…and this is a 
Categorization
Category: Weblogs • Weirdness
Posted on: November 19, 2006 11:19 AM, by PZ Myers
It's all very nice that Elayne Riggs refers to me as an A-list blogger, but it's not true. We weird scienceblog types have to be placed on a completely different alphabet, and I have decided that I want to be on the ζ-list. Mainly because I like the squiggle.
Update your blogrolls appropriately, please.
Also via Elayne, I had to try this site that lets you figure out where you'd end up if you dug a hole through the center of the earth. I have discovered that there is a place more remote, empty, and isolated than Morris, Minnesota: it's the center of the Indian Ocean. Although it probably does have cephalopods, so it's a bit of a toss-up.
Comments
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 19, 2006 11:26 AM
I think "aleph-list blogger" would be cooler.
Posted by: Zeno | November 19, 2006 11:32 AM
Would you be close enough to Diego Garcia to swim ashore? (Be careful, the island is a secure military base.)
Posted by: MissPrism | November 19, 2006 11:36 AM
Speaking of oceans - thought you might like this anti-bottom trawling squid vid.
(Declaration of conflict of interest - I know the animators)
Posted by: Magnus Malmborn | November 19, 2006 11:43 AM
Why not xi, if you like squiggles?
Posted by: micheyd | November 19, 2006 12:06 PM
I'm from Bermuda, and if I dig a hole outside my backyard...I end up near Perth, Australia! That is so awesome! I might have to swim a couple miles, but it would be worth it.
Posted by: Grumpy | November 19, 2006 12:33 PM
The most remote place in the ocean, "Point Nemo," is located in the South Pacific at 48°50′S 123°20′W, over 1600 statute miles from the Pitcairn Islands or Easter Island.
Bring your water-wings.
Posted by: Jon H | November 19, 2006 12:36 PM
"The most remote place in the ocean, "Point Nemo," is located in the South Pacific at 48°50′S 123°20′W, over 1600 statute miles from the Pitcairn Islands or Easter Island."
And that's in the vicinity of the supposed location of the sunken island of R'Lyeh, where Cthulu sleeps.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | November 19, 2006 12:52 PM
Doesn't anyone remember the old easter egg in the Map control panel from old-timey MacOS? The map asks for your location to set various system parameters, and one can enter "middle of nowhere" ...
Posted by: SV | November 19, 2006 1:33 PM
I can't find the reference, but I remember reading that the existence of continent of Antarctica was predicted because the Arctic was ocean. Geographers in the early 1700's supposedly concluded, because the antipodes of all known major landmasses were oceans, that there was a physical law that "required" some sort of land/ocean balance.
But it was just a coincidence.
Posted by: RedMolly | November 19, 2006 1:51 PM
Well, how cool is that? My kids have just learned that you can't dig a hole to China unless you start from Argentina or Chile or perhaps Uruguay.
Posted by: Joshua | November 19, 2006 2:23 PM
The most remote populated area is... *drumroll* Hawaii! My birthplace. I can't remember now where the next populated area is, but it's one of those tiny, tiny Pacific atolls. Johnston or Wake, and even those are over 1200 miles away.
You wouldn't guess from how gentrified a lot of it is now, though. ;)
Posted by: Greco | November 19, 2006 2:37 PM
My hole would end up somewhere off the coast of Japan, apparently.
Okay, I think I should call USP and tell them someone has way too much time on his hands.
Posted by: John Wilkins | November 19, 2006 5:02 PM
If you like, you can use HTML code to get "ζ-list", but I don't know about "beth-list".
Posted by: jim | November 19, 2006 5:22 PM
You can use entity references to get א-list, too.
Posted by: Membrane | November 19, 2006 6:17 PM
I've always been fond of あ, which looked to me like a passion fish impaled by a cross.
Posted by: Alon Levy | November 19, 2006 6:18 PM
I want to be on the zeta-list too, but that's because I like the functions. Though maybe I should be on the L-list instead, on the grounds that it's more relevant to algebraic number theory.
Posted by: Steven | November 19, 2006 7:08 PM
The Zeta list, cool. Me 2.
Posted by: Tatarize | November 20, 2006 3:56 AM
Odd factoid, if you dig a hole through the Earth from *ANY* part of Australia you will not hit land. If you lived in Perth you could swim to Bermuda but it's North Atlantic for everybody.
I heard that and spent the next two hours on Google Earth checking Lat and Longs, damned if it ain't true; there is not even a damned atoll.
Posted by: arensb | November 20, 2006 7:12 AM
This seems like as good a time as any to quote Ana Ng by They Might Be Giants:
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | November 20, 2006 7:32 AM
"A National Geographic study concluded that 11% of Americans 18-24 can't find the US on an unmarked map. 70% can't find New Jersey."
Hmm maybe there IS a good reason for the government to be targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only sex education programs. On second thought maybe they don't have to...
Oh, and my apologies to all the fine folk who live there, but are they sure that the 70% of those who can't find Jersey are really trying? Ok,ok I'll admit that I lived in NYC for way too many years.
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | November 20, 2006 11:48 AM
LOL! You'll always be A-list to me, Dr. Myers, no matter how many squiggles you employ. After all, I am but a simple layperson and therefore don't get the joke...
Posted by: E-gal | November 20, 2006 11:53 AM
No matter where you dig in the US, you always end up in China. Every kid will tell you that.
Posted by: jrochest | November 20, 2006 3:19 PM
But if you start out in Saskatchewan, you wind up on the Heard Islands, well south of Austrailia and just north of Antartica.
Hardly seems worth the effort.
Posted by: Daniel Martin | November 21, 2006 10:57 AM
I'm pretty sure that anyone in the lower 48 ends up in the Indian Ocean - I can't even determine any spot in the continental US that hits any identifiable island (although there is a chunk of Alberta that hits something labeled "French Southern & Antarctic lands").
I did find a spot in rural Eastern Colorado that hits an unlabeled island. I have a relative who lives in La Junta, CO, and it's arguable whether or not an unlabeled island in the Indian Ocean is more remote than a location which looks to La Junta as the nearest populated area.