Welcome to Null Island

July 27, 2024 6:50 AM

An imaginary island located at a real place. When a place doesn't exist, the first thing to do is to assign it a reasonable size.
posted by verylazyminer (10 comments total)

I did not expect this article to include Myst, the Eames’ Powers of Ten, and some serious discussion on the usability of Easter Eggs.

The “data ghosts” that live on Null Island put me in mind of the rise of Remote, OR as a major job center of the nation during the pandemic.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 8:20 AM on July 27 [5 favorites]

11 mefites live here.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:22 AM on July 27 [3 favorites]

Reboot!
posted by zengargoyle at 9:57 AM on July 27 [1 favorite]

Back when I worked at Tableau starting in 2010, not surprisingly, missing geographic coordinates in a data source ended up being mapped to Null Island at 0°N 0°E. One of the employees purchased the domain NullIsland.com and created a website (now archived) for the Republic of Null Island ("Like no Place on Earth") with a fictional history, flag, geography, culture, and a page on travel tips with an email to contact Null Island's Department of Tourism.

He actually received some email from some travel agents enquiring about arranging visits to Null Island.
posted by ShooBoo at 10:02 AM on July 27 [5 favorites]

Alan's article is a great celebration of a quiet in-joke amongst geonerds for decades now. The Library of Congress had a nice article a few years ago, so did the Wall Street Journal. Also this academic paper from a couple of years ago covers a lot of ground.

My favorite related thing, Null Archipelago, mapping Null Island in different coordinate systems.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on July 27 [3 favorites]

Back when I worked at Tableau starting in 2010, not surprisingly, missing geographic coordinates in a data source ended up being mapped to Null Island at 0°N 0°E. One of the employees purchased the domain NullIsland.com

Steve Pellegrin! He’s mentioned in the article, minus the Tableau connection. When I did a presentation at Tableau in 2013 I had a giant "Null Island" sticker on my laptop; several people in the crowd asked if I knew Steve. This email from November 2010 is the approximate origin of the Myst island connection.
posted by migurski at 12:30 PM on July 27 [3 favorites]

So *that's* where we source all of our null pointers.
posted by credulous at 4:28 PM on July 27 [1 favorite]

If time travel is possible, I expect a lot of time machines ended up sinking into the Atlantic at null island at midnight January 1st 1970, because their operators forgot to change the default date/location settings.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:35 PM on July 27 [4 favorites]

I've always assumed they end up stranded in deep space because the Earth and Sun are currently rather far from where they were even a few seconds ago.
posted by wierdo at 6:49 PM on July 27 [2 favorites]

Nomans is an island.
posted by vrakatar at 9:17 PM on July 27