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Null Island: The Land of Lousy Directional Data (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bad-requests dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Null Island is one of the world's most visited places for directional data that doesn't exist in real life. The Wall Street Journal reports (Warning: source may be paywalled): "In the world of geographic information systems, the island is an apparition that serves a practical purpose. It lies at 'zero-zero,' a mapper's shorthand for zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude. By a programming quirk introduced by developers, those are the default coordinates where Google maps and other digital Global Positioning System applications are directed to send the millions of users who make mistakes in their searches. [About seven years ago, Mr. Kelso, who had heard the phrase used by other cartographers, encoded Null Island as the default destination for mistakes into a widely used public-domain digital-mapping data set called Natural Earth, which has been downloaded several million times. On a whim, he made the location at zero-zero appear as a tiny outcrop one-meter square. In no time at all, other mappers gave the 'island' its own natural geography, created a website, and designed T-shirts and a national flag.]" If you're feeling cognitively lazy, you can watch the short animated YouTube video explaining Null Island.

6 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. It has oil, I heard. by houghi · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't want to start a war here, but I heard it has a lot of oil.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:It has oil, I heard. by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 3, Funny

      Null Island? That's exceptional or at least it should throw one!

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  2. Isn't this the same place by mandark1967 · · Score: 4, Funny

    where all the duped stories on /. wind up?

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  3. Library of Congress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    For some reason "Null Island" in Google Maps takes you to the Library of Congress...

    https://goo.gl/maps/dqba5yfuN3U2

  4. Re:Try it by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you type "Null Island" into the search, it takes you to the Library of Congress. I find that humorous.

    I did the same and I believe that google maps may be off about 200 meters.

    --
    Time to offend someone
  5. Re:Optional Island by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The other Swift programmer on the planet wasn't around to see your joke.