BS: In Praise of the Compass

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 12:32 PM

....streams, rills and brooks run downhill and usually meet lakes or oceans or bigger rivers.


They also meet waterfalls with BIG drops. Best not to walk too close if you're followiong them in the fog.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 08:20 AM

'You got lost 999? I have never been lost. Momentarily displaced perhaps but never lost. >;-) '

As the BBC commentator said of Olga Korbutt's pratfall - 'she lost her sense of spatial awareness there.'

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 07:39 AM

They can often be found in posh Christmas Crackers along with the mini pack of cards which is handy to know. These days the box shows the contents of the crackers on the back so at least you know before you buy.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 05:47 AM

'Longitude'
A wonderful two-part television film and a book on the subject.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: gnu
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 05:27 AM

You got lost 999? I have never been lost. Momentarily displaced perhaps but never lost. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 05:25 AM

Still ain't safe to go back in the water . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan whittle
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 05:22 AM

On the other hand, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet went round in circles looking for the Hefalump.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 04:40 AM

Lots of bush skills are common sense. I got lost once when I was young, but streams, rills and brooks run downhill and usually meet lakes or oceans or bigger rivers. Keep your cool and it's hard to stay lost.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: gnu
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 06:49 PM

I got one....

My buddy from Newf was over for a hunting trip (I am a licensed guide). We had just come through a klick walk thru heavy bush and made it to a road when we discovered the road was full of partridge a short ways up the road. I told him to go after the ones on the left and I would go after the others.

I nailed a bunch and heard him fire a few times. I was back on the road for near a half hour when I figured sommat was wrong. I fired into the ground in the direction he had gone in and got a straight up fire back. He appeared in ten minutes.

He had carried his compass for three days but left it at camp that morn by mistake. It was cloudy and the terrain was FLAT and unchanging so he became discomboobulated.

I gave him my compass and we continued, separated. I traveresed several logging roads and then it happened. A cock I had been after for at least three years routed and I instinctively dashed in on an angle away from the bird, waited, dashed on an angle toward a large pine, listened and then formulated my plan, which included about seven more movements. I was successful AND I walked out onto the road EXACTLY where I had gone in by retracing my steps.

I did not realize what I had done until I was back on the road. I did what my old man taught me when I was nine years old. It was just instinct and proper training. It doesn't work if you are dropped in the middle of unfamiliar nowhere and need a compass and a map but it works if you pay attention to where you came from.

He also taught me about tree moss growing on the north side of a tree... about listening for beaver dams... about observing game trails... about knowing what kinda trees grow where... so many things. My compass was a friend that got me where I was going "faster" MANY times, but I never really needed one.

I did buy a GPS a while back. Never caught any more trout or got any more birds. I sold it to a Yuppie what wanted it for scavenger hunts in his Jeep. No comment.

Sorry for the ramble but there it is.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: s&r
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 05:39 PM

Come on WAV, you clanged...

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 05:11 PM

Was I in the Pacific, or the Atlantic
I really was getting quite frantic
Til my friend said, You dumb-ass!
Try using your compass!
I said, Stuart - you're really pedantic.....

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 04:46 PM

"The angle" I said, pedantic Stu, - but, yes, to know the end of that angle which points north, one needs to know what hemisphere they are in!

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: s&r
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 03:05 PM

WAV you're in the wrong hemisphere in more ways than one...


Stu

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 03:03 PM

I wandered lonely as a cloud
With my wee compass in my hand
Ahead the lights of Inverary
Not fair Ipswich, as I had planned.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:51 PM

...the angle between the hour hand and the twelve o'clock mark (boy scouts)!

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:44 PM

McGrath, if you needed to determine South by looking at a satellite aerial, wouldn't it be easier to knock on the door of the building?;-)

There's a way of determining north with a watch. Point the hour-hand at the Sun, and north is ....somewhere.
Yeah yeah, digitals don't work.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:30 PM

..."each tennis court I've seen in England - including at Wimbledon - runs roughly north to south; but, trust me, if they ran roughly east to west, rather, players would look into the sun a lot less" (here).

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:14 PM

Satellite aerials always point due South in the Northern hemisphere.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:56 PM

Or when the batteries in your GPS die.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:50 PM

One time, in the good old pre-GPS and preSatNav days, a group of us were one our way home to Staten Island by sailboat from a Clearwater festival. It was very foggy out and our initial navigation was by echolocation, bouncing noises off the Jersey Palisades and timing the echo. After we approached the GW Bridge, the fog thinned enough for us to get to Raritan Bay, picking our way from marker to marker through the fog. When we got too tired, we anchored out of the fairway and went to sleep until dawn--still fogged in.

At dawn, we ran a line of soundings, using a lead line and compass. This enabled us to determine our position in the bay. We then swung on a compass course to our destination and arrived at the breakwater with no problem.

The old skills are still valuable when the electricity fails.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:43 PM

Never - Eat - Stale - Worms...or..?

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:13 PM

Who cares? ;-) What's the important thing, you or the map? Try and take a Zen-like attitude toward this and the map will rapidly recede in importance as you realize that HERE is where you are.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:08 PM

Yeah, but I don't know where HERE is on the map, otherwise I wouldn't be lost.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:56 PM

"Here" is where you are, Doug. At all times. I mean "here" from strictly your point of view, that is. You're never "there", but you're always "here". Comforting, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 11:28 AM

They got these paper things, whaddayacallem?...........oh yeah, topographic MAPS to tell you where you are.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 06:46 AM

Lost on the moors, a compass will tell me directions from here … but where the hell is HERE?

My GPS, on the other hand, doesn't care if I am leaning on a metal gate, trying to work out which way to go.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 05:50 AM

Amazing grace, that compass round,
That saved a fool like me!
I once was lost, until I found
That needle handily.

Through toils and dangers, and so forth,
I have already come;
I took the bearing, south or north,
Which ever led me home.

Yes, when my dear sat nav shall fail,
And batt'ry life shall cease,
I shall possess, for good avail,
My compass. Prize it, please!

The earth shall soon remagnetise,
No compass collimate?
Well, then I still can utilise
It as a paper weight.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,EBarnacle
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 08:00 PM

Ther've been a few times I have gotten turned around in fog until I remembered to focus on my compass and not what I thought I should be doing.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 07:56 PM

Some boyscouts caused a right rumpus
cos each of them carried a compass
Every day
They sent folks the wrong way
They got told,'Stick that thing up your jumpers!'

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 07:41 PM

"But if someone composed an "Ode to a Compass" would it have to be sung as a round?"

Depending on whether you were boxing the compass, I suppose ...

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 05:47 PM

"But if someone composed an "Ode to a Compass" would it have to be sung as a round?"

Just when you think all's right with the world . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 11:13 PM

How's yer thumb, Chongo?

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 10:05 PM

Compasses are pretty cool, no doubt about it. Specially when yer at sea. I have a real good sense of direction on land and I don't get lost, but on the water is a whole different kettle of fish, ya might say! That's when I need a compass.

But I would like to put in a good word for a coupla my favorite tools.

1. The Tommy Gun. Always keep a full clip and an extra drum or 2 handy. Watch fer it climbin' when ya fire a burst and remember to aim low. Never fails ya.

2. The monkey wrench. Aside from the somewhat specist name, this time-honored device is a real useful thing to have around. What the Tommy Gun can't solve, the monkey wrench probably can, and it don't need reloadin'.

3. The glass. It holds yer drink. Enough said.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 09:40 PM

Thankyou Lord for the compass
North South East and West
Though it doesn't help you come past things
As its name might just suggest

Some compasses swing from a boy scouts belt
And some fit in a binnacle
I think they're pretty boring
But perhaps I'm being cynical.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 05:31 PM

"It would also vary with who (Foolestroupe or Chongo) has the fatter thumb"

I thought you were going to say 'fatter head', which may affect the 'arm-length to eyeball-separation ratio' ...

But seriously, since it was discovered that human anatomy is remarkably consistent in its ratios (and always the same for a single person), the 'rule of thumb' method is remarkably reliable, especially if a single cave age guy (married ones would not have the time to spare!) were to use this method to transpose a map pf the stars onto a cave wall....

I'm not making this up, you know, there have been studies (even documentaries) as to the real meanings of many of those cave wall paintings being maps of the sky.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: gnu
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 04:18 PM

Minds me of the many times I used my Silva to go in and specnd the day and come back out less thn 100m from where I went in. Except when it was sunny and then I never even looked at it. I wish I was young again... nothing compares to spending the day in our heavy cover eastern brush woods... an adventure every time you head in.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 04:02 PM

But if someone composed an "Ode to a Compass" would it have to be sung as a round?

(Of course "Praise for Stiction" has always been a sort of a jig - right?.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 10:46 AM

Gee, I've never had problems with my compasses, except that my wife wonders why I take them with me when I go out somewhere in the woods.... You could get lost without a com...wait a minute! Something just occurred to me....

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 10:44 AM

Foolestroupe says: Actually John, the ancient 'rule of thumb' is that if you hold your arm straight out in front of you, ...

I must protest that both he and Chongo quite likely have significantly different arm-length to eyeball-separation ratios than I do, hence the ratio - and the subtended angle - is quite variable.

It would also vary with who (Foolestroupe or Chongo) has the fatter thumb. I would suspect that Chongo's is the wider, but on all occasions when an estimate might be made he seems to have had something stuck to his thumb in a manner that obscures accurate assessment of the dimension. Insufficient opportunities for observation fail to indicate the relative cleanliness of Foolestroupes thumb.

I won't venture a guess as to which would have the wider eye-to-eye separation.

John

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 10:04 AM

That's because the holster for your K+E log log decitrig is worn in the front!

DAMN! Wish somebody had told me back then.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 07:23 AM

I'm told that the Earth's magnetic field is due to reverse in the near future - possibly next Wednesday. Which is a bit of a bugger because I've just ordered a DVD copy of "North By North West" - presumably now to be retitled "South By South East".

Anyone remember the song, "South, To Alaska"?

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 06:12 AM

And ring pulls on baked bean cans.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 06:11 AM

And maps, even if you've been looking at them upside down. Oh and reading glasses.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 05:47 AM

Well, they would probably scratch the sensitive parts too ...

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 05:09 AM

The water closet, and the lavatory brush. and soft toilet paper.

If i find myself in a strange place, and i don't know where the toilet is, I generally ask the way. rather than use a compass, or a slide rule.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 05:08 AM

A compass can break, be stolen or lost, be scratched up, be de-/remagnetized, be inaccurate due to geography etc. It can bulge up your pockets, make holes to them, scratch your leg infectiously so you may die. When you really need it, you have probably forgotten it at home. You need instructions, the manual is usually incomprehensible.

There is clear evidence that terrorists, nazis and communists use compasses to prepare their most atrocious crimes.

For many millenia the sun, the stars, and a good knowledge of the countryside were good enough for people to find their way - why start with that fashionable nonsense?!

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 04:51 AM

Yes I praise the compass, anyone who knows me would tell you that I have no sense of direction whatsoever.

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 04:34 AM

Actually John, the ancient 'rule of thumb' is that if you hold your arm straight out in front of you, and sight with one eye either side of the thumb, guess how many degrees of arc that is.... and how many times does that step around the circle with that radios ... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 03:41 AM

but the steps for drawing a pentagram with a straight edge are remarkably hard to remember (there are an awful lot, I do remember that).

With a compass and a ruler, there are only five steps to constructing the first side of a pentagon, and you can step off that chord of the circle around the circumference and connect the dots to get a pentagram.

The simplicity of that construction, known centuries ago, and the even simpler construction of the hexagon is cited as the reason there are "60 minutes to the hour" since the difference between 1/5 of a rotation and 1/6 of one is 1/30th, and bisecting a chord subtending 1/30th of a circle readily gives 1/60th of a circle. Since this cleverly evaded the necessity of trisecting an angle (a classic problem) it was considered somewhat "magical" and prevented the clock faces marked off by early clockmakers from being easily replicated by plagiarists who didn't know the trick.

(Note: urban legend content above.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: In Praise of the Compass
From: Darowyn
Date: 04 Mar 11 - 03:32 AM

"Never needs upgrading"!?
You've never studied Navigation then!
Magnetic North is not true North, and the variation and deviation changes slightly from year to year.
At times (not recently though) the complete polarity of the Earth's magnetic field can reverse, so your compass would then point South(ish)
Following on from the observation about the coins in the pocket spoiling the bearing reading, I used to convince Marine Engineering students of my mystical powers by making mysterious passes over a ships compass and making the needle follow my hand.
It was only afterwards that I told them that I had been wearing one of those copper bangles with magnets on it- but it made the point that you can not take a compass for granted.
Cheers
Dave