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

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.

Comments

It has oil, I heard.

[houghi]

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

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[Big Hairy Ian]

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

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Snake oil?

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[george929a]

China will be there soon to make the island a reality and claim it as it's sovereign territory.

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[Pascoea]

but I heard it has a lot of oil.

Sounds like they need some Freedom(TM)

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[Opportunist]

And nobody should say anything about them not showing up on any export statistics. HELLO! They don't IMPORT a single drop of oil, and as everyone knows today, nobody, but NOBODY can live without oil. So if they don't import any oil, what does that tell us, huh?

That can ONLY mean that they have oil and the only reason they don't show up on export statistics is that they deal the black gold on the black market, and there is only one group of people who have to resort to this. We can see it happen in the middle east now where the areas held by ISIS prop themselves up by clandestine oil exports to unscrupulous nations that buy from them.

Face it, people, it's plain to see: Null Island is a terrorist nation. Let's bomb them off the map!

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[GameboyRMH]

A common misconception. It has one large geological formation that may appear similar to a massive oil deposit but there is no oil inside, it's simply an apparently bottomless cavern. The locals (who call it "dhev-noll") have been dumping their refuse in the hole for years and even their sewage system drains into it, yet it shows no signs of filling. The old joke is that it's "always hungry." It might me more interesting for use as a nuclear waste disposal site.

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[operagost]

Too late. North Korea has already claimed it for the Supreme Leader. They keep their ICBMs, flying cars, and mutant superheroes there.

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[UnknownSoldier]

Is that all you can do -- is try to make lame jokes?

Re:It has oil, I heard.

[ZorglubZ]

but I heard it has a lot of oil.

Sounds like they need some Freedom(TM)

Are you sure it doesn't need Freedom-â(TM)?

(To me, that sounds like a free ATM, and that's very uncapitalist!)

Isn't this the same place

[mandark1967]

where all the duped stories on /. wind up?

Re:Isn't this the same place

[Megane]

Actually they all wind up on the front page. I think you mean where we wish they would go.

YOUTUBE LINK BROKEN

[Anonymous Coward]

The YouTube link is sorta broken: it links to the video credits, not the beginning of the video. Correct link is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjvIpI-1w84

Library of Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

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

https://goo.gl/maps/dqba5yfuN3U2

Re:Library of Congress

[mwn3d]

I tried that too and got the same thing: http://imgur.com/JPgt5RI. If it's a joke I don't get it.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Modding this down is discriminatory and supports police killings of unarmed black people.

I believe you're mistaken. Modding a comment down can mean multiple things. The most common of which, on a site like this, would be topicality. The BlackLivesMatter movement isn't relevant to a story about GIS and GPS technology and oddities. Most would agree black lives do matter -- just like anyone's else's -- but find it hard to show support for the movement if it's appearing in places that it's not relevant.

Posting a comment on the Web isn't a demonstration. It takes little effort. In fact you probably copied and pasted that text from somewhere. That's slacktivism. A demonstration would be actively increasing awareness (through more than a few sentences) and using creative and inspiring ways to share facts with the world. For better or worse, cultures react better to things that actively appeal to them and appease their values. They also react more to action over word. Showing evidence/facts, shedding light on policies or laws that allow it to happen, and constructive suggestions on fixing it are proactive measures you can take to share a persuasive message.

Despite over-adjective-ing that last sentence, I hope I've explained why a 10-second comment on a story that has nothing to do with black people is not going to be well-received.

Try it

[kwelch007]

Just tried it on Google Maps. If you enter "0, 0" it takes you to the North Pole. There are a couple of Comex drilling rigs there and a bunch of water. If you type "Null Island" into the search, it takes you to the Library of Congress. I find that humorous.

Re:Try it

[Minupla]

Do 0N 0E to find null island on google maps.

Re:Try it

[Bob the Super Hamste]

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.

Re:Try it

[caffiend2049]

So frustrating that it won't let me use street view. grrr.

Re:Try it

[Deadstick]

Check the datum used; WGS84 and NAD27 can differ by that much.

Re:Try it

[dougmc]

Odd. I put coordinates into google maps all the time and it works fine if I just put "lat,lon".

And if I put "0,0" -- it takes me to a point in the Atlantic ocean where latitude and longitude are zero, what I'd expect.

Looks like google didn't add a fake island there, however -- but though the ocean does seem to be either less deep or more deep in the general area than the area around it.

Re:Try it

[Minupla]

Ya, all the rich and famous people who live there pay off Google to suppress it. Not to mention the aliens.

Re:Try it

[bjamesv]

tried it on Google Maps. If you enter "0, 0" it takes you to the North Pole. There are a couple of Comex drilling rigs there

Protips, the North Pole is "90, 0"

If you zoom out, you'd find that "0, 0" is a little bit further away from the Arctic circle. (And your drilling rigs appear to be humorously mis-located north-american paint stores; Certainly on-topic, as garbage location data goes though : )

Re:Try it

[samwichse]

Library of Congress is about 200 meters from the US Capitol building. /explainer of jokes

Photo is Aogashima?

[Fringe]

I'm not sure, but the image at http://www.nullisland.com/geog... looks a lot like Aogashima Island in Japan.

Re:Another Google story

[Opportunist]

I tried to, but my clicker rolled over.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[wardrich86]

On the internet, nobody is a race. I support relevant comments.

In old MacOS...

[Megane]

In some old (probably in the 7.x era) versions of Mac OS, there was a map control panel (I think it was for setting your time zone), that would let you look up locations by name. The zero-zero coordinates had a name of "Middle of Nowhere".

Optional Island

[tylersoze]

No mention of Optional Island? (Swift programmer joke)

Re:Optional Island

[sconeu]

As of 2011, C++ programmers refer to it as "Nullptr Island"

Re:Optional Island

[110010001000]

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

Re:Optional Island

[shutdown -p now]

No, C++ programmers have been referring to it as boost::optional for over a decade now. It'll be std::optional next year.

Zero Zero Island

[jruschme]

Those of us of a certain age may better know 0 degrees Latitude/0 degrees Longitude as the location of Zero Zero Island, the home of Colonel Bleep (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Bleep).

Null Island, Pacific style

[spaceyhackerlady]

A long time ago I was working with GPS applications and their internal representation of longitude meant our Null Island was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 0 north, 180 west.

We figured out the conventions of the mapping application we were using (no Google Maps yet, and the documentation was vague) by trial and error. Our first attempts to plot GPS fixes from a drive along a local freeway showed a blank area with no freeway, nor much of anything else. We found that we were drawing a map centred on 49 degrees north (correct) but 123 degrees east, out in the middle of nowhere near the border between China, Mongolia and Russia. Nearest town Harbin, China...

...laura

Re:Black Lives Matter

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This is a peaceful demonstration. Mod this up if you support equal rights and care about black lives. Modding this down is discriminatory and supports police killings of unarmed black people.

#BlackLivesMatter

But what about rising Japanese steel imports? Or the fact that the most common street sign in America is the '35 MPH" sign?

Can we discuss those completely off-topic things too?

Navigation errors are life threatening

[plopez]

This is just another example of stupid sloppy programming by developers who have no clue about how the real world works or have any regard for human safety. Fortunately developers are not true Engineers and so do not get sued when they kill people.

IIRC in one version of the old Mac Maps

[jpellino]

desk accessory, this was labeled "Middle of Nowhere".

Re:Black Lives Matter

[kheldan]

This is a peaceful demonstration. Mod this up if you support equal rights and care about ALL lives of ANY race, color, creed, age, gender, or sexual orientation. Modding this down is discriminatory and supports racism, bigotry, willful ignornance, and intolerance in general.

#AllLivesMatter

brought to you by Fnord

[Thud457]

there is no null island.
The imperialist dog CIA got rid of that soon after they destroyed Bermeja island.

I've been there

[helmy]

Ferrying a survey vessel from Nova Scotia to Gabon, we noticed we would be within a couple of kilometers of 0,0 so diverted slightly to pass over it.

It's very overrated,and there's no beer.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[samwichse]

You realize that you've probably been trolled, right? The last sentence seems pretty much designed to raise negative sentiment about BLM.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[samwichse]

Come to think of it, I haven't seen any GNAA posts today.

They are probably working this lovely new angle.

sometimes I check if my friends are there

[k6mfw]

Using APRSISCE program (RF only) occasionally I zoom out to see what stations are there as result of lat/long settings of 000/000 (either too lazy to check configuration or testing hardware). I find a few there. One time I saw a friend's truck in North Atlantic, "hey Norm, how did you get there in just two days?" Obviously some screwed up bits from the laptop.

Today I heard someone said, "APRS: The original Pokemon Go."

Tom Teriffic wasn't it?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Sounds like "Zero-Zero Island" - the secret hideout of a cartoon character from the early 1950s or so on the Captain Kangaroo children's show.

I think it was Tom Teriffic...

Re:Tom Teriffic wasn't it?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Oops. Colonel Bleep - 1956. (And if I'd bothered to look at Wikipedia BEFORE posting, the Null Island article mentions it. B-b )

Chinsese territory

[T.E.D.]

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

China is now claiming null island as "historic Chinese territory".

Re:Black Lives Matter

[AK Marc]

Mod this up if you support equal rights and care about ALL lives of ANY race, color, creed, age, gender, or sexual orientation.

That's BLM. Why is that so hard for the deliberately obtuse to understand?

Re:Black Lives Matter

[kheldan]

I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make. Mine is fairly obvious: While 'black lives matter', so do everyone else's, too. Getting shot by cops because you're black is very, very bad, but so is getting your head cut off by some violent assholes, or getting shot up while you're out at a club, or run down by some lunatic in a truck while you're watching fireworks. Blacks here in America don't have a corner on the unfairness and suffering market, it's all over the place, and I'm beyond weary of it all.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[kheldan]

So innocent black people should get gunned down by the police on your street because you are weary of world violence?

Ah, I see what your point is now: Your point is to be a piece of shit troll and stir things up. Fuck the fuck off and stop attaching other shit to what I had to say. Asshole. Don't bother responding I have nothing more to say to you.

Re:Black Lives Matter

[Coren22]

Perhaps the tie in to the story is the location of 0,0 on the globe...it is off of Africa after all.