Inspired by Lee's story of finding an arrow in a drawer while staying in a hotel in Malaysia, I decided to try and find out what direction Mecca is from our farm (nearest town Aratula). My Dad insists that it's just west or north, or something equally simplistic (and WRONG) and naturally we didn't have an atlas to hand (curse my stuff being in boxes!!!). So I did what we all do, I turned to Google and was *immediately* sidetracked by the practical difficulties faced by Islamic astronauts.
Then, I discovered the CIA World Fact book (!) has a listing of major places latitude and longitude: Mecca (city) Saudi Arabia 21 27 N 39 49 E, but having only read Neal Stephenson, and not being a geography geek in my own right, I can't immediately tell if this is enough minutes of accuracy, or how to make a bearing from here (despite having my compass with me right now). Strangely, the CIA factbook has no listing for Aratula, or even Ipswich. Mustn't be the hotbed of libertine activism I'd hoped for.... but they do have Brisvegas. Brisbane (city) Australia 27 28 S 153 02 E. Excellent.
Roughly then, we'd need to go 114 degrees west and 48 degrees north to get to Mecca from our place. That's West North-West isn't it? Maybe now I need one of those fandangled maritime compass things. Or, I could just go to the library at lunchtime and look at an Atlas.
Basically though, I'm surprised there's not a simple tool where you put your city in, and it tells you which way to face. Don't you think that's odd? I just think it's polite to at least have an idea.
4 comments:
oh, fuck mecca. next you'll be pandering to fundamentalist american christians and praying politely for President Bush's health and cursing the homosexuals for hurricaine Katrina. I don't respect Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Buddhism. They are all pernicious. They are all thought prisons that will destroy your soul.
There are many beautiful things to come out of Arabic culture. Islam is not one of them.
ps, I was raised fundamentalist christian. I know whereof I speak.
pps, I now have home internet! I have my brain back!
ppps Arab culture, not Arabic. And I love Neal Stephenson.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
Yay - she's *back*! Fundamentalist anything sucks - agreed. But don't you think it's interesting that China has decreed that they're going to celebrate the year of the pig/boar this year without using any images of pigs - as they don't want to *offend* any muslims?
If that was a western culture, they'd say "get a grip, we've had this tradition for hundreds of years" but no, China has a different concept. They just decree that it changes. Are muslims actually offended if other people celebrate that a pig turned up to see-in Buddha's enlightenment? I would have thought that as long as they aren't invited to eat it we'd be fine. But apparently, no.
Too, too weird.
Post a Comment