http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=357736

I have walked around the Monastery for some time without noticing the statistics being gathered over at tinymicros.com.

The most amazing application of this information is by far the Monk Maps, http://tinymicros.com/pm/index.php?goto=BigMonkMap

UPDATE Note this new version: http://desert-island.dynodns.net/perl/pmplanet_google.html

Getting listed in the optional statistics is easy enough. Getting on the map takes a bit more effort.

  1. If it is close to April 1, you must first consult the Department of Homeland Security and buy a tinfoil hat. great April fools joke guys!
  2. Adding some simple tags to your homenode for latitude and longitude will cause you to appear on the map.
  3. This has the form: <!-- location:latitude=34.59.59,longitude=-84.12.34 -->

Note that you can get close to your latitude and longitude with simple mouse movement over a map such as the IRIS Seismic Monitor.

UPDATE: Very accurate "mouseover" lattitude and longitude is available for North America and Europe from maptech. (See free maps section)

If you live in North America do not forget to add the "-" to your Longitude. Think of a proper translation for "Longitude 100 W" to "Longitude -100" and you will be fine. My first attempt without the "-" put me somewhere in China and I had to correct the tag. (Note that I am located in Nebraska now - which is just sligtly more populated with Monks than China.) Here is an index of US cities with a link to a version with degrees, minutes, and seconds also. A very big thanks to jcwren for creating this service. He does not appear to be very active on perlmonks lately.

I am sure that this topic has been covered in the past, but my Super Search has turned up little information. If others find this information useful I would suggest saying so now in an effort to preserve this resource.

SciDude

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by theorbtwo (Prior) on May 31, 2004 at 08:19 UTC

    http://multimap.com works quite nicely -- lat/long directly under the map. Most of europe, plus the US. (Sorry, those living elsewhere.)

    Update: And Canada, and Australia... and an intersting "rest of the world" category, that may work, with some manual looking.

[reply]
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by tkil (Monk) on May 31, 2004 at 06:17 UTC
    Note that you can get close to your latitude and longitude with simple mouse movement over a map such as ...

    Or you can do the geeky thing: buy or borrow a GPS receiver, and let it tell you where you are. :)

    ICBM address: lat +34 +32.44.24.5, long -117.15.14.2, elev +20m MSL (but GPS says +30m)

    Updates

    1. Picky picky picky! Jepri correctly points out that I need an elevation as well. Seeing as I live about 50 meters from the ocean, and that GPS units are notoriously flaky at elevation, I'll swag it.
    2. Woops, seems I mistyped my location the first time. (In case anyone was confused by my living in the middle of the Mojave Desert...)
[reply]
      Is it geekier to have looked up your address in the census survey database and used that instead? Cuz that's how I found my exact location.
[reply]
        Is it geekier to have looked up your address in the census database survey database and used that instead?

        I was going to give you crap for this method, because it requires you to trust the gub'mint...

        ...Then I remembered who runs those GPS satellites I'm so fond of. D'oh.

        I suspect the truly geeky method would be to use celestial navigation techniques, at least for latitude. Longitude ... harder nut to crack; most of the good time sources are gov't controlled, and most ephemeris tables are generated by the gov't as well. (Heck, longitude has always been political anyway.)

        Being a paranoid government-conspiracy nut is hard work!

[reply]
      ICBM address: lat +34.44.24.5, long -117.15.14.2

      You need an elevation to go with that. Having your ICBM thunk into the ground without exploding is quite embarrassing (nukes don't go off on impact, they have to be triggered by a mechanism that makes Swiss watchmakers look pretty clumsy).

      ____________________
      Jeremy
      I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

[reply]
        You need an elevation to go with that.

        Sigh. Some people are never satisfied.

        Anyway. I can eyeball it as about 20m, but my GPS tells me 30m; I don't know whether it's a different datum that causes it, or whether I'm being conservative in my guesses. (The USGS topo that I found shows my place as being right on the 20ft contour, so...)

        You did also help me realize that I mistyped my latitude. Going back and correcting it now.

[reply]
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by pfaut (Priest) on May 31, 2004 at 14:34 UTC
    Note that I am located in Nebraska now - which is just sligtly more populated with Monks than China.

    Nebraska may or may not have more PerlMonks than China but I'm sure it has more that can mention it on internet.

    90% of every Perl application is already written. ⇒
    dragonchild
[reply]

      One thing I will say about central Nebraska. My broadband connection here is excellent. Having moved here from Dallas - I expected a "downgrade" in connectivity. In fact, my connection speeds are faster, more reliable, and cable modem congestion is non-existant.

      Over the long term the MonkMap will surely indicate more highly populated and well connected areas on Earth.

      SciDude
[reply]
        Plus you have a much better local football team to root for now. :)
[reply]
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by ambrus (Abbot) on May 31, 2004 at 14:59 UTC

    As I live in Europe, I had no problem with minuses, but at first I swapped the two numbers (19,45) so the dot appeared in Asia.

[reply]
      at first I swapped the two numbers

      The mnemonic I use is that latitude are the lines that make the earth look fat; they loop around parallel to the equator.

[reply]
        And lines of longitude are all equally long
[reply]
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by tmiklas (Hermit) on Jun 01, 2004 at 19:47 UTC
    Hello Monks!

    Another way of getting your coordinates (insufficient, but it's a good start)... If you know some HAM Radio operators... we use Grid Square Locators system. My current locator is JO81MB, while my home locator is JO91BS. The whole world is divided into squares, where the smallest one is about 4.5km x 4.5km :-) So it's a bit accurate :-)
    To read more about it please visit this site where you will find more info about the system itself.

    Now when you know your locator, you go AMSAT GridSquare Conversion and that's all :-)

    Vy 73 de SQ3TQM/6
    Greetz, Tom.
[reply]
Re: Where are all the Monks?
by gawatkins (Monsignor) on Jun 01, 2004 at 10:04 UTC
    A big data file full of kudos to everyone who worked on that site!
    GW
[reply]

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