4 ms·

There are no courses that don't eventually intersect with land, or other ships...

• WJW 5y ago
  Other ships, who can say. But if you are at about 60 degrees south of the equator and keep going due west (or east, of course) you can keep going forever without ever hitting land. You'll pass just below the southernmost point of Chile and just above the nothernmost parts of Antartica.
  • autosharp 5y ago
    > if you are at about 60 degrees south of the equator and keep going due west (or east, of course) you can keep going forever without ever hitting land. No, this requires you to constantly steer left (or right, of course). So you are not traveling on a straight line.
    • WJW 5y ago
      Same loxodrome though.
    • lupire 5y ago
      But it's a constant steering angle, right? Just hold the wheel in place. (Of course in real life that wouldn't work so simply.)
• lumost 5y ago
  There’s a quote attributed to adam smith “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation”. A large enterprise such as Google, GE, or IBM can be poorly managed for decades before being economically forced to change. I observed a team making 25 MM per engineer in a large company that made one change per year. There are products at google that require 400+ pages of documentation/proof to change.
  • lupire 5y ago
    > 400+ pages of documentation/proof to change. Like what?
• wolfram74 5y ago
  I wasn't sure if there literally wasn't a great circle route that didn't include land in it. I am moderately surprised to find out there isn't[0]. But I would be more surprised if there wasn't some line of latitude you could follow around antartica that never hits land. [0]https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/30/143150/computer-scientists-have-found-the-longest-straight-line-you-could-sail-without-hitting/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/30/143150/computer-...