On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Stephen B. Gray <stevebg@roadrunner.com> wrote:
I lived on the East Coast for 36 years. When I moved to L.A. I realized that my sense of direction depended on which way the ocean was. It was actually quite difficult to adjust to the ocean being on the west. Then I visited Orlando, where the ocean is in both directions. Hopeless.
When I first moved to Cambridge, the primary landmarks I referred everything to were Mass Ave and the Charles River, two parallel lines. At least in the Harvard Square area, my usual haunts. The first my travels took me to MIT, I was completely disoriented; my two parallel lines met there, at right angles! Some people may claim that the Charles curves. I prefer to think of Cambridge as a surface of positive curvature, balanced by the negative curvature of Boston on the other side of the river. You don't believe Boston has negative curvature? Try driving around the common, with its 5 right-angled-corners! Andy