What Coordinate Precision Means

WHAT THE NUMBER OF DIGITS IN YOUR COORDINATES MEANS LAT/LON PRECISION MEANING 28°N, 80°W YOU'RE PROBABLY DOING SOMETHING SPACE-RELATED 28.5°N, 80.6°W YOU'RE POINTING OUT A SPECIFIC CITY 28.52°N, 80.68°W YOU'RE POINTING OUT A NEIGHBORHOOD 28.523°N, 80.683°W YOU'RE POINTING OUT A SPECIFIC SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W YOU'RE POINTING TO A PARTICULAR CORNER OF A HOUSE 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W YOU'RE POINTING TO A SPECIFIC PERSON IN A ROOM, BUT SINCE YOU DIDN'T INCLUDE DATUM INFORMATION, WE CAN'T TELL WHO 28.5234571°N, 80.6830914°W YOU'RE POINTING TO WALDO ON A PAGE 28.523457182°N, 80.683091459°W "HEY, CHECK OUT THIS SPECIFIC SAND GRAIN!" 28.523457182818284°N, 80.68307451265358°W EITHER YOU'RE HANDING OUT RAU FLOATING POINT VARIABLES, OR YOU'VE BUILT A DATABASE TO TRACK INDIVIDUAL ATOMS. IN EITHER CASE, PLEASE STOP.

A hand-drawn chart explains what increasing latitude and longitude precision supposedly implies, from identifying something space-related to pinpointing a city, neighborhood, house corner, person, Waldo, a grain of sand, or even individual atoms. The joke is that absurdly precise coordinates become increasingly invasive and technically ridiculous, while the final line mocks excessive floating-point precision and atom-level tracking. EN: A hand-drawn chart explains what increasing latitude and longitude precision supposedly implies, from identifying something space-related to pinpointing a city, neighborhood, house corner, person, Waldo, a grain of sand, or even individual atoms. The joke is that absurdly precise coordinates become increasingly invasive and technically ridiculous, while the final line mocks excessive floating-point precision and atom-level tracking.

• @dev_meme / 1623 2020-05-26
• zip:17f010a7860b73f9724cf05a52e7fc093c50e6ed7a2cb892de4b7ceceb05ae5e