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@LouisIngenthron Well as I said, its margin of error is well below the alternatives anyway.

@LouisIngenthron No doubt it is a real effect, but easily managed in the wild. Any field that effect it are going to more or less within hands reach plus a little extra . So while its totally true it might be effected by an electronic device fairly close to it, or a large chunk of metal, anything even moderately far away (such as a deposit of metal a dozen feet under the earth) isnt likely to have much of an effect.

As a scuba diver I can speak on underwater navigation a lot and have tested a lot of systems that approach it in different ways... Not sure of any gravimetric based systems though, doesnt mean they dont exist I just cant speak on that specifically.

"Officer safety" a phrase you will often hear from a police officer shortly before he starts beating you and violating your rights.

@robryk you would need a map of the magnetic fields, a high accurate sensor, and you'd not even approach GPS level accuracy.. but its doable in theory yea.

@freemo

Mechanical compasses of that sort are more complicated, at least because you need a vertical reference and a gimbal with 2 degrees of freedom.

Also, that's not very accurate if you don't know your longitude: the isolines of vertical strength are amusingly curvy: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia

BTW I wonder how many sports trackers use the magnetic field to simplify their motion tracking, and then work very differently sufficiently far north or sufficiently close to the equator. (E.g. for breaststroke in swimming pools oriented east-west in Switzerland keeping a running average of the magnetic field direction at wrist is a more reliable way of counting lengths than what Garmin was doing up until something like 1-2 years ago)

@mjambon The wobble itself you can account for by normalizing with a gyro or force sensor. The issue of magnets around you, I mean yea if one is around it will throw it off. But making sure there isnt a magnet within a few feet of it isnt really a huge issue, these fields weaken fast.

You are right however the reason is accuracy. The magnetic field is weak and the resolution of the sensors are limited. Also GPS is hyper accurate. So there is no doubt its an accuracy thing.

Girlfriend: If I lost a limb and i was in a wheelchair for the rest of your life would you still date me?

Boyfriend: Babe if you chipped a nail I'd be out.

"Picture baby Jesus,with better abs" -- Daniel Tosh

His jokes only get better the less context you give.

Interesting fact of the day.. a magnetic compass (when properly designed) doesn't just tell you the direction to north and south poles, it also tells you how far north or south you are (latitude), Simply put magnetic dip (the tendency for a magnetic compass to dip down or up) can be measured and used to determine latitude or compass direction.

I suspect the only reason we dont have digital compasses that can do this is simply because GPS is a more accurate and simpler to measure. But it would not be technologically very difficult to do.

@peterdrake oops that was not what i meant to say. I meant to say "lattitude or compass direction". let me correct that now (it will orphan your comments) thanks.

@peterdrake Because it addresses lattitude (distance north and south) not longitude (location west and east). It wasnt used for latitude because using a sexton would be more accurate with the tools of the time.

"You dislike the thing I like, therefore I dislike you." -- Fediverse in a nutshell.

Looooolllll people actually say this and arent trying to be funny.

millennial falcon  
@freemo just read it again. you have something to learn here. I am not doing it for you, you whataboutist fucking cretin.

@DeeGLloyd This is literally the only thing Tucker has ever done I'd be willing to actually support him for. I mean he is an asshat so in general no. But a government saying news reporters cant go somewhere and talk to someone is a good ass reason to go there and talk to them. Journalism at its heart is about doing just that.

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