7 ms·

Null Island, the most real of fictional places [pdf]

70 points by Hard_Space 5y ago

yardstick 5y ago
I’m just glad (0,0) doesn’t map to a “real” location with people, or even just an actual landmass. Imagine if it mapped to Times Square…
- AndrewOMartin 5y ago
  I'm sure I've heard of a similar story, of a default value or default IP address resolving to an otherwise quiet village in America. I remember hearing they get a lot of visitors, especially from people investigating a crime or something. I can't for the life of me work out what to google to find it though. Maybe the hive mind can help?
  - oefrha 5y ago
    You might be thinking about the geographical center of U.S. in rural Kansas which is the default geolocation for U.S. IPs.
    - Linosaurus 5y ago
      There was a widespread story about it summarised here. Apparently the lawsuit was settled. https://www.cracked.com/article_31344_the-maddening-story-of-the-kansas-house-blamed-for-everything.html https://www.cracked.com/article_31344_the-maddening-story-of... (Edited for premature send)
  - Sniffnoy 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxMind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxMind
  - Arnt 5y ago
    https://gizmodo.com/fnord-1830758394 https://gizmodo.com/fnord-1830758394 might be what you want.
    - yreg 5y ago
      I like how you replaced the title with `fnord`. I'm not young but I found out about the meaning of fnord just an hour ago by randomly clicking through to its Wikipedia article from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation Undoubtedly I'm about to experience more Baader-Meinhof related to this soon.
      - jerrysievert 5y ago
        beyond having one of the best extended fight scenes in a movie, I think that "they live" is as close to Hollywood acknowledging fnords as you're bound to get.
        Arnt 5y ago
        Now you made me wonder whether any logfile analysis SEOware is ever going to acknowledge the fnords I use to shorten overlong links.
        jerrysievert 5y ago
        they probably don't see them ...
        mxmilkiib 5y ago
        A favourite hobby of mine in the last has been watching They Live with a friend without telling them the plot.
        jerrysievert 5y ago
        that's genius. I'm going to have to give that a try - I think the hard part is finding someone who hasn't seen the movie.
        Ruthalas 5y ago
        I haven't seen it. What pitch would you give me as a possibly-interested viewer?
  - chrisshroba 5y ago
    I recently watched this Half as Interesting video about the property you're talking about [1]. It happened because the property is at the lat/lon of the center of America, rounded to the nearest integers. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6zanS_epw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6zanS_epw - The Glitch That Kept Sending The FBI To A Tiny Kansas Farm
- can16358p 5y ago
  I think the noise can be easily distinguished from real data. Just remove EXACT 0.000000, 0.000000 pairs and allow anything else and it'll be fine.
  - a3w 5y ago
    In the paper, a lot of locations around the exact null island occur. One reason given is another coordinate system mapping to distance meters from null position.
    - smcl 5y ago
      Right, and if the habit of ignoring within N km of (0,0) becomes widespread then we've effectively created a GPS black hole.
      - getaloadofthis0 5y ago
        > created a GPS black hole Many navigation systems exist beside GPS...... which is itself one of four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).
        smcl 5y ago
        These systems are all still capable of returning a position of (0,0) though. My point was that if it becomes commonplace for software to filter points around “null island” then that would gradually permeate various libraries and create a little blind spot
        getaloadofthis0 5y ago
        Of course.... ....and my point was that positioning solutions should not solely assume GPS, otherwise some nasty surprises can lie in wait.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- xnorswap 5y ago
  Greenwich (London) would be a more likely populated place to have had the origin point.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    Jerusalem during the Middle Ages. "Jerusalem was generally represented in the center of the map." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map "In the center of the world lies Jerusalem, sacred to both Christianity and Judaism." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatus_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatus_map These maps were also oriented with east at the top (the "orient" in "oriented".)
  - Someone 5y ago
    That would place the zeroth parallel on something else than the equator (the only great circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle) that continuously gets mapped to itself as the earth rotates). I don’t think that was ever on the table, if only because it would make time reckoning difficult, and one of the goals of the International Meridian Conference was to create a “standard of time reckoning throughout the world” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Confere...))
haunter 5y ago
Well there is at least a weather buoy there https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=13010 https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=13010
thematrixturtle 5y ago
Four visits to the actual (0,0): https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=0&lon=0 https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=0&lon=0
- jlevente 5y ago
  Most recent (known) visit is from 2019 by the Russian missile cruiser "Marshal Ustinov" http://web.archive.org/web/20191107152059/https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12260767@egNews http://web.archive.org/web/20191107152059/https://eng.mil.ru...
NelsonMinar 5y ago
This paper is remarkably thoughtful and detailed. I'm friends with some of the folks who promoted Null Island early on and it's nice to see someone look seriously at the implications of what started out mostly as a sort of joke. I have a Null Island buoy sticker on my laptop: https://www.nsgic.org/null-island https://www.nsgic.org/null-island
spirographer 5y ago
Null island is like the opposite of the Bermuda triangle. In fact, maybe they form a portal...
dang 5y ago
Related: Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21854780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21854780 - Dec 2019 (56 comments) Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552176 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329101 - March 2019 (1 comment) If You Can’t Follow Directions, You’ll End Up on Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12090980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12090980 - July 2016 (54 comments) The Republic of NULL Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734180 - May 2016 (15 comments) The Geographical Oddity of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600396 - April 2016 (14 comments) The Republic of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10952593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10952593 - Jan 2016 (2 comments) A Brief History of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949292 - Jan 2016 (7 comments)

70 points by Hard_Space 5y ago

I’m just glad (0,0) doesn’t map to a “real” location with people, or even just an actual landmass. Imagine if it mapped to Times Square…

AndrewOMartin 5y ago
I'm sure I've heard of a similar story, of a default value or default IP address resolving to an otherwise quiet village in America. I remember hearing they get a lot of visitors, especially from people investigating a crime or something. I can't for the life of me work out what to google to find it though. Maybe the hive mind can help?
- oefrha 5y ago
  You might be thinking about the geographical center of U.S. in rural Kansas which is the default geolocation for U.S. IPs.
  - Linosaurus 5y ago
    There was a widespread story about it summarised here. Apparently the lawsuit was settled. https://www.cracked.com/article_31344_the-maddening-story-of-the-kansas-house-blamed-for-everything.html https://www.cracked.com/article_31344_the-maddening-story-of... (Edited for premature send)
- Sniffnoy 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxMind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxMind
- Arnt 5y ago
  https://gizmodo.com/fnord-1830758394 https://gizmodo.com/fnord-1830758394 might be what you want.
  - yreg 5y ago
    I like how you replaced the title with `fnord`. I'm not young but I found out about the meaning of fnord just an hour ago by randomly clicking through to its Wikipedia article from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation Undoubtedly I'm about to experience more Baader-Meinhof related to this soon.
    - jerrysievert 5y ago
      beyond having one of the best extended fight scenes in a movie, I think that "they live" is as close to Hollywood acknowledging fnords as you're bound to get.
      - Arnt 5y ago
        Now you made me wonder whether any logfile analysis SEOware is ever going to acknowledge the fnords I use to shorten overlong links.
        jerrysievert 5y ago
        they probably don't see them ...
      - mxmilkiib 5y ago
        A favourite hobby of mine in the last has been watching They Live with a friend without telling them the plot.
        jerrysievert 5y ago
        that's genius. I'm going to have to give that a try - I think the hard part is finding someone who hasn't seen the movie.
        Ruthalas 5y ago
        I haven't seen it. What pitch would you give me as a possibly-interested viewer?
- chrisshroba 5y ago
  I recently watched this Half as Interesting video about the property you're talking about [1]. It happened because the property is at the lat/lon of the center of America, rounded to the nearest integers. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6zanS_epw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6zanS_epw - The Glitch That Kept Sending The FBI To A Tiny Kansas Farm
can16358p 5y ago
I think the noise can be easily distinguished from real data. Just remove EXACT 0.000000, 0.000000 pairs and allow anything else and it'll be fine.
- a3w 5y ago
  In the paper, a lot of locations around the exact null island occur. One reason given is another coordinate system mapping to distance meters from null position.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Right, and if the habit of ignoring within N km of (0,0) becomes widespread then we've effectively created a GPS black hole.
    - getaloadofthis0 5y ago
      > created a GPS black hole Many navigation systems exist beside GPS...... which is itself one of four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).
      - smcl 5y ago
        These systems are all still capable of returning a position of (0,0) though. My point was that if it becomes commonplace for software to filter points around “null island” then that would gradually permeate various libraries and create a little blind spot
        getaloadofthis0 5y ago
        Of course.... ....and my point was that positioning solutions should not solely assume GPS, otherwise some nasty surprises can lie in wait.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
xnorswap 5y ago
Greenwich (London) would be a more likely populated place to have had the origin point.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Jerusalem during the Middle Ages. "Jerusalem was generally represented in the center of the map." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map "In the center of the world lies Jerusalem, sacred to both Christianity and Judaism." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatus_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatus_map These maps were also oriented with east at the top (the "orient" in "oriented".)
- Someone 5y ago
  That would place the zeroth parallel on something else than the equator (the only great circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle) that continuously gets mapped to itself as the earth rotates). I don’t think that was ever on the table, if only because it would make time reckoning difficult, and one of the goals of the International Meridian Conference was to create a “standard of time reckoning throughout the world” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Confere...))

haunter 5y ago

Well there is at least a weather buoy there https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=13010 https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=13010

thematrixturtle 5y ago

Four visits to the actual (0,0): https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=0&lon=0 https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=0&lon=0

jlevente 5y ago
Most recent (known) visit is from 2019 by the Russian missile cruiser "Marshal Ustinov" http://web.archive.org/web/20191107152059/https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12260767@egNews http://web.archive.org/web/20191107152059/https://eng.mil.ru...

NelsonMinar 5y ago

This paper is remarkably thoughtful and detailed. I'm friends with some of the folks who promoted Null Island early on and it's nice to see someone look seriously at the implications of what started out mostly as a sort of joke. I have a Null Island buoy sticker on my laptop: https://www.nsgic.org/null-island https://www.nsgic.org/null-island

spirographer 5y ago

Null island is like the opposite of the Bermuda triangle. In fact, maybe they form a portal...

dang 5y ago

Related: Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21854780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21854780 - Dec 2019 (56 comments) Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552176 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329101 - March 2019 (1 comment) If You Can’t Follow Directions, You’ll End Up on Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12090980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12090980 - July 2016 (54 comments) The Republic of NULL Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734180 - May 2016 (15 comments) The Geographical Oddity of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11600396 - April 2016 (14 comments) The Republic of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10952593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10952593 - Jan 2016 (2 comments) A Brief History of Null Island - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949292 - Jan 2016 (7 comments)