How the world got smaller because of surveyors

I had an interesting talk with one of my co-workers the other day. He's been surveying for about twenty years longer than me and other than being a bit long winded (which is the pot calling the kettle black), is quite well versed in not only our current surveying methods, but how it used to be done as well. Any good surveyor is a student of the past, we need to be because we frequently have to use very old data that was measured in very different ways than we do now.

We were looking at a section where a couple of different Records of Survey disagreed with each other by as much as ten feet in the East-West direction and a couple of feet in the North-South. Without going into much detail, when the Public Land Surveying System was developed, any errors that occurred were concentrated ("thrown") into the west-most sections of land. The section we were working in happened to be one of these, so errors and discrepancies aren't without precedent. This lead to a discussion on how the modernization of measurements has made the world smaller, and every step forward in technology makes all our measurements shorter than it's predecessors.

Egyptian rope stretchers used 3-4-5 triangles to relocate survey markers washed away by the yearly floods of the Nile. I have used this exact technique to lay out a parking lot for shipping containers on Blount Island, FL. The locations of the containers have changed and it looks like the parking lot has been paved, but this is the same area. The problem we ran into was that we were using rope that stretched. So the triangles got out of shape over time, and my calculations were slowly skewed so that we didn't get as many parking spaces as I'd first predicted. What happened was that the triangles got bigger due to the stretching, so our 30' x 40' x 50' "right angles" were out of whack.

The first big revolution in measuring technology was the Gunter's Chain. A chain is 100 links, measuring sixty six feet long. Sixty six seems like a strange number, but it divides nicely into a mile eighty times. A section is eighty chains, or one mile square. The problem came from having a device sixty six feet long and having to pull it in a straight line for a mile. You would naturally have some kinks in the "straight line" no matter how skilled the chainmen. And any slopes would have to take into consideration the slope distance traveled versus the horizontal distance traveled. There are other considerations as well, such as height above sea level, but I'm not going to go into them. So, as the chainmen measured their miles with their chain, their measurement would always be long due to the inherent inaccuracies of the method. The original General Land Office (now the BLM) surveys of the western US were all done in this manner, using Gunter's Chains.

Next comes the steel or invar tape. These were made in lengths up to 300' feet and skilled chainmen using special chain clamps, tension gauges, and chaining "bucks", could get very precise measurements using them. However, the same problem existed, you still had to make several setups to measure, and each of those setups introduced error causing the lengths measured to be long again. So, the surveyors using these types of tapes were finding that the measurements of their forebears using chains were always a little longer than what they measured with their tapes. The world had shrunk a bit, and surveyors had to accommodate the changes while still perpetuating the original surveys

Next came electronic distance meters (EDMs), which shrunk the world even more. These became prevalent in the 1970's & omnipresent by the '80s. This is about the time I started my surveying career. The only time I have used the earlier instruments is in school and on the occasional side job when an EDM wasn't available. All through my college education for surveying, we used "chains" (which were actually the tapes mentioned above, but nobody calls them that), and theodolites with no electronic capability at all. I remember being amazed at seeing my first EDM when the instructor brought one in to show us. The only electronics I had available to me during school was my HP 41cx I'd bought for work. Since the advent of EDMs, the world has shrunk even more. No longer are we tied to the ground by some sort of rope, chain or tape, now we measure distances by shooting a beam of light to a reflector, and measure the amount of time it takes for it to get back. From that we can calculate the distance to the reflector since the speed of light is for all intents & purposes is fixed. Distance equals the speed of light multiplied by the elapsed time divided by two (round trip) (D = (T x S) /2). Then some manipulations for air density, elevation above sea level, curvature of the earth, and various & sundry other things, choose a measuring system (meters or feet, but make sure you choose the right feet), and voilà, you have your distance. Now we had a pretty good idea of just how far our forebears had really gone when they were out slogging in the mud and rain in forests, deserts, across rivers and lakes, and up and down mountains and valleys.

However, in about 1990 something new came on the scene: GPS. With GPS & the appropriate software, we can get sub-centimeter accuracy for a given point, anywhere on the surface of the planet. Now we can measure without having inter visible points, we don't even need chainmen any more (well, sort of), we can go stake a job, or collect data with just a backpack and antenna on a rod. And those points we measured so accurately just twenty years ago are even closer together now.

This whole process isn't new, in the 1600's King Louis, upon being presented with an accurate map of France said "I've just lost more territory to surveyors than I've lost in any war".

The emergency Coke

Rita's a very organized person, she's a "place for all things and all things in their place" kind of person. I, on the other hand, am a slob, and my organizational strategy is to find things where I last used or put them. This drives her crazy, and I try to accommodate her, but am doomed to failure, our brains are just wired differently. When I deliberately put something somewhere, that's where I expect to find it next. The problem comes when her organization strategy overwhelms mine.

A bit of history: pretty much since I've started the job I'm in now, she's been getting up to make me lunch & tea for my drive in. When I worked at Microsoft she never did this, but I think she has taken pity on me having to get up at zero-dark-thirty each morning so I can be at work by 06:30 (fortunately this is generally only four days a week). When I went to work in the mornings at MSFT, I'd generally drink a Coke on my way in, and she'd rarely be up for the event. The tea she's been making me is much more preferable, but on the occasion when she doesn't get up (like this morning), I'll still grab a Coke on my way out and drink it while driving in.

To me, Coke can be the nectar of the gods, just the thing to get me going, quench my thirst, and get my blood sugar levels up, with a bit of caffeine as a kicker. If you know how sometimes a Coke is the only thing that'll work when you've over-indulged the night before, you know what I'm talking about.

To this end, I try to keep an "emergency Coke" secreted away in our drinks fridge. I put one in the little bottom tray for when I've managed to wipe out the rest of the supply in main part of the fridge, I'll still have one left for "emergencies" like this morning, when I didn't have tea to drink on the way in.

I've noticed that my emergency Coke has disappeared on other occasions, but I just figured that she'd drunk it, no big deal, I'd just put another one back there the next time I load up the fridge with Coke. However, now I suspect that it's not her drinking them, it's her removing them from "her" drink area and putting them where they're "supposed" to be. She keeps root beer, ginger ale & other drinks that she likes down there, and I think having an interloping Coke offends her sense of order, so she takes it out and puts it up in the regular area for Cokes, where I happily drink it without realizing that I've just consumed my emergency Coke, because once up in the main part of the fridge, it's perfectly camouflaged as a regular Coke.

Thoughts on recent events

So, I've been reading about the Korean hostages recently freed from the Taliban in Afghanistan, Senator Craig's scandal, gay marriage in Iowa, etc. Pretty much all the things you're not supposed to talk about when you first meet someone, politics, religion, with sexual orientation thrown in for good measure (twice).

I'm glad the Korean missionaries have been released, and feel sorry for the two that were executed, although I'm somewhat surprised there wasn't more carnage. What bothers me is that the Korean government has given the Taliban some semblance of legitimacy simply by just talking to them. Now I understand that the first thing you do in a hostage situation is try to establish contact to negotiate. And I also understand that by capturing people from a less powerful country (than say the US or UK), the Taliban stood a better chance of not awakening a sleeping giant. What I don't see is how any of this made the slightest bit of difference in the long run. The hostages were freed for the promise of the ROK removing their non-combat troops by the end of the year, something they were going to do anyway. Both the Taliban & the Korean government swear upside down & sideways that no money changed hands, but I think that's unlikely. There was no other incentive for them to be released, certainly not the reassurance of the government that they really were going to do what they said they were going to do anyway. And what of the outrage of the Korean people, the news reports I've read indicated that they were angry at the US, not the Taliban for the incident. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the connection. Twenty-three well meaning folks go to a foreign country that doesn't want them, to do what they believe are good works under the auspices of whatever Christian church they belong to, for a people who believe that apostasy is cause for putting folks to death, and they expect to have an uneventful trip? Now the Korean government has bailed them out, probably for a ransom, and promised to do what it said it was going to do anyway, and, oh yeah, we won't sponsor any more christian missionaries to "your" country. Frankly, I'm disappointed in the Korean government, they didn't used to be that way. In Vietnam, if a prisoner found out that they were to be interrogated by ROK troops, they'd starting talking immediately in the hopes of preventing the interrogation. The ROK troops had a well earned reputation for fearlessness and harsh treatment of any prisoners they might take. Too bad that Korea has lost that respect.

On to Senator Craig. I know nothing of his record, or much at all about him other than what I've read in the past couple of weeks about his being railroaded out of office. I read Ben Stein's article about this the other day, and I have to say I agree. While I think it was pretty ill advised to plead guilty to the charge, certainly in the day of the Drudge Report, I think I can see some reasons why he might have pled as he did. That said, it seems to me that Ben's right, all he was arrested for was tapping his foot while in the bathroom. If this is the case, his guilty plea makes all the more sense, as he thought it was just a bit of nonsense more quickly dealt with by a guilty plea than to spend the time in court. Nobody wants to advertise that they've been arrested in a sex sting, even if they're not guilty. A quick, easy out, especially for a public figure might look like a good idea. But they have to understand, someone's going to find out, it is public record after all. And they're going to tell someone else, etc. till it gets onto a news desk somewhere, and it blows up in your face & ruins your career. As a republican he has to (or should) understand that the liberal press (IE democratic) is just dying for stories about elected officials they can drag in the mud. Did you see the coverage for this on CNN? It was seemingly every fifteen minutes or less for a couple of weeks straight. Now, possibly he was trying to solicit sex in that bathroom, if so, then I think he's too stupid to be a senator anyway. And possibly he is gay or bisexual, if so, who cares? I can't see how either leaning would affect your ability to work as a government servant. In any case, I feel badly for the guy, my gut feeling is that he was arrested by an overzealous cop, then tried to make it go away as quickly as he could, and it came back to bite him, once the media got a hold of it, it ran like a wildfire till he was escorted out of his office (well, the end of this month).

Iowa allowed same sex marriages for a while, then they were ruled illegal again. And those who'd had their marriages performed already? Their licenses were invalid. My thoughts on this whole mess are these: who cares? If folks want to get married, let them. We've been down this exact same road in other states. If you're worried about them having kids, you need to go back to biology class, if you're worried about them adopting, no studies that I'm aware of have shown that kids raised by gay parents are any different than any other kids. In fact they're probably more well adjusted. If you're worried that your insurance premiums will go up because all of a sudden they support same sex unions, you need to come to your senses and live in the twenty first century. If you're worried that they'll corrupt our youth, destroy our military, or whatever, I think you need to think outside your little world.

The tyranny of baseball

Several years ago when Rita first got here to the US, the only sports she showed any interest in were Formula 1 and America's Cup racing. The only sport she's played competitively is badminton, and she's raced sailboats. To accommodate her interests, we bought extra channels on cable TV so she could watch them, since neither are well represented here in the US.

Every fall with the advent of football season, I'd be spending extra couch potatoe time watching the games. She could not understand what I saw in the game and made her opinions quite clear. Then, about two years ago something changed, all of a sudden, football started to interest her. This was great! No more feeling guilty about not working on something in the house while I was watching the Seahawks play whoever. She was very frustrated at first because she didn't understand the game, and certainly not the nuances, especially penalties. She understood the concept of penalties, but it drove her crazy that she couldn't see them as they happened as I usually can. Now, I've been playing & watching football (well, maybe not playing so much anymore) since I can remember, so it's fairly easy to keep track, at least for me. Pretty soon though, she started to understand the various signals the referees use to indicate penalties, and such, and the game became more interesting to her. In time, she began to be fascinated by the other aspects of football, specifically the inner workings of the NFL, how trades worked, how they figured out who plays who, how they decide on where the Superbowl will be, things I've never-ever cared about, and never will. By last season, she was a frothing at the mouth Seahawks fan, had to have her 'hawks shirt on for the games, knew everything there was to know in the public domain about each of the players, could tell you their life stories, where they used to play, etc. This even extended to the refs & umpires, never before could I have told you the name of any of them, not one. But she knows.

Then, early this year (or maybe last year, I have no idea when the season starts and never will, just don't care, seemingly the season is year 'round, but dunno), she became interested in baseball, specifically the Mariners. I've never been interested in baseball beyond hoping that our home team would have a good season, something I wish on all our home teams (till now). However, I've been to exactly one professional baseball game, and experienced that Homer Simpson realization: "I never realized how boring this game was without beer", except that I'd always thought it was boring, just had no idea it was even worse in the stadium, even with beer. At least my tickets were free...

By this time next year, I expect she'll know as much about baseball as she does about football.

So now, while the Mariners are playing 44 games in 45 days, I have to endure baseball on the TV. It was bad enough when the guys I used to commute with would listen to the game on the way home, at least then I could tune it out by sleeping or listening to tunes. But now it seems all pervasive, it's all baseball all the time. Even my co-workers are listening to the games on their radios or online. Not only that, I have to listen to stats, analysis, and bitching about the team. Apparently they've lost their last seven or eight games. All I can say is that I hope they continue to lose so they don't end up in the playoffs where the tyranny would continue.

I'm drawing the line at basketball...

Oh, and F1 racing? No interest anymore, even if a race is on when it's easy to watch (instead of the middle of the night), she can't be bothered. And America's Cup? We got to watch exactly one race (in four years).

Jet lag...

I don't know what it is about this particular trip, but jet lag has just been kicking my ass since I got home six days ago. My first day back I went to work, and felt OK, I made it through the day and felt pretty tired at the end of it, but no big deal. The second day, I felt like a giant cotton wad was behind my eyes, and it wasn't capable of cognitive thought. I went home early thinking it was just a bit of jet lag and I'd be alright the next day. Hah, silly man. The next day, Friday, I went into work for about six hours (I normally don't work on Fridays), then went to go run errands, and then visit with my sister who had shoulder surgery that afternoon. One of my errands was to get my hair cut. I managed to leave my jacket at the barber shop which required me to have to go back and get it at some point. When I got home, the neighbor's dog I was supposed to be watching had decided to go walkabout some thirteen hours earlier. Now neither of these things has anything to do with jet lag, but they were things that I simply didn't want to deal with. Picking up the jacket I could pretty easily put off, the barber shop is owned by friends and they would hold it for me, but the stupid dog was out somewhere, and it was heading towards freezing that night, and I was worried about him. I sat in my office wondering what to do since I had no way of knowing where he was, so no way of going to get him. It was about 9:30 in the evening before I had the brilliant thought of walking across the street to listen to my neighbor's messages (which incidentally is how I'd learned that he'd been picked up by another neighbor about a mile away about thirteen hours earlier). I was loath to call these folks this late at night, but I felt responsible for the dog, and they were just good Samaritans. Now, had I had cognitive ability earlier in the day when I knew he was gone (I ran home to do some other things and the side gate was open and he wasn't there), I'd have simply walked across the street to listen to messages, and he'd have been rescued hours and hours earlier. This simply hadn't occurred to me. No brain function. I spent the rest of the weekend with ambitious plans that came to naught, the only thing I'd planned to do that I actually did was get my hair cut. And I screwed that up by making another errand for myself.

I think it would help if we experienced actual sunlight here in the Seattle area during the winter, but it's more of a general greyish-ness, so I don't get the visual cues my body's circadian rhythms are expecting as clues to sunrise/sunset cycles, so the transition from SE Asia time to Seattle time is taking longer than usual. In Singapore & Malaysia, the sun pretty much rises and sets w/in ten minutes either way of 7:30, day in-day out, 365 days a year since you're so close to the equator. Here in Seattle at this time of year, the days are still fairly short, and the nights long, so even the length of the day/night cycle is out of whack from the SE Asia version. Add to that the dark days, and it's not overly surprising that your body takes a while to synch back up.

Now I've experienced jet lag before, but not on this scale. I find myself simply falling asleep in front of the TV fairly regularly, only to wake up 45 minutes to a couple of hours later, completely out of touch (which isn't what I want to say, but I can't think of the phrase). Then I go to bed, sleep a few hours, wake up, feel motivated to do something, which lasts till about the time my feet hit the floor. Last night I went to bed at around 11pm, woke up about 2am, and I've been up since. Today's going to be a long day.