Friday photo

Surf. Humboldt County, California, July 2005.

There are rumors, no doubt fueled by Hollywood boosters, that California is a land of sunshine. I think they forget there's a northern California, too. The last time I drove north out of San Francisco, the clouds moved in just as I reached Eureka and I decided, This is where the pacific Northwest begins. Good to know.

Streets of San Francisco

Strange Maps presents a few 3-D renderings of crime in San Francisco, using elevation instead of colors or shading; check it out:


If you want a hooker, you have to go downtown, but you can get your car stolen anywhere.

Via Pharyngula, I learn that Al Franken would know where his towel is, no matter where he left it:



That has to be some parlor trick he developed as a smart-ass kid.

More errors

And this one is serious - the Four Corners marker is in the wrong place!

According to readings by the National Geodetic Survey, the Four Corners marker showing the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.5 miles west of where it should be.

Update from ABC:
Four Corners marker off by only 1,807 feet

Doyle said some confusion over how far off the monument is from the "true" Four Corners has stemmed from how it's measured.

The measurement should be taken as 32 degrees longitude west of the Washington Meridian, which passes through the old Naval Observatory in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. That calculation yields the 1,800 foot disparity.

Measuring instead to the 109th meridian west of Greenwich would suggest a much larger difference of about 2.5 miles.

* snip*

Besides, the measurement differences don't matter anymore, Doyle said, because "the monument controls."

"Where the marker is now is accepted," Doyle said. "Even if it's 10 miles off, once it's adopted by the states, which it has been, the numerical errors are irrelevant. It becomes the legal definition" of the Four Corners.

Thanks to the Maps-L listserv

Close enough for government work?

Error on Longest Place Name to be Fixed

You gotta wonder how anyone could be so careless as to misspell Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. Not once, but twice.


Thanks to the Maps-L listserv

I had no idea ...

... until I saw this on a map of St. Croix:

Sonofa Beach, Virgin Islands