or a small group of people doing this.
And how does this qualify as newsworthy on Slashdot?
News for NERDS!!!
Assuming the girls know about the extra relationships, and are ok with it, that's a lot of latitude!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Random spam
my bro and I got puerto rico... it was a good time.. Anmyone want'n to spend some quality time with a brother or father this is a great project.
Methinks the shark /. jumped this morning just did its own jumping...
I'd have more respect if they visited every White Castle
OK, just don't make me eat there. eeuww.
I might try this sometime- but I think 45N 121W is right smack dab in the middle of the Warm Springs Reservation....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Well, if you live in the area and are looking for some place to hike, a Confluence is as good a goal as many other hiking locations.
And it'll be off the beaten path.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Random pictures at arbitrary points on the planet.
Sounds just like every other photo blog.
I found every single one of them. They're all right here on my globe.
I'd have more respect if they visited every White Castle or all of the Ikea stores.
Here's something close: Project Denny's
Yep. Probably around 9 or 10 AM tomorrow when they sober up....
I'd be curious about how many of these intersections lie inside of buildings or other private property. Has anyone found an intersection yet that could be unvisitable? You know, something like an intersection in the middle of a military complex or something?
Good luck, you'll need it!
They should put a mirror of the website at every point they visit to defend against the inevitable /.ing they are going to receive :o)
ItWasFree.com - Take the mystery
Somehow, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged comes to mind.
Set up a solar powered WiFi node and weather station with satellite uplink at every confluence!
Stefan
Picture with waitress(es) at every Hooter's. Receipt for Beer and Hotwings optional.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Wow, no one has a sense of wonder anymore.
It sounds to me like a great way to use both the internet's worldwide reach and its ease of publishing to do something extrordinary: enable anyone to see any part of this big blue ball of ours. You can read about countries and landmarks in encyclopedias, but you really can't get any idea of just how gigantic and diverse our world is without a project like this.
hehe omg, "breakfast of boners and toast".
I have to remember that one....
And how does this qualify as newsworthy on Slashdot?
News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Finding Confluences is something that normally requires an understanding of maps, GPSs, or at least a desire to learn something about finding their location.
Sounds geeky to me. Since you are so bored of learning about confluences maybe you should start reading more Slashdot.
Hasn't another project already acheived this and begun interpolation?
And on top of that, we already have another project to visit all those locations, which have have been marked with a retail location by the previous project.
So while some redundancy may be a good thing, this sounds like overkill.
Hey, if you've got all this money burning a hole in your wallet, why not send some to me? I promise to use at least some of it to pay bills and thus get out of debt.
I once worked with a fellow who wrote software for ICBM's and he commented that one of the worst places to be in the event of a nuclear exchange was at Lat 0, Long 0 because there where several possible failure modes where the missiles would try to find their way here
And 'common' people can't visit lat/long intersections?
The real difference is that WC or IKEA visits have a purpose, while visiting a coordinate in West Bumfuck, Indiana yields..well..not a whole hell of a lot. *camera click* Yay.
You know what?
People who cannot appreciate something like this cannot be real nerds!
.... with so many uber parochials as yourself.
You can take your camera to Iran and Tibet, no problems.
Even to North Korea, if you apply for the right permisions and follow the instructions of your guard.
Turkmenistan is tough but not impossible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As a member of the Loyal Order of Shellbacks, I can attest that I and the crew of the good ship T.S. Enterprise crossed the equator at 85 degrees West , and 0 degrees North/South. There are many a mariner whom have completed this right of passage across the seven seas, none of whom will forget, either.
I found the "Any" key.
Normal people barely know that GPS exists, let alone how to turn off the map and read latitude and longitude- so how would they get there?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
read it - it said INTEGER intersection in the article.
You could at least take the time to copy and paste your quotes.
If you read the article, you would notice that they are only talking about integer degree intersections, not every single possible point on the Earth. Even if they did refer to every single one of those infinite points, it wouldn't make it impossible as humans make contact with a large number of such points at any given time (and as a result, it would just be gradually painting areas as visited.)
(BTW, who modded Insightful? It definatly wasn't.)
I looked at the site, and didn't see any indication of which version of lattitude/longitude they want people to use. There are several different models which can give slightly different coordinates for the same physical point (e.g. NAD 27, NAD 83, WGS 84).
Admittedly, the confluences under each grid are almost always within 100 meters of each other, which is what the project organizers consider acceptable accuracy, but it is still suprising that they don't make it explicit.
I took two days off work this week to travel from 37.6284 -92.3288 to 37.7503 -923973, spending the night at 37.6950 -92.3067. It was great!
I'll agree with North Korea. But Exactly what is th eproblem with Tibet? A lot of tourists are travelling there, there is no problems going there. How do you think all those souvernir salesmen in Lhasa make their living?
And Iran is, even though your president called it part of some fictious axes of evil, a very open and friendly place. In fact, it's probably the most "advanced" society in the middle east.
Stop watching Fox News and switch to Discovery or something instead. Or even better, try to travel outside your continent.
Even in places where you CAN go (politcally, legally) you still can't (logistically) like the whole north half of friggin Canada or Siberia.
You do know that Canada isn't bone-chilling cold year round, right? People live in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. People hunt there, people mine there. There are few places that would be nearly impossible to get to.
Why is it that when someone comes up with an idea/goal, the Slashdot crowd has to belittle the idea as insignificant? This reminds me of high school when anyone who acted a bit different was made fun of because they didn't go along with the status quo. Yawn.
People, you are hackers/nerds! You are supposed to encourage each other to set goals and follow through on them.
Yes, I am biased. I visited five confluences when I was in Australia. Because I had to change my travel plans for the first confulence visit, I ended up meeting a girl which I dated for a year.
Life is short, go do something with your lives, don't tear down anyone who chooses to follow through on an idea, rather than just sit around and watch reruns of Friends.
There's a confluence about 20 miles southeast of my house. One night I convinced a friend of mine to help me go look for it, so we broke out the GPS and hit the road. After whacking our way through some overgrown forest, the place turned out to be in the middle of some farmer's paddock - I got to within ninteen feet, then cut and ran when an enormous black horse woke up and started stamping its feet at me.
:)
My friend thought I was completely insane, but I know better
I'm posting from Mars, you insensitive clod!
The worst part is that it's almost impossible to get a first post from here...
Find free books.
It is interesting that a site about going to all corners of the Earth trying to create an "Organized Sampling of the World" is available only in English.
It sounds like a great way to tour the world on somebody else's nickel. Maybe I can bring back a tacky souvenier (or at least a sample of the water) from each location.
My rights don't need management.
I've done one confluence (http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=46&l on=-79) in Ontario now, and attempted a few more. My brother-in-law and I like them because they give us somewhere to go and a reason to go there.
... people are saying it's a waste of time, that this isn't a good project. Whos to say that programming whatever application you're working on isn't the same waste because who cares, theres already 15 other mail clients out there, or 27 other people who have already ported X to Y system .. thats not the point. Stop being so narrow minded.
In fact, I spent a week at the beginning of July trying to get some in Northern Ontario, but gave up. I never realized how swampy and densely tree'd the north is. It was really great to get out and see part of my country, as well as giving us a great appreciation for the people who first settled up there and the hardships they faced.
I highly reccomend everyone pick a confluence and go for it, even if it's done. It's a great excuse to get out and see your country and meet people. All you need is a GPS and some boots. For even more fun, pick somewhere where you get to canoe or kayak, or ski or mountain bike. It's great exercise and can mesh nicely with Geocaching.
Go, get some, and stop being so negative people
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
You do realize that there are, in fact, people already living in all those countries? And it's not all that strange to imagine that they might have cameras and an internet connection.
Have you stopped to think that maybe the point of the project isn't to collect every last damn picture of frozen tundra, but rather to expand their (already absolutely amazing) collection of places that are accessible?
The cynism boggles the mind - they've collected tens of thousnds of images from something like 150 countries, along with precise location and date information; giving you an instant overview of what THE ENTIRE FREAKING GLOBE looks like, and all you can come up with is "they won't be able to get all of Canada"?
sic transit gloria mundi
It shows that, despite all the sprawl and overpopulation of the 20th century, most of the Earth is still not paved over with freeways, slums, or hamburger stands. Which is nice to know.
>;k
Not necessarily. Spacetime may be quantized at the Planck scale.
How far apart are 1deg longitudianal lines at the equator? How far apart, say, 10 or 20 degrees south of the north pole?
Also, I forget--do lines of latitude get closer together as you go closer to the poles, or are they all X miles apart?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The US government released rights recently to allow for satellite imaging of the earth down to 1/2 meter resolution. At that resolution, they'll be able to take photos of every (legal) spot on earth at a resolution that will show objects up to the size of medium shrubs and even animals. Small buildings, and cars will be recognizable on these photos. It's more comprehensive, more up-to-date than this time-consuming and incomplete method of physically getting people to all 12000+ locations. Although it isn't "the same" as having a person take a few photos of the area, it gives you a very good idea of what the terrain is like, anywhere, not just at confluence.
Although this confluence project seems pretty cool, their execution of it doesn't seem very complete in the photo category. They go through all the trouble of getting to each location and just snap a couple pictures? They need a standard requirement of photos at each location in the same order so people can compare/contrast various locations. At least 8 photos taken to really "see" what the area looks like. Standard info about the temperature, time of year, possible changes to the environment at that point that might occur (construction, rivers, erosion...).
Good idea, none-the-less.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
"We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles"
Sissies.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
The coordinates of the white house are
38.8967 , -77.0365
If you wait long enough, the page will appear. It appears to be NTS -- the DOE Nevada Test Site. It is the location of hundreds of nuclear weapons tests through 1992.
--Jimmy Hoffa's tomb!
--Bill Shatner's lost hairpiece!
--The Lost City of Sitnalta!
--The True Location of the Firesign Theater!
--Osama!
...And MANY MORE!!!
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
It makes me sad to see all these negative comments about confluence.org. I've been watching the site since it was using all static html pages probably about 5 years ago, the exponential rate at which the US was lit up is absolutely amazing. I never expected the project to take off so fast.
This project would be a lot easier if they were working in the more natural units of radians rather than degrees. :)
Too bad that even the /. story mentions that they've already removed the oceanic points before giving you that number. It doesn't mention the 3000+ points which have already been recorded (though the first link in the story does), so there are actually some 16,000 points above sea level, which should represent a pretty wide range of scenery.
Living better through chemicals
I would hike there, but the path was already beaten, apparently into submission.
If you want to build your own photo maps (on confluence points, or not) you could try the web photo map editor I just built: http://transmutable.com/93PhotoStreet/
Heres the only one in Nevada listed as unvisited, although there is a picture and a story...
Bleh!
We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles, but there are still 12,889 to be found.
You damn sissy! If you're gonna do a project, why do it half-way?! What a damn bum..
DOn't let the cold or the middle of the ocean stop ya'. Man has been to both poles. Man has covered the ocean. Why can't you do it now?
What is your penile percentile?
Define "they". :)
The visitors are individuals, acting on their own initiative. You can feel free to be part of "them" if you wish.
By the way, there is no degree confluence in Area 51, although there is one in the equally controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility...
Eric Lincoln
Degree Confluence Project
Hmm... apparently their SQL server got /.'ed. The error message is fairly humorous (Normal text with error message mixed in):
/public/private/confluence/liveinc/inc_library.php on line 258
The project is an organized sampling of the world. There is a confluence within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you're on the surface of Earth. We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles, but there are still
Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in
0 to be found.
Hehehe... "still...too many connections"
(Warning: I'm easily ammused.)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Visiting every White Castle location would probably result in a long, painful death from excessive razor-blade style flatulence... one would have to space it out some.
Like once a lifetime. *shudders*
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Even in places where you CAN go (politcally, legally) you still can't (logistically) like the whole north half of friggin Canada or Siberia.
Yep, that would be why everything south of about the 50th parallel in Ontario has been visited, and almost nothing north of there has.
But people still live there, and eventually they'll get visited. (After all, the Earth'll be around to have it's picture taken for a couple billion more years)
People usually take pictures of the four compass points. Close enough, really.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
why do they keep posting meaningless or nearly meaningless comments on slashdot considering that this comment was already posted before i really don't need to see it again
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Server's finally dead. Took awhile too. Impressive.
Too bad all the ones in my state are already visited. The "aerial visits disqualified" is going to make this more challenging for places that have to be visited by sea.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Good point, AC, maybe you SHOULD get an account after all! ;-)
Starbucks is better than White Castle.
no ill feelings towards the South Eastern US (I live in Fl) but some of these must be wrong. If you have ever driven through the southern states, you would agree with me when I say that at least 3 of these MUST be right in the middle of a WalMart or WinnDixie.
... but, did you take pictures OF THE GIRL??? ;-) ;-)
/. start complaining about pointless misuse of "effort and resources". Depressing. I would love to visit my own, but I bet all So. Cali. points are taken (back to checking if they are).
On one of the confluences? Hmm, can you post them on the site?
Yes, it is getting silly how all
Paul B.
Take it from a Russian who drank (maybe a bit too much of) it with people who actually lived in similar parts! ;-) (they have some coal reserves nearby)
Paul B.
When you get down to it, angle measure in integers refers to radians. At 2 * pi radians all the way around the earth, there aren't *that* many intersections of integers.
But do people living at an intersection even know that. It doesn't look like anyone makes a point of it.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I took pictures of 19N69W.
I think it's also a chance for those of us who really don't get out as much and visit new places near home.
What's the big deal, isn't the world full of other less meaningful projects? (http://www.uglypeople.com/, for example).
http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=19&lo n=-69
You do know that Canada isn't bone-chilling cold year round, right? People live in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. People hunt there, people mine there.
:)
Yes, but not very many people. And last I heard, it was pretty hard to get decent Internet access. (Granted, I'm from much further south in Canada, so things may have progressed since I last heard.)
It is, however, still possible, and I can wait until the slashdot effect wears of and I can see how many of the places in Nunavut have been visited.
Many contributors do this already. A few times they'll just submit all the individual images, and one of the coordinators will assemble them into a panorama.
I've posted panos from most of the confluences I've personally visited: http://www.confluence.org/visitor.php?id=157
Terje Mathisen
Scandinavian Coordinator The Degree Confluence Project
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
- Take pictures of the sky above each point, so, you know, we can see what that looks like too.
- Take pictures of every different snowflake on Earth.
- Take a picture of every four-leaf clover on Earth.
- Take pictures of the lint in my navel, in 1 degree intervals.
John Kerry is a Joke!
That and 37n122w are the closest to Silicon Valley.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Your next project will be to shake hands of everybody in the world in alphabetic order. Start with your own town as a pilot study.
Because I've been working on a similar project, doing every halfway confluence point, like 0.5N 0.5W and so on.
Hope there's noone doing the quarters as well.
But look again. Even though there aren't many signs of Human settlement you can see the influence of Humans in most of the images in the temperate zones. Particularly in the number of open agricultural fields.
-- thinkyhead software and media
There's an *odd* number of conflatulances?
Intersections are NOT confluences when each line continues on without merging, especially when they are square/normal to each other.
... maybe, ... outside of the oceans and poles and forests and deserts, ... or not.
But they probably understood that when they started, and maybe just figured that fabricating facts and distorting truth was an acceptable marketing practice for anybody if anybody.
That said, a big globe to which are glued photos from those locations would be interesting,
> would be a nice way of seeing what the world is like.
Especially for those of us who telecommute and only leave home to buy food once a week. We'll finally know that there really is a world out there instead of asking "World? What world?"
I saw one like this somewhere in California. The closest they could get was to a road along the fenced area of the base, within several hundred meters of the confluence.
They ended up taking pictures in the direction of the confluence and posted comments saying it was X hundred meters behind the fence.
There's a confluence in Germany that's in some farmer's back yard. The people taking the pictures explained what they were doing, and the farmer was totally cool with it. He had no idea there was such a spot near him. The people taking the pictures said he seemed to think that they were a bit eccentric, but amusing in a way.
I noticed that there are a lot of visited confluences in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia. It turns out they are all taken by a soldier in the U.S. army station there, who goes on camping expeditions with his buddies in the desert.
There's also some pretty remote ones in Siberia taken by a Russian guy, who I think works for some oil or gas company.
It's interesting to read the comments about how someone got to these remote spots.
ah yes, I meant "whom", not "which", my fault.
These are the five confluences I visited in Australia when I was biking around the continent. You'll have to look at the lunky.com site to find the girl pictures..
Thus far, posts have been made in 153 countries. These posts include posts in the Andes, the Sahara, Mongolia, Antarctica, and many, many other remote and interesting places...
The "three or four other countries" presumably includes the 23 countries where every single degree confluence has been visited. The largest of these is Sweden, where all 84 degree confluences have been visited... Probably some of those qualify as hard and costly to visit...
Eric Lincoln
Degree Confluence Project
Here is my contribution, all the confluences between 60 and 90 N and 60 and 90 S.
.
.
Whew! That was a lot of effort. Damn dust spec on the lens.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
The project is over 8 years old -- it may be a bit late to "wake up the next morning and sober up"...
And yes, this means that the Degree Confluence Project (February 1996) is older than Slashdot (September 1997)... :)
Eric Lincoln
Degree Confluence Project
Here in Alabamastan (likely the rest of the South East), you'd think that each picture should contain 2-3 of any of the following: On Land: Walmart Winn-Dixie Drunk Redneck Deer Hunter (all seasons) House Trailers as descibed by Jeff Foxworthy Farm Animals Empty Beer Cans Interstate or Highway: Farm Animals Drunk Redneck More Potholes than road Speed Trap On Water: Bass boat Inner-tube rider with beer Floating Beer Cans Both: Confederate Flag Some Moron with walking around a field with his Battery operated alarm clock saying: "Hey, I'm at 12 and 00!
If you're from the South East and the above offended you, then lighten up.
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www.fairtax.org
Western European capitals and observatories have established what we conventionally use as longitudinal merdians.
But I have to wonder if there aren't any natural meridians that would be less politically or culturally oriended.
For example, the peak of Everest/Chomolungma, the center of mass of the land masses, or even an extra-terrestrial marker in star constellations at a specific time?
"Provided by the management for your protection."