Data Hacking

292 Part IV — Playtime
Points of Confluence
Points of confluence are places where lines of latitude and longitude intersect. They are purely
artificial, being a by-product of the way maps have been created. Figure 12-3 shows an example
of such a point.
FIGURE 12-3: A confluence point
There is no significance to these locations other than human fascination with numbers, especially
round numbers with a lot of zeros, but that hasn’t stopped people from finding these
locations, logging them, and commemorating their visit with a photo.
Of course, it didn’t take long for someone to develop a website devoted to the cataloging of
people’s “finds” of these points of confluence. This site, www.confluence.org, is devoted to
this sport.
It’s more than just about logging a point of the Earth’s surface. The project goes further than
that. It encourages the searcher not only to post details of their finds, but to narrate the story of
their find. Moreover, because the points are spread across the globe, with many in very remote
areas, the logs of people’s visits make interesting reading.
The first person to actively log a point of confluence is a man named Alex Jarrett, and he began
doing this in 1996, visiting the points and then posting details of his finds on a website.
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