Well things have been kind of quiet here lately so I figure I would bring up something that's sure to spark a lively discussion.
I've been noticing a major change in the way geographic coordinates are given-
something like: Latitude: N 26° 36' 5.13", Longitude: W 81° 33' 30.28"
You know- dividing degrees into minutes and then dividing those minutes into seconds?
I always thought this was a pain in the butt and thought there had to be a better way.
Well apparently somebody else did too because lately I've been seeing more and more coordinates are now being given in a decimal form-
like: Latitude: 26.6204° , Longitude: -81.6440°
Now I have a lot of mental inertia (translation- I'm a stubborn old codger stuck in his ways) and my typical reaction to some new way of doing something is- "yuck!- I don't want to change"- but here my reaction was- "Hey!- this is great!- why didn't someone think of this before?"
In retrospect this seems so logical and simple you have to wonder why someone didn't think of this years ago.
Google appears to have totally embraced this new system but unfortunately the FCC is still giving coordinates in the old cumbersome degs/mins/secs format. So I've got to find a formula to convert between the two systems.
Anyway I'm wondering what you guys think of this change?
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