[ANNOUNCE]: Hackathon Toronto Sat Apr 28

[John Costello]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Peter Corlett wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 04:13:23PM +0100, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> [...]
> > What I don't understand is why it picks Le Harve as its setting off point,
> > rather than the seemingly more logical starting off points of Cornwall or
> > even the south west of Ireland.
> 
> Once you consider great circles, routes can be quite surprising.
> 
> However, I assume that it's not actually trying to pick the optimal distance
> because it's not a serious route plan, and so the start and end points for
> the swim are fixed and arbitrarily-chosen.

That might explain why Google Maps tells drivers from New York City to 
Dublin to first go to France take the chunnel into England.  Much easier 
than dropping onto the small roads of western Ireland.