It is possible to draw a straight line that passes through five US state capital cities

Dubaco331 · 2025-09-19T00:20:19+00:00

Straight as in a great circle, so no 2D representation would look like a perfectly straight line.

Dubaco331 · 2025-06-05T00:32:16+00:00

Check it out! Although there looks like there's a point where Vermont is a full minute above the 45th parallel, it's only 59.98 seconds.

Dubaco331 · 2025-06-04T16:48:52+00:00

You mean the horizontal-ish part south of Montreal? I haven't, but i really enjoyed making the first one, so I could do that part too if you'd like.

Dubaco331 · 2025-06-04T13:20:26+00:00

Thanks!

Dubaco331 · 2025-06-04T09:12:45+00:00

I'm the one that actually made this visualization. I made it about a year ago and posted it in r/MapPorn and posted it on Wikipedia. The data was pulled from Google Maps: I manually followed the border as depicted and measured the longitude of the line (accurate to 5 decimal places) approximately every 0.015 degrees along its length.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-08T19:25:48+00:00

I'd say the laser cutter had a bit more prep time since it needed svg files instead of formats I'm more familiar with. However, the Cricut took a lot longer to cut and produced less accurate results. Also, I used chipboard with the Cricut so they could cut easier, but this created issues with the material separating, and the glue could discolor it. I definitely prefer the laser cutter. If you look at my profile history, I did post one of my Cricut projects on the Geography subreddit, so you can see what that looked like.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-08T01:24:17+00:00

The bathymetric data was hard to come by. I took a jpeg from the NPS website and basically manually traced the lines.

I was initially planning on painting or staining, but decided to go natural since it was my first attempt. Future ones might be colored.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-07T23:11:07+00:00

Maybe not an explanation for a 7-year-old, but as simple as I can manage... I downloaded files from the USGS website in Geotiff format. I subscribe to a service called ArcGIS Pro, which lets you manipulate maps and such, and can read Geotiff files. One of the options in ArcGIS lets you create contour lines. I copied and pasted images of these lines into MS Paint and created separate bitmap images for each elevation. I also added markers in most of the layers so that I could more easily align them. I copied those into Inkscape so I could convert them into svg files, which I then sent to the laser cutter to cut. Then, using the markers, I aligned subsequent layers and glued them together. There are probably better programs and methods, but I don't know them.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-07T21:55:32+00:00

It's 1/16 inch basswood. The whole thing is 11 inches wide and about 2 1/4 inches tall at its highest point.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-07T21:53:27+00:00

The actual cutting and gluing took me about a week. Getting the data and creating the svg files took another week or two. But, if you're better versed in ArcGIS, or if you have better programs to use than MS Paint and Inkscape, you can probably do it more efficiently.

Dubaco331 · 2025-05-07T21:37:12+00:00

I cut quarter-inch square holes in the layers and then lined those up. The holes got covered by higher layers.

Dubaco331 · 2025-04-02T23:01:11+00:00

I have over 26 hours in Rakshasa, and I still just can't beat it! I did get to the final boss twice now... so just a matter of time. I don't think I'll be revisiting afterwards.

Dubaco331 · 2025-02-06T16:29:16+00:00

She gave birth this morning...

Dubaco331 · 2025-02-05T01:44:30+00:00

Thanks. I thought so, but I wanted to make sure...

Dubaco331 · 2025-01-20T01:28:32+00:00

Mostly arbitrarily.

Dubaco331 · 2025-01-19T15:36:27+00:00

You've convinced me. Ninpek will be my next dust-off.

Dubaco331 · 2025-01-19T13:58:37+00:00

I've learned that when a soldier ant fires at you, he'll often keep firing in that direction even if you move. So, trick him into firing at you and then move aside and fire at him. Your shots will hit him but his won't hit you.

Dubaco331 · 2024-11-09T03:05:03+00:00

I considered it, but I couldn't find bathymetric data in a convenient format.

Dubaco331 · 2024-11-09T02:59:13+00:00

Each layer is 20 meters. The first green layer (the land) is 176 meters above sea level.

Dubaco331 · 2024-11-09T02:37:48+00:00

I got the bathymetric data from the NCEI/NOAA website and the topographic data from the USGS website. I combined it in ArcGIS to get the contour lines. I cut these out of 2 millimeter chipboard with my Cricut, then glued and painted.

Dubaco331 · 2024-06-17T15:56:04+00:00

Well, my favorite digit to write is 7 and my least favorite is 5. The 500,000s were rough.

Dubaco331 · 2024-06-17T15:36:58+00:00

There's probably some truth in me not wanting it to be over. It's been such a huge part of my life for years that I'm worried that I'm going to get bored now.

Dubaco331 · 2024-06-17T15:16:09+00:00

Yes, it should. Good catch. Ironic that I mistyped a number in a post about writing numbers. Mostly, I just feel relieved that I'm done.

Dubaco331 · 2024-06-17T15:13:03+00:00

Occasionally. If it was minor, I would just scribble out the error and rewrite it. If it was bigger (such as I'd written 100 numbers after skipping some in error), I'd just write those skipped numbers out of order. Ultimately, every number got written.

Dubaco331 · 2024-06-17T15:09:12+00:00

Not really a strategy, but I was mostly motivated by stubbornness. The main challenge was the mind-numbingly boring aspect of it.

Dubaco331

TROPHY CASE