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Intersting! I know that in the contiguous USA, you will never be more than 20 miles from a road no matter where you are, but have no idea how far one can drive
by jedberg 1y ago
Intersting! I know that in the contiguous USA, you will never be more than 20 miles from a road no matter where you are, but have no idea how far one can drive from a town.
- mgerdts 1y agoThis story is about a road in Canada. I doubt the 20 mile thing holds in remote parts of Alaska.
- jedberg 1y agoUpdated my comment because you're right, I meant contiguous USA. And I'm aware it's about Canada, which is why I said "I wonder what the answer to this same question is for the USA". :)
- bonzini 1y agoYou probably want contiguous rather than continental. Continental does include Alaska but not Hawaii or US territories.
- jedberg 1y agoYou're right, and I edited my comment accordingly, but I asked Google and got this interesting AI response, so I guess a lot of people on the internet make the same mistake, since AI just echos its training data: The term "Continental United States" (CONUS) generally refers to the 48 contiguous states plus the District of Columbia, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. It encompasses the landmass of the United States located on the North American continent. While sometimes confused with the "contiguous United States," which also refers to the 48 states, "continental" specifically emphasizes the geographical location on the continent.
- bombcar 1y agoYou can easily do it if you go to the center of Lake Superior ;)
- moralestapia 1y agoSo if you're ever lost, you just walk? (Assuming nothing kills you in nature) Edit: Wait, no. You could be extremely unlucky and be walking parallel to the closest road, lol.
- School-Cotton 1y agoWalking in a spiral pattern (where the layers of the spiral are close enough that if you look toward the center, you can always see the point where you were on the previous layer) will guarantee that you eventually see all points on any given radius.
- jedberg 1y agoThat could be an awful lot of walking though.
- mousethatroared 1y agoYou're not wrong, but this is proof that Id rather be stranded in the wilderness with an archeologist than a CS major (I'm assuming). An archeologist would walk down a gradient until they find a stream and therefore a fluvial network to a human settlement. Your answer gets me killed.
- moralestapia 1y ago"Easy, we just A-star this thing and walk for a maximum of 273 days."
- bravesoul2 1y agoNerd snipe: given a compass and dropped in a random location what is the best strategy (based on direction assuming no clues from terrain) of finding a road. E.g. strategy might be 1000 steps south then 1000 east, repeat. Nerd snipe 2. Same without a compass or any sense of direction. Assume you can accurately make a 90 degree turn and count steps
- 1y ago
- shkkmo 1y agoFor the curious, I think that number comes from these people and is actually 21.7 miles, includes any kind of drivable surface, (like beaches and unmaintained private roads), and excludes anything that is too wet (like the middle of the great lakes or a flood plain). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894