Another Cool GPS Project: Degree Confluence 94
Omicron writes "Not too long ago, there was an article here on a game called Geocaching. Since that time, I've gotten really involved in the game, and because of that involvement, I found another cool project during a mailing list discussion. It's called The Degree Confluence Project and the goal of the project is to have people visit and photograph almost every integer intersection of latitude and longitude on the face of the planet. I've already found three of them."
danger zones (Score:2)
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Re:This would be better if... (Score:1)
(BTW... you have 360 * 89 + 1 in both the northen and southern hemisphere, since at 90 deg lat. you only have one point, plus another 360 on the equator. That's 64,442 pyramids. Of course, I have no idea how many of those are either on the continental shelves, and how many are too deep to build a pyramid with current tech...)
Re:Whats the point? (Score:2)
Because things such as what you mentioned are not nearly as interesting.
You might also ask why people waste^H^H^H^H^H spend time installing linux from source code [linuxfromscratch.org] when they could get a perfectly good distribution from Redhat, Slackware, Debian, Mandrake, ect. There's nothing like the satisfaction of knowing that you compiled every single program onto a bare partition and it actually works.
Even though unlike Linux From Scratch, the Degree Confluence project doesn't produce anything useful the point is...um... I'm not sure what the point is, but i'm sure you got it.
Re:The math (Score:4)
360 degrees of longitude, 179 unique degrees of latitude (count 0, and omit 90 N and 90 S).
360 * 179 + 2 (N and S poles) = 64442
Not that many at all. And you can cut that to about 35% or so, given the amount of water thats covering the surface of the earth.
Visible Earth project (Score:2)
map of the world that would access a photograph
of that place? Then you could sit in front of
a browser and go anywhere in the world by
clicking on the map.
Re:site has all the info (Score:2)
Where's the problem?
I hereby volunteer for all 720 points at 89N and 89S! (Woohoo, look at my stats go up! :-)
To be fair, I also volunteered for most of those points in the blue parts of the planet near the Equator, where longitude points are a long way apart. (What, you wanna prove I wasn't there? Fine! Go there and look for yourself! Bet your pictures look just like mine!)
Re:geocaching a sport? (Score:2)
Sure, but read up on it. It's not as difficult as it would be with say, a sextant, but it's still pretty tough in many cases.
For example, in Manhattan NY NY, find the sidewalk AROUND the building that houses those coordinates. Figure out a way to get access to the rooftop garden for the prize. Oh, but the GPS unit you have has an EPE (estimated positional error) of about fifty feet. Damn, was in that mailbox on the streetcorner or not?
Or, you're in a forest, in a river valley. You've narrowed the position down to a tenth of an acre, but the tree and rock coverage gives you crappy reception. You figure it's right there, but an outcropping means you'll have to trek the long way to find a way to ford the stream.
Re:Visible Earth project (Score:1)
Re:Visible Earth project (Score:2)
It does make for a kind of fun afternoon out doing a little hiking. My contributions can be seen here [confluence.org] and here [confluence.org]. Hopefully I'll get the chance to visit a couple of other random places when I go on vacation this summer.
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Re:Maybe it's just me, but... (Score:2)
-russ
I win (Score:1)
(Yes, I made up the number. This is too silly for me to waste time on a real calculation.)
I can get the most points! (Score:1)
Re:Whats the point? (Score:1)
Who really gives a shit? It's only an accident that the lines run through any point as apposed to any other anyway.
Sod's law... (Score:1)
Desk Jockeys? (Score:2)
Re:I can get the most points! (Score:1)
It is possible to resist. (Score:2)
Just *damn* hard! But so far I've resisted the FP urge...
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Re:This would be better if... (Score:1)
What would happen to a pyramid in that predicament, and how long would it be till that happened?
GPS (Score:1)
I think, therefore, ken_i_m
Re:panorama (Score:2)
from the faq about the resolving the poles problem [confluence.org]
"At 89 degrees latitude, one degree from the north or south pole, the line are 1.2 miles apart. This skews the sample sharply to the poles and neglects the equitorial regions ...a solution to the problem is to skip confluences when the distance between them falls below 2/3 of the distance at the equator ... [they] are still valid confluences, and will be posted if visited, but are not part of the official goals of the project."
Re:The math (Score:2)
1.3 How many confluences are there? [confluence.org]
There are 64,442 latitude and longitude degree intersections in the world (counting each pole as one intersection). Of these, 47,650 meet the goals of the project after removing many confluences near the poles [confluence.org]. Of these, about 12,000 are actually on the land. As you may guess, we're not worried about running out of confluences.
Re:Geographic hobbies (Score:1)
This sculpture was one of the characters in David Brin's novel Earth.
Re:The math (Score:1)
Given the number of porn pictures on the average 'net user's hard drive, I don't think the storage end of things is all that impractical. Even with a megabyte per site, that's still only 16 gigs, or about a McDonald's meal's cost worth of storage. The difficult part is actually going out to these places with a camera.
total number of confluences (Score:1)
No good. Contenential drift would move the markers (Score:2)
Re:ancient GPS (Score:1)
I also wonder how they are going to get to the more difficult intersects (Central Siberia, South Polar Seas etc) - I mean that would be difficult eneough with some of todays technologies (not to mention red tape), but with medieval/renaissance technologies? It would be really hard.
Get a GPS reciever & go for it! (Score:2)
And NO, I don't work for Office Depot. Even if I did, I'd never see any of the $$...
Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:1)
> for contenential drive, I mean, Greenwich is
> slowly moving away from France. Even the poles
> move slowly.
Not a problem for handheld GPS units. Consider that the average unit only has an accuracy of 100 meters, and the average continent is moving at around 10cm/year, it would take several centuries before a casual observer would notice this.
Re:Get a GPS reciever & go for it! (Score:2)
ACK! I just spent the regular price on a Garmin GPS III+!
Digging for a receipt...
site has all the info (Score:2)
Overall, another mindless, worthless, but totally interesting reason for geeks to get outside.
Jason
hrmph. (Score:1)
degree confluence links *months* ago.
Oh well.
I'm familiar with the area... (Score:2)
*LOL*
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I like the poetry in it (Score:2)
Another trek put them a half mile out on a snowmobile trail, on foot.
That counts for something.
Re:This would be better if... (Score:2)
How about Mono [slashdot.org]-liths [slashdot.org]?
Re:Visible Earth project (Score:1)
http://www.terraserver.com/findaplace.asp [terraserver.com]
Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:1)
Confluences (Score:1)
Re:Get a GPS reciever & go for it! (Score:1)
Re:GPS (Score:1)
time string. Most of the GSPs used to sync clocks with put out a voltage every second by which your clocker program will sync.
Re:I win (Score:1)
GPS unit showing the coords when you submit it to
the conflucene folks.
YEah yeah, you *could* alter the pic of your GPS in gimp or what have you, but what's the point.
They're a bit short (Score:2)
highest point contests (Score:2)
such as all peaks above 14,000' (55) or 4000m (98)
or highest peak in each county.
No you can try to find the highest point in each
square degree via GPS.
Wow, four unattempted confluences around me ... (Score:2)
45N 75W W of Cornwall, ON, CA (across from Massena, NY, US)
46N 74W E of St-Adele, QC, CA (bring Cross-country skis!)
46N 75W SE of Duhamel, QC, CA (no roads within 20 km!)
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Geographic hobbies (Score:2)
This is great! (Score:2)
I love the idea of a planetary sampling effort like this, it go great on a CD to ship with the next Voyager-style craft.
See! Lovely Earth Real Estate!
Thrill! To thousands of pictures of little electronic devices with 00's on them!
Marvel! At GPS enthusiasts treading water in the open ocean or trekking across Antarctica!
;-)
geocachin (Score:2)
ancient GPS (Score:4)
Pre-GPS technology can theroretically be just as accurate, can it not? I guess it depends on the person. I for one have such a horrible sense of direction (hitchhiked across Canada with a friend this summer, and took us on a wrong direction "short-cut"... almost, good thing my friend is smarter than me ;)
Re:ancient GPS (Score:2)
Nope, it's goat sex. (Score:1)
hurrah for anonymous cowards keeping it real.
This sounds like fun (Score:1)
I've been looking for an excuse to get a GPS and a digital camera, I think I just found it. Now I just need to take a 1 month vacation with my Jeep and see how many points I can rack up.
(points... get it? get it? Ha ha ha ha. sorry.)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
30x90... (Score:2)
Great goal, go visit nowhere! Try visiting places where people intersect instead.
Re:30x90... (Score:1)
If you thought to bring a small boat (even a jet ski would do, or a 12 ft flatboat with small outboard) and launch it from the Paris Rd boat launch, though, you could sail up and stand right at the spot.
Mapquest shows it here [mapquest.com].
geocaching a sport? (Score:2)
"back in my day" (at my grand old age of 21) we used top-maps, markers, compasses and natural land masses to calculate where we were and where we needed to go on hikes and camping trips.
this just seems to take all the fun out of it. kind of like hunting in those special fenced in ranges with animals that spent their entire lives raised by men (so there is no fear). you can just walk up and shoot them in the head with your BFG.
Re:ancient GPS (Score:1)
The difference between GPS and older technologies is more methodic.
Also, now that you mention the hard to reach places, I wonder how many of the photos will just be "water-shots" with no real terrain to them. I guess it would be approximately equal to the percentage of the earth covered with water (what's that? 2/3? 3/4?)
Re:danger zones (Score:1)
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Re:danger zones (Score:1)
You forgot about the poles (Score:1)
(180*360)-718 = 64,082
Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:1)
Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:1)
100 meters? That must have been before 1st May 2000 when DoD lifted the scrambling of the GPS signals...
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Re:This would be better if... (Score:1)
Rural areas (Score:2)
And then someone will decide the next logical step is to start founding new towns at the unpopulated confluences....
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something like letterboxing (Score:2)
Take a look at the Letterboxing website [letterboxing.org].
Have fun,
Jason
Re:This would be better if... (Score:2)
You do realize it is possible to be the first person to post to an article without constantly reloading the page, right? And at such a time, you do realize it is nearly impossible to deny your primal urge to post a quick, stupid message saying so.
You do know this, right?
Re:The math (Score:2)
Oh, so they're going to half-ass this project then, eh?
Make that six (Score:2)
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we are a sad minority (Score:1)
The web site offers a map of the locations photographed so far. The USA, parts of Europe & Australia seem to have several participants, but vast areas of human habitation seem uninvolved in this project. Are these people just ignorant or is this an endeavor that only the idle rich pursue?
Re:30x90... (Score:1)
I grew up about 3 miles NE of 30x90. It's well within city limits, just far outside of downtown. And it's arguably the ugliest part of the city. That took balls, for the guy to go there not knowing what he'd find. I know how to get there without much trouble, I know Old Gentilly Rd. and Almonaster better than I should. You can find some strange stuff back there. (anything from fossils in the gravel lining the canal to industrial waste to packs of wild dogs to packs of wild humans)
Yeah, it wouldn't be a far trip from the Paris Rd. boat launch. Hmm... I'll be back home in a few months, my father still has his flatboat, trailer and hitch. Now all I need is to borrow a GPS and I'm set. They did say they'd post two visits to a confluence.
Re:..and the Poles Problem (Score:1)
60nm*2*pi/360=1.04
This doesnt account for the 1/f or 1/298 earth flatenning from the equator to the poles.
bob
Dr Doolittle (Score:2)
Of course, the Doctor always happened to choose somewhere remote and tropical, yet fantastically interesting...
Slashdotted waypoints (Score:2)
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Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:1)
6.02E23 mod 180 is.... (drumroll) (Score:1)
well, according to my TI-83+:
6.02E11 / 180 = 3344444444.0
multiplying that by 1E12 would hardly introduce any more numbers less than one.
Have fun at the north pole! [matthewhenson.com] Don't forget to insulate and heat your yacht, though - I imagine it would get rather chilly above the water around there. pretty deep [matthewhenson.com], too.
Re:This sounds like fun (Score:1)
GPS accuracy and ancient instruments (Score:1)
Of course surveying by other means can be more accurate than a GPS.
The GPS is limited due to degredation of the signals from the satellites by the atmosphere and from the accuracy of the on-board electronics. The manufacturers cite a 100 m accuracy, though in general it is much better than this. A typical low-cost handheld GPS will often list horizontal errors on the order of 5 meters, but that is an estimate of 1 standard deviation. The vertical error is often two or three times as great. The error is also only an estimate, and can easily be twice that reported. You can improve the GPS with a DGPS (Differential GPS), since the atmospheric errors are largely the same nearby. You can subscribe to a satellite broadcast correction hat can get you to +/- 1 meter, or go for real surveying GPS gear ($10,000+) and get +/- 0.01 meter or better.
Traditional surveying gear (such as a theodolite or a laser range finder) can easily get millimeter accuracy if you measure from a known location. Astronomical surveying can get accurate locations without known points. The latitude is easy, but the longitude requires a properly calibrated set of tables, some serious math, and a good watch.
All of the GPS methods give you coordinates that are in the WGS 84 (World Geodetic System) coordinate system or some simple modification there in. Most topo maps are not in this coordinate system, and, at most, have a few crosshairs printed on them to help the user adjust. The US topo maps are almost exclusively in the NAD 27 coordinate system. Using the lame datum shift in GPS to convert between NAD 27 and WGS 84 can give some serious errors (about 11 meters where I live, as much as 60 in some parts of the US, and more in TROTW). This results in the question of which confluence you want to measure. Differences are huge.
The Degree Confluence Project uses the WGS 84 coordinate system, and so a GPS gives the location easily in the correct system. Using a map and compass or a theodolite and chain or a telescope and lunar table, you not only have to locate the correct point, but you have to figure out where the correct point is located.
BRC (Score:2)
This would be better if... (Score:5)
How many of these points are there? How long would it take to get all of them?
Offtopic: What is with these sad bastards who have nothing better to do than reload slashdot every 10 sec just so they can post an inane message about how they were first to post. To those people, Get a Life!
heh- wait till you read this.... (Score:1)
Maybe it's just me, but... (Score:1)
..and the Poles Problem (Score:1)
Basically, the longitude lines get too close together as you approach the poles to be any fun.
Jason
The math (Score:2)
I'm thinking about how nice it would be for a web server hosting all these images to exist? But how expensive would such effort would be? I understand that MS's Terraserver has several terabytes of images but it seems that this project wouldn't need such a massive storage available. It would be so incredible to see such a thing, though.
I'm an idiot sometimes. (Score:1)
When you include the equator. Duh!
Re:No good. Contenential drift would move the mark (Score:2)
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Re:Geographic hobbies (Score:2)
Bill - aka taniwha
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Actually... (Score:2)
Re:ancient GPS (Score:2)
Bill - aka taniwha
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Re:Sorry, can't calculate longituce w/o timepiece. (Score:2)
Confluence in Salem, OR (Score:1)
Re:Actually... (Score:1)
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Re:This sounds like fun (Score:1)
But, I didn't mean "big cash prizes", more like "T-shirt" prizes. Yes, it's more of an adventure than anything, but it's still fun to have a little recognition to shoot for. Just like Linux is a community effort but has some commercial supporters...
Going to an arbitrary point on the world just because it has nice round numbers in a totally artificial coordinate system is such a geeky thing to do - I love it.
I think it would be neat if some company (probably Garmin or some other GPS company) was to sponsor some mostly small prizes for people who manage to get to and document a lot of confluences. Perhaps a T-shirt for anyone who documents three previously unreached confluences, and maybe some GPS accessories or software for people who get five or six of them.
As it turns out I just ordered a GPS, partly because of this website and have been looking at some maps of the area (Seattle area) to see if there are some nearby confluences I could get.
Most of the easy ones are taken already, but I might try for one of the more difficult ones on the 48th parallel east of Seattle. Also, it seems like none of the confluences in British Columbia have been reached yet! I might go for some of those on a summer camping vacation. Just for fun, sure. But getting T-shirts is cool too!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:This sounds like fun (Score:1)
You can buy calendars [confluence.org] from the web site, also T-shirts. [confluence.org]
If you think the project is pointless, no need to participate.
--Ada [confluence.org] Kerman [kermanenterprises.com], United States Facilitator for the DCP [confluence.org]
Re:hrmph. (Score:1)
2000-08-07 03:45:06 GPS Treasure Hunting and Degree Confluence Mapping (articles,news) (rejected)
Oh well.
panorama (Score:3)
But the distance between degree longitude at the equator is fairly huge (looking at my globe) compared with the poles. Either way, its a step in the right direction.
I just hope people don't leave too many geocaches of garbage lying around in the woods.
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Wow. (Score:1)
Next month... (Score:4)
Let's all go photograph pi-N x e-W
Or how about the combinations of the intersections of the prime numbers 180?
Quick, somebody figure out what 6.02E23 mod 180 is and let's have a party where it intersects the prime meridian.
We could do it Dungeons and Dragons style: anyone have a 180 sided die? The dungeon master will allow you to reroll anything that's in the ocean, unless you have a yacht.