grant
major thanx
very interesting
& of course i would like to give it a try
so i do gratefully accept your offer
even while not grasping its implications
but i have already called in some other pal fans who i think will grasp the=
m
so lets give them a few days to show up too
& i think it will be forward ho in all directions at once
or rather in all remaining directions at once
since i already doubt mom will ever be improved on
m
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., Grant Hutchison <granthutchison@b...> wrote:
> Michael:
> GeoNet has downloadables for all countries but the USA. That defect is
> filled by the USGS, which provides state-by-state data for the US and
> some outlying territories and ex-territories (giving a little overlap
> with GeoNet in places). The USGS also provides a fascinating Antarctica
> gazetteer text file, giving the naming circumstances and toponymy for
> close to 17000 Antarctic features. And GeoNet provides databases for
> undersea features and oceans, too.
> A while back, through the miracle of a cable modem, I ripped all this
> stuff down off the relevant websites and whiled away some happy hours
> running it all through various macros to convert GeoNet's unique
> character coding system to Unicode, and to lay the stuff out the way I
> wanted it. So I'm now the proud owner of three CDROMs containing XLS
> files with feature names (+ lats longs etc) for every country in the worl=
d.
> Antarctica was a problem, database-wise, since it's hard to automate the =
> separation of the names, lats and longs from all the gazetteer info. But =
> spurred on by interest, a heavily hand-assisted run-through tonight has
> met with success.
> So my (almost certain) extreme south-latitude palindromes are:
>
> Mom peak 85 27 S
> Massam glacier 84 33 S
> Hannah ridge 83 36 S
> Mount Ege 83 34 S
> Hannah peak 82 36 S
>
> The gazetteer story on Mom Peak is sufficiently pleasing that I'll quote =
> it: "A peak (3,260 m) in eastern Otway Massif, 5 mi SE of Mount Petlock. =
> Mapped by USGS from surveys and U.S. Navy air photos (1959-63). This
> name recognizes the activities of Shirley (Mrs. James C.) Anderson of
> San Diego, CA, widely known as "Antarctica Mom" among U.S. personnel
> wintering over in Antarctica. In the years following 1961, Mrs.
> Anderson communicated with thousands of wintering personnel in
> Antarctica and her efforts contributed greatly to their morale."
>
> Re the palindrome-detector:
> It's an Excel macro which (at present) runs through any highlighted area =
> cell by cell, supressing spaces and punctuation and looking for single
> palindromic words, or complete palindromic strings. When it finds a
> palindrome it highlights it in red.
> So it'll pick up "Hannah Peak" and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!",
> but it won't spot palindromes as substrings, like (imaginary) "Eka Lake
> Point". And it *will* latch on to partials like "Bob Bartlett Glacier"
> (86 15 S).
> You're of course welcome to a copy, though it needs some primping before =
> I'll let it out: it needs at least a little start-up form to allow
> option selection, a report form to say what's been found, and the
> facility to dump all retrieved palindromes on to a separate sheet for
> easy browsing.
>
> Re The Extreme Palindrome Quest, GeoNet gives names with and without
> diacritics, which adds a new complication or delight, depending on your
> viewpoint. (BTW I'm pleased that the old Greenlandic spelling of Qaanaaq =
> is still palindromic - Qânâq. Same long vowel, different spelling.)
>
> Grant