Monday, March 06, 2006

Antipodes!

I've been semi-obsessively tracking the hits on my other web site, LincMad's Telephone Area Codes & Splits, since I installed a new hit counter Thursday evening. I have now seen hits from all 50 states, and over 50 foreign countries. Just a few minutes ago, though, I got a hit from just about as far away as you can possibly be from San Francisco and still be on dry land: Mauritius. It's a tiny little island nation off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. It's over 18,000 km [11,200 miles] from here, and if you go much more than 20,000 km in any one direction, you're moving back towards your starting point. The exact antipodes to San Francisco is in the open ocean, roughly due south of Mauritius. (Actually, Hawaii is the only part of the United States whose antipodes is on habitable dry land, in Botswana, Africa.)

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Antipodes map from Peakbagger.com
Antipodes map from Peakbagger.com

Find yourself on the black outline. Then figure out where that is on the red outline (upside down and mirror-imaged). The point on the black outline nearest to your location on the red outline is your antipodes [an-TIP-o-deez].