[HN Gopher] Crossing an entire country in a straight line
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Crossing an entire country in a straight line
Author : magamig
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-07-25 10:40 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (magamig.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (magamig.github.io)
| ekzy wrote:
| Nice :) Is it valid though? I thought you might have had to swim
| across the harbour because there's more of the country on the
| other side of it
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| GeoWizard (the "inventor" of this sport) goes waterline-to-
| waterline or border-to-waterline. Of course, it's an entirely
| arbitrary rule, but so is every other rule in sports.
| ionwake wrote:
| I feel strongly about this subject as I actually travelled to
| liechtenstein to do the same , I failed, which I am at peace
| with.
|
| My problem with is, a margin of error of 25 meters for a run
| of less than a km isnt what I would call platinum, my gripe
| here is with geowizard. I feel the error margin should
| increase for each km, for example by one meter. So a straight
| line across a continent allows for a larger margin of error,
| but 1km , well you better stick to the line.
|
| I know noone will read this but I had to let it out.
|
| Its not coming form a bad place I just want better rules!
| mdrzn wrote:
| The OP used GeoWizard's measurements for the points (like
| less than 25m for Platinum) but GeoWizard usually goes for
| waaaaay longer than 1km. So the "fault" is on OP, if at
| all.
| x4e wrote:
| In Tom's videos (which this post is based off) he says that you
| just have to reach sea water
| ttoinou wrote:
| Straight line in 3D or on a specific 2D projection ?
| kijin wrote:
| Straight line in 3D would usually require digging underground.
|
| Maybe you could do it in an airplane. Compensate for the
| curvature of the Earth by varying your altitude. This will
| probably work up to a distance of a few hundred miles.
| k__ wrote:
| It could work by flying from high border mountains in small
| countries.
| leereeves wrote:
| Or it could be a great-circle, which is sometimes described
| as a "straight line" on the surface of a sphere.
| jmartinpetersen wrote:
| Monaco is the second-smallest country by area in the world; only
| Vatican City is smaller.
| spuz wrote:
| Unfortunately, the map tiles from openstreetmap are not loading
| because the API key is being rate limited.
|
| It would be cool for the OP to upload his line to this site and
| see some other metrics: https://www.scoremyline.com/
| ginko wrote:
| If this is just about minimizing crossing a country along a
| straight line then surely you could just pick any 3-country
| intersection and just cut the corner as closely as possible.
| x4e wrote:
| Yes, this is certainly easy to cheat at, but the point is to
| have fun
| julienpalard wrote:
| Uncaught SyntaxError: top level await is not currently supported
| on Firefox
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Same here.
|
| Spot where the actual map is supposed to be is just empty.
| pauliephonic wrote:
| Safari on Mac has same issue.
| adsche wrote:
| Data point: I don't get that on FF 90.0.1 (macOS).
| magamig wrote:
| Fixed!
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Should be 'Crossing an entire country on a geodesic'
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic
| ekster wrote:
| I had a similar thought that this would require quite a lot of
| complicated drilling equipment.
| leokennis wrote:
| I would be interested to know which is the longest distance
| straight line crossing of a country I could do, without having to
| go through a building or having to swim.
|
| Maybe some country in North Africa, that is mainly desert?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Clearly the longest theoretically possible will be Russia.
| Start at the border near Pskov and just head eastish until you
| end up in Laguna Kunergvin. Although that does involve crossing
| some big rivers, formidable mountain ranges, frozen tundra, and
| trackless forest.
| leokennis wrote:
| A straight line without crossing any building?
| Bayart wrote:
| I'me thinking Antarctica, although what's a country there is up
| for debate.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| A North African country sounds reasonable. Australia might be
| another possibility.
|
| If you did allow river crossings, maybe Russia or Canada?
| There's a whole lot of empty space in Siberia and northern
| Canada.
| kijin wrote:
| If you're willing to be a little more flexible with the
| definition of a country, many U.S. states and Canadian
| provinces look fairly easy to cross in a straight line. They
| contain long, straight stretches of roads, and even their
| borders are straight lines. You might as well just walk or
| drive along the fence.
| mkl wrote:
| What counts as across? In New Zealand, following Auckland's
| Portage Road would pretty much do it:
| https://www.google.com/maps/@-36.9356481,174.8371974,440m/da...
| (zoom out to see why)
|
| Australia though? I suppose you could count the northern tip of
| Queensland, but it doesn't seem very "across".
| dmurray wrote:
| First one doesn't look any "worse" than Geowizard's crossing of
| Norway [0]. Second one feels like it's not in the spirit of
| things, but I have trouble coming up with an adequately
| rigorous definition.
|
| I was thinking of saying Norway and New Zealand look OK because
| in both cases you start on the eastern border/coast and finish
| on the western one, unlike Queensland where you are still in
| the northeast by any definition. This gets close to my intent,
| but to make this work we have to accept that NZ has multiple
| east coasts, or a single discontinuous one. Why is it OK to
| cross the North Island in NZ, but not OK to cross some tiny
| island in Australia (e.g. cross King Island [1] from west to
| east)?
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/gistDx1 [1]
| https://goo.gl/maps/Q5JEN1j3U4sBMEvf6
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I mean, it's ok to cross King Island? But plainly that's just
| crossing a particular island and _not_ Australia proper.
|
| Not sure what's so strange about having two coasts if you've
| already accepted that New Zealand is composed of at least two
| important islands.
| rbonvall wrote:
| Since this is done for fun and not for any kind of official
| recognition, it counts if you think it does.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If one really wants to stick to a strait line, Monaco is probably
| not the best. It is certainly small, but it is full of obstacles.
| For pure straightness, somewhere like Canada, Greenland or the
| UAE would probably allow you to walk a more-perfect strait line
| from one coast to another through open territory. Such a trek
| would be far more difficult but much more strait.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Canada has the Rockies. Impossible to cross in a straight line.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If you are going east-west. The straightest/flattest line is
| probably north-south, from the USA to hudson bay. Manitoba is
| pretty flat. Or across the bit between the great lakes.
| jakobdabo wrote:
| Reminds me a scene from the "Endless Poetry" film, which I
| recommend to watch.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Longer, linked article:
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/geowizard-davies-strai...
| mxstbr wrote:
| In case you haven't seen the linked videos by GeoWizard about
| crossing Wales and Norway in a straight line, I would highly
| recommend watching them. The whole series makes for some very
| entertaining evenings, you wouldn't believe the kinds of things
| he comes across on his journeys!
| tudorizer wrote:
| Came here to post a similar comment. Even if he didn't cross
| the entire country, his "Straight Line" missions require a lot
| of prep and logistics, especially if a body of water or private
| land is involved.
| okamiueru wrote:
| Regarding Norway, it being private land wouldn't matter much.
| It is written in Norwegian law [0] granting the right to
| travel the land without too many restriction. Private
| property is not one such restriction. One should avoid
| farming fields during spring, but in broad strokes that's
| pretty much it.
|
| This includes the right to forage (berries, mushroom,
| whatnot). Though hunting and fishing can be quite restricted.
| Motorized vehicles have their own set of restrictions, but
| trekking, biking, sailing, etc are fine.
|
| So, one cannot for instance fence off the access to nature,
| like a "private" beach etc. And camping is allowed everywhere
| not within 150m of a house/cabin with residents up to two
| days, though relocating to somewhere else would be fine.
| Farmland is again an exception, and you should ask the owner
| for permission.
|
| PS: There are local exceptions everywhere, so be sure to
| check that. Some waters are protected, etc. Some regions are
| considered "protected nature", which doesn't trump
| "allemannsretten" (the aforementioned rights), but there can
| be other restrictions. And in all cases, it is expected to
| not leave behind garbage or cause damage.
|
| [0]: https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1957-06-28-16 (In
| Norwegian)
| willyt wrote:
| Within the UK we have the same law in Scotland, basically
| pretty similar to what you describe. This is different to
| England where you definitely cannot do this. Not sure about
| Wales or Northern Ireland.
| wp381640 wrote:
| Thought his Scotland trip was a bit reckless. Ironically he
| caught covid last week.
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