I have informed the committee.?ÿ The iPhone used apparently did not have a declination option or they did not realize that there is a difference.?ÿ The neighbor who does not care for the feature chuckled...
"What a coinkydink??ÿ Last evening I was killing time in the hallway during an exceptionally boring section of the County Commission meeting.?ÿ The only acceptable thing to play with was my smarter-than-me phone.?ÿ For the first time, I checked out the compass app.?ÿ It became clear immediately that the building?ÿ did not match the compass reading by a few degrees.?ÿ Any common person looking at the building would say it ran north-south."
Maybe not the right place, but one of my proudest moments involved true north. My daughter was a graduate student at Appalachian State University. She and some friends attended a star party sponsored by local amateur astronomers.
As they strolled among the telescopes, my daughter was asked by one of the amateur astronomers if she could find the north star. She looked up, found the big dipper and used its pointers to find the north star. Somewhat amazed, the amateur astronomer asked how she knew how to do that.
You probably should have just kept it under your under your hat. What are they going to do about it, other than feel bad? What bad thing will happen due to the "misalignment"? They will probably just write you off as a smart-alecky know-it -all anyway.?ÿ?ÿ
My experience with members of other professions (for example, Fire Investigators) is they don't know what we can and can't provide.?ÿ It's not really their fault.?ÿ They have no idea that we can show them north or a lat/long or elevation or anything.?ÿ They really have no idea why we are there other than whiz bang gee whiz technology!!! We have to tell them.?ÿ I mean down to, yes I can give you slope and distance from the data. I'm betting they don't know to call you.
Land Surveyors as a profession has done a really poor job of communicating with the public what it is we do.?ÿ Most people are familiar with Doctors and Lawyers but Surveyor? what's that? Construction Worker?
I find it a bit ironic that the ancient Egyptians, Celts, Mayans and Aztecs and lordy who knows else, were able to determine true north to a remarkably a degree of precision using the most rudimentary of tools and celestial observations and yet here we are relying on an iphone app and getting it royally goobered up.?ÿ
I just recently learned that I need to put the lat/long/elevation on the key point (if I know what it is, it isn't always obvious if they don't tell me) in a note on the map I produce because a report I saw has the lat long at least a half mile off. They have published AP numbers too, the lat long is not within either fairly large parcel. Maybe if I do that it'll highlight for them, hey, I can ask Survey for this.
I have informed the committee.?ÿ The iPhone used apparently did not have a declination option or they did not realize that there is a difference.?ÿ The neighbor who does not care for the feature chuckled...
We use all this fancy stuff when all you have to do is "look up" (on a clear night of course)! 😯 ?ÿ
