Category: Longitude

  • The Degree Confluence Project

    I’d like to share a favorite website today. It’s one of the most interesting Internet-based geography challenges ever undertaken, the Degree Confluence Project. Its mission statement provides the most succinct description: “The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures…

  • GPS and Genealogy – Arlington National Cemetery

    People’s willingness to share is one of the wonderful aspects of genealogy. A reader contacted me recently to provide further information about a common tangential ancestor — one not directly related to either of us but who had married into the larger family of Howder descendants — and for whom I’d had only the sketchiest…

  • The Point of Beginning (Wisconsin)

    We drove towards a rather obscure spot during our travels around southern Wisconsin this week. I’ve had a fascination with artificial points of significance for some time. So naturally I wanted to add another one to my growing list of accomplishments. Some people like to climb mountains. I like to stand at places of no…

  • Geohashing

    An activity dubbed “Geohashing” officially launched on May 21, 2008. This came courtesy of an algorithm published in xkcd webcomic #426. Additionally the author further refined it on the xkcd blog. The algorithm generates random coordinates around the world each day for people to explore on their own or to gather together as a group.…

  • State of the Circle

    It’s difficult for me to believe, but I just hit the six month point with Twelve Mile Circle. So I thought I would take a moment to look back at the site by reviewing some highlights. Maybe I’ll even reflecting briefly upon the path that lead to this point. I wasn’t sure I’d last even…

  • Automatic Geolocation on a BlackBerry

    This week I’m on the road once again, this time in southern California. I’ve had a great time with a Google Maps Mobile feature called “My Location” released in beta last November. I realize this is probably old news to many of you. However it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to test drive it in…

  • GPS and Genealogy

    New technologies impact established disciplines in profound and pleasantly surprising ways. The Global Position System (GPS) provides obvious and well-known benefits for drivers and hikers alike. However, it has ready applications to many other activities too. As an example, handheld GPS devices continue to revolutionize field research conducted by personal historians and genealogists. The Power…

  • South of Detroit

    Here’s an old one that most people probably already know, but I still enjoy it. What is the first foreign country you would reach if you traveled due south from Detroit, Michigan? Canada! A curve in the Detroit River, the narrow ribbon of water that joins Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, creates a situation…

  • Thoughts on Los Angeles and Reno

    In an earlier post, 12MC noted that we can sometime confuse east and west in our geographic perceptions. A similar condition exists with Los Angeles, California and Reno, Nevada. Los Angeles conjures up certain images. Think of beaches, surfing and movie stars living on hillsides with expansive views of the Pacific Ocean. Most of us…

  • Virginia, West of West Virginia

    West Virginia split from Virginia in 1863 during the height of the Civil War. It elected to remain with the Union while the rest of the Commonwealth remained firmly entrenched within the Confederacy. Tensions based on divergent economies, cultures and geography simmered between the western and eastern portions of Virginia for decades leading up to…