The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

The Prime Meridian isn't where you think

Via IFLS, the Independent reported yesterday that the Prime Meridian is not at 0°W:

Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world descend on the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to pose for a photograph astride the Prime Meridian, the famous line which divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the earth.

There is just one problem: according to modern GPS systems, the line actually lies more than 100 metres to the east, cutting across a nondescript footpath in Greenwich Park near a litter bin. Now scientists have explained why – and it all comes down to advances in technology.

According to a newly published paper on the discrepancy, which has existed for many years, tourists who visit the observatory at Greenwich often discover that they “must walk east approximately 102 meters before their satellite navigation receivers indicate zero longitude”.

I've visited the Royal Greenwich Observatory a couple of times, first in 2001. This sign was inaccurate then, but most people didn't realize it:

If you look at that photo's metadata, you can see the GPS location that I added using the mapping feature of Adobe Lightroom. According to Google Maps, the monument is actually at 0°0'5"W.

But the Prime Meridian was always primarily a reference point for time, not space, and therefore is exactly in the right place. As a commenter on the IFLS post pointed out:

The article uses the term "wrong" when in actuality Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is still based on the Prime Meridian, though with the network of atomic clocks it isn't used much anymore, however the marker itself is very much in the right place. It is just when you use the coordinates on a GPS you end up at a different location. This is because GPS doesn't use the Prime Meridian as a starting point. GPS uses multiple locations all across the globe as anchor points in which to triangulate a location from called the geodetic system. The system does not rely on fixed straight lines as we see on a map but rather contours to the physical and gravitational shape of the Earth. So in essence just as the gig line (navy term) of my shirt doesn't lie straight and flat across by oversized 50 year old belly neither does the imaginary geodetic lines. These imaginary lines if drawn on a map would deviate east and west and would appear wavy. In the end, it is not about being wrong (as the article implies) but rather why do the two systems not match up.

(See? Sometimes comments on the Internet are reasoned and mostly correct.)

And this is science, too. As the Royal Observatory's public astronomer Dr Marek Kukula told the Independent, “We’re forever telling this story, making the point that as we refine our measurements and get better technology of course these things change, because we want to have the best possible data."

As a bonus, here's a photo from my most recent visit, in 2009. Look at all the tourists lining up on the 5-seconds-west line:

Chicago's latest recognition

It's so depressing sometimes, living in the Greatest City in North America and realizing that we have the worst pension system in the country:

The city of Chicago is the local government most burdened by unfunded retirement plans in the nation, with a pension debt that's more than eight times annual revenues, according to a new study by Moody's Investors Service.

The city's unfunded pension obligations total $29.80 billion, based on a three-year average calculated by Moody's. That is 15.9 percent of its property tax base, making it the highest in the nation by that measure as well, according to the report, which tracks the 50 largest local governments based on outstanding debt.

On the other hand, climate change is making Chicago a little more pleasant, even without the record El Niño forming in the Pacific right now. Crime is down, green space is up, and the lake is clean. It's really a great time to live here.

We are going to have to pay those pensions, though.

Thieves, the lot of you

I go through Heathrow often enough that this pisses me off:

To the anger of many travellers, some airport concessions have been reclaiming taxes on purchases for consumption outside the European Union (EU) rather than passing the saving onto the shopper. The wheeze is simple. When you line up with your sandwich, suncream and bottled water, checkout operators ask to scan your boarding pass. If it is for travel within the EU then the VAT, or sales tax, goes to the government. If it is for travel outside the EU then it should be tax free, but the shop charges you the same price and pockets the difference—20% of the retail price.

The practice is legal but many think it downright dishonest. Travellers who ask why they need to produce boarding passes for items as innocuous as chewing gum are often told that it is for "airport security". Unsurprisingly, never, in Gulliver’s experience, have they said that it is actually so they can pocket the tax differential. The practice has prompted a backlash. David Gauke, a treasury minister, said the tax-relief measures were designed to be passed onto the consumer, not pocketed by the retailer.

I usually don't buy much in the cavernous post-security shopping mall, but the next time I do—potentially three weeks from Sunday—I'm going to be more vigilant.

"I wonder whether people understood the math"

Crain's Chicago Business has done a yeoman's job investigating the Illinois pensions crisis. Today's installment digs into how it happened:

A dense, 78-page bill aimed in part at curbing pension abuses in downstate and suburban school systems landed in lawmakers' laps two days before their scheduled May adjournment [in 2005]. One sponsor called it the first “meaningful” reform in 40 years, a reversal of “decades of neglect and bad decisions.” Another predicted that it could save the state up to $35 billion.

But in addition to true reform, the bill later signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich allowed the state to skip half its pension payments for two years and to stretch out some expenses approved under the previous governor, George Ryan. No one mentioned those could cost $6.8 billion. The math hadn't been done.

Cumulatively, those poor decisions more than quintupled the $20 billion deficit that existed in 1995 to the current $104.6 billion, leaving a seemingly insurmountable emergency with no fix in sight.

Most charitably, the reason Illinois faces such an unholy mess may be the inability of state leaders to fathom how even slight alterations to state employee retirement plans could carry billion-dollar costs or lead to bond-rating downgrades.

Crain's has a definite point of view, and while I'm not sure I completely agree with it, they show how the bad decisions weren't confined to any party or clique. Illinois politicians of both parties showed crashing (or willful) ignorance of basic financial math for so long that it's impossible to hold any of them truly accountable. Maybe that was the plan all along.

Illinois isn't going to drop off the map, nor is Chicago going to disappear like other major industrial cities east of us have done. But we're certainly heading towards ugly negotiations with state retirees and with taxpayers. I just hope that as taxes increase to pay for our past sins, the benefits of living in a vibrant and connected urban space outweigh the increasing costs.

Something has to give, and soon. Maybe our pensions crisis will push us into electing more responsible officials. I'm not optimistic in the short run.

Flags of our Kiwis

New Zealand is voting over the next year to replace its national flag:

It’s not everyday that a nation chooses a new flag by its own volition, with the support of the voters, without any drastic regime changes. New Zealand is doing exactly that. With the Flag Consideration Project, the Kiwis are trying on a new look.

In an open letter to the peoples of New Zealand, the panel for the Flag Consideration Project introduced 40 finalist designs for an all-new flag. Voters will decide what happens next in two referendums: one in November–December, and another in March 2016.

Here are a couple of the finalists:

Planning a long walk

For my upcoming trip to London I have once again planned a trip to West Sussex. I last visited six years ago this week, and walked along the River Arun and through the village of Amberley before refreshing at The Bridge Inn and heading back to London.

For just £13 I've booked a train not to Amberley, but one stop further, to Arundel, on my birthday. The plan is to walk through the village, past Arundel Castle, and then on various footpaths up the River Arun to Amberley and, yes, the Bridge Inn.

Wow, I hope it doesn't rain.

This is all part of a plan to catch up on reading, you see. And to catch up on cheese and onions crisps, which are hard to find in the U.S.

Mama said there'd be days like this

Problem: my keyboard suddenly wouldn't respond to the left-shift, enter, 3 or F5 keys. No idea why this is. Tested with mskey.exe, tested on another machine...still those four keys aren't working.

Solution: Get a new keyboard. Walk 10 minutes to Staples, find the same make and model, buy it, return to office.

New problem: New keyboard's spacebar is broken.

When I say "rinse and repeat" I mean that when heading back from Staples—this is the Chicago Loop, so one walks everywhere—it started to rain. Which is good, because the dewpoint is about infinity.

Now I'm cranky, damp, hot, and tired (which was a pre-existing condition today), and unproductive.

Waaah.

Squishy late spring/early summer

The three-month period ending July 31st was the wettest in Illinois history:

Illinois experienced its wettest May – July on record with 500 mm of precipitation, 200 mm above the 20th century average, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Most of that was due to the record precipitation of June with 240 mm statewide, based on their latest numbers and discussed in more detail here.

That is about an extra two months of precipitation during that three-month period.

Factors include the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge out west and possibly the incipient El Niño taking hold in the Eastern Pacific.

Last Ren Faire of the season...probably

After not going to a Renaissance Faire in so long I don't even remember my last visit, it was fun going three times this summer, each with a different group of people. Yesterday was Steampunk Invasion, which attracted crowds one of the more regular Faire attendees in our group called "epic."

Great costumes though:

I didn't do real costumes myself this season, but I have been informed that next season, there will be a costume, oh yes, there will. This should be interesting...