Walter writes:

> Wirt Atmar ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>  : Nick writes:
>  : > The answer given for Alaska is only correct if you are attending
>  : >  in Greenwich and are counting longtitudes.
>  : Unfortunately, that's the definition of east and west, just as the
equator
> is
>  : used to define north and south.
>
>  Ah, but there's a fundamental difference, isn't there?  From any point
>  on the equator, I can travel east forever, but I can travel north only
>  about 10,000 km.
>
>  Or again, I can define the relation "is farther north than" to mean
>  "is closer to the north pole than," but how shall I define "is farther
>  east than"?  There's no east pole!
>
>  "To the east of" sounds like a simple concept, until one explores the
>  corner cases.  And doesn't this whole discussion illustrate the problems
>  that programmers have grappled with for decades?  The specifications
>  that seemed so clear to the user who wrote them turn out to be
>  imprecise or surprising when the corner cases start appearing.

I think we need to enroll a sizeable portion of this group in a basic
navigation & cartography class :-).

Wirt Atmar