Editing 2888: US Survey Foot
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In the unlikely event that the searchers' phones measure and report location in reference to Cueball's location, evidently Black Hat has also overridden his device's in-built GPS to report its location in reference to Cueball's location as a way to toy with him and the NIST teams, and then traveled EXACTLY 8,000 survey-foot miles away, knowing NIST would be able to track him and that a team would be sent in pursuit. After all, Black Hat is known for his preternatural powers of mischief. | In the unlikely event that the searchers' phones measure and report location in reference to Cueball's location, evidently Black Hat has also overridden his device's in-built GPS to report its location in reference to Cueball's location as a way to toy with him and the NIST teams, and then traveled EXACTLY 8,000 survey-foot miles away, knowing NIST would be able to track him and that a team would be sent in pursuit. After all, Black Hat is known for his preternatural powers of mischief. | ||
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Though Cueball’s location is not specified, one potential location is NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, or another governmental location, perhaps in the Greater Washington Area where most US government agencies and departments are headquartered. These options are supported by the panel in which Cueball mentions a NIST team is on their way and brags that “we” are going to capture him. This language implies that Cueball either works for NIST or for a larger effort in which NIST is a partner. These location options are also supported by the fact that Cueball’s location is used for the origin point of the 8,000-mile measurement, suggesting that he’s speaking at a flagship location and not a random office building. | Though Cueball’s location is not specified, one potential location is NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, or another governmental location, perhaps in the Greater Washington Area where most US government agencies and departments are headquartered. These options are supported by the panel in which Cueball mentions a NIST team is on their way and brags that “we” are going to capture him. This language implies that Cueball either works for NIST or for a larger effort in which NIST is a partner. These location options are also supported by the fact that Cueball’s location is used for the origin point of the 8,000-mile measurement, suggesting that he’s speaking at a flagship location and not a random office building. | ||
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The use of helicopters — which cannot fly 8,000 miles unaided — also suggests an imaginative situation in which NIST teams with access to helicopters are distributed around the globe, perhaps at US air bases and on US aircraft carriers. | The use of helicopters — which cannot fly 8,000 miles unaided — also suggests an imaginative situation in which NIST teams with access to helicopters are distributed around the globe, perhaps at US air bases and on US aircraft carriers. | ||
| − | ===Real world | + | ===Real world example=== |
In the early 2000s, Survey Foot/International Foot conversion issues created difficulties in the civil engineering industry after a commonly used CADD design software package changed how it processed units. Prior versions of the software program Microstation were unit-agnostic, relying only on absolute coordinates assigned to elements from survey data. Starting with Microstation Version 8, internal software calculations were performed entirely in metric units and relied on a units definition file to seamlessly convert to the unit system being used for a project. The default options in the program being “Foot” (i.e., International Foot) or “Survey Foot”, many users were unaware of the difference and selected “Foot” even when a project’s field survey was performed in survey feet. In the US, most states have their own coordinate systems, referred to as State Plane Coordinates, to correct for the approximation of projecting the Earth’s spherical surface into a cartesian X,Y plane. Some states have coordinate zones which span their entire length, so a project’s coordinates can be millions of feet from the origin, a scale on which the minuscule difference between Survey and International feet conversion becomes whole feet. | In the early 2000s, Survey Foot/International Foot conversion issues created difficulties in the civil engineering industry after a commonly used CADD design software package changed how it processed units. Prior versions of the software program Microstation were unit-agnostic, relying only on absolute coordinates assigned to elements from survey data. Starting with Microstation Version 8, internal software calculations were performed entirely in metric units and relied on a units definition file to seamlessly convert to the unit system being used for a project. The default options in the program being “Foot” (i.e., International Foot) or “Survey Foot”, many users were unaware of the difference and selected “Foot” even when a project’s field survey was performed in survey feet. In the US, most states have their own coordinate systems, referred to as State Plane Coordinates, to correct for the approximation of projecting the Earth’s spherical surface into a cartesian X,Y plane. Some states have coordinate zones which span their entire length, so a project’s coordinates can be millions of feet from the origin, a scale on which the minuscule difference between Survey and International feet conversion becomes whole feet. | ||
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==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
