Category: Miscellaneous
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Even More Unusual Signs
It’s been about fourteen months since I posted an installment of odd signs that I’d encountered during my travels. I like unusual things whether they’re geo-oddities or mundane objects that seem out of whack. Occasionally I feel compelled to share them even if nobody else can summon the same level of enthusiasm. If they cause…
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Summer is Over
Summer is over on the northern side of the equator but probably not for the reasons you expected. I suppose it’s determined by what one considers “end” and “summer” but I’ve recorded unmistakable signs, not so much upon the physical world but through digital fingerprints. There are several candidates that could mark the end of…
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Time Zone Joke
We need to lighten things up a bit after yesterday’s very serious topic. Enjoy this cartoon about, no kidding, time zones. It’s a strip called Imogen Quest by Olivia Walch, which is one of the winners of a contest to find “America’s Next Great Cartoonist.” It’s not often that a cartoon features a geography punchline…
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More First-Timers
Every once in a great while, whenever I get a little curious and begin to wonder, I go back through my older web logs and see if I’ve recorded any more first-time international visitors. This is becoming an increasingly unusual discovery. I’ve been running Google Analytics for two-and-a-half years. Almost all sovereign nations of any…
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Because I Can
I’m sure the novelty will wear-off before too long, but this is the first time I’ve ever flown on a WiFi-enabled airline flight. We’re presently in the vicinity of Cleveland, Ohio, at 38,000 feet on the first leg of our journey to Anchorage, Alaska. This is me and one of my little geo-oddity aficionados saying…
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Optimization in Process
The experiment to provide the entire content of each article to the RSS feed seems to have worked based on user feedback. I will be conducting further optimization and improvements over the weekend, too. There might be a short period of dead links, etc., as I switch some of the settings that should make this…
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Free the Feed!
Since I started the Twelve Mile Circle in November 2007, I’ve kept the RSS (“really simple syndication”) feed, well, really simple. I’ve used a WordPress option that truncates the feed into an abbreviated form that transmits maybe the first two or three sentences of each article. Today I’ve decided to Free the Feed and send…
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Looking for Kenai Geo-Oddities
I’ll be on the Kenai Peninsula of southern Alaska in about two weeks. I have a pretty good handle on most of the tourist stuff: hiking, salmon fishing, bear watching, whale sighting and glacier hopping. What I’m hoping is that the vast select and discerning audience of the Twelve Mile Circle may have some advice…
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Spike House for Sale — Only $1.5 Million
People who manage property consolidations refer to a single landowner who resists all purchasing offers as a “spike.” The lone holdout can sometimes spike a complicated deal single-handedly to the detriment of surrounding landowners hoping to profit, and developers trying to assemble a large enough parcel to justify an apartment building, office complex or shopping…
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One Percent of Greenland Lives in a Single Building
[UPDATE: Block P was torn down in 2012] I received the July 2010 print edition of National Geographic in the mail over the weekend. It had an interesting article on Greenland as it struggles with the effects of global warming. Naturally it includes all the usual excellent photography, maps and narrative that one would expect…