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Flat Earth & BB Treasure Hunt

Posted by kaerast on 8 January 2009 in English.

I've been arguing with my partner the past couple of days about Flat Earth Theory. I'm sensing I'm about to be ridiculed here, but I actually quite like the theory of a flat earth. It doesn't affect my daily life, and I continue to believe that the earth is spherical, but the flat earth theory can be used as a step into challenging people to question the beliefs they have simply because scientists say so.

However, politics and conspiracy theories aside, I would love to render OSM data using the theories of flat earth in order to show what a flat earth would look like in great detail. I'm expecting this to be far beyond my capabilities both in terms of coding and in terms of the maths involved, however it's something I would very much like to have a go at doing (presuming of course nothing more sensible comes up for me to work on).

Talking of more sensible work, we're planning a Big Brother treasure hunt around my city centre. Last month I put in a Freedom of Information Request to the local council requesting details and locations of CCTV cameras to which they responded with a list of cameras, all with only vague locations. I appear to have found a small amount of funding for printing and prizes, and we are due to have a meeting tomorrow to plan details.

The city centre OSM map is mostly complete in terms of roads, and so we should be able to give people an A4 printout of the area with the list of cameras on the back. Points can then be given for each camera found, with bonus points for each extra useful bit of information (unlisted cameras, photographs, type, coverage, etc) and possibly some bonus points for cameras we don't expect to be found (bad descriptions or in outlying areas).

Hopefully this will all lead to complete mapping of all surveillance=public in Bradford within a couple of months.

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Discussion

Comment from RichardB on 8 January 2009 at 21:55

Ahh, but you couldn't have any satellites orbiting a flat Earth - and without satellites there would be no OSM - therefore it does affect your daily life. QED

Comment from kaerast on 9 January 2009 at 09:16

There are theories about how you make GPS work using flat earth theory, but they involve big radio masts. Yeah right...

Comment from CiaránMooney on 10 January 2009 at 19:09

I live the Big Brother treasure hunt idea! Very good.

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