this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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top 41 comments
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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

This is why setting borders based on rivers is fundamentally flawed.

This message brought to you by the latitude/longitude gang.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago

I mean, you say that now, but if someone stood on the other side of the river and shot arrows at you, would you really disagree with them?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Point Roberts has entered the chat

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Such a stupid border decision. They should have fixed it in the territory swaps a few years ago.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

They should just secede from the union and be a small city state.

Would it benefit anyone? No. Would it be very costly to make the transition and potentially wreak havoc on the community? Absolutely. But would it create a sense of civic pride and feel good for the residents of Point Roberts? Also no.

[–] someguy3 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What territory swaps a few years ago?

It's also too late now, even if you come to a political agreement you'd have to buy them out, have to hear about unseating American families, and I doubt Canada is willing to do that. What's the point for that insignificant land?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

A while ago (late 90s?) they straightened the border and reevaluated land along the 49th parallel. Some towns switched countries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Northwest angle

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

It's all arbitrary anyway...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why? Apart from such cases being rare, everyone gets a half island

[–] PapaStevesy 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Because they change and move over time. This river definitely didn't start out like this and it almost certainly will look very different in just a few years' time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Just recently my country exchanged land with a neighbouring country to adjust for the changes of water, each giving and gaining the same amount of land. When water marks the border it's much easier to know when you're crossing it.

Edit: looked it up: in march we (Austria) traded 239 m² with Liechtenstein

[–] PapaStevesy 2 points 1 month ago

Good point, that's a cool solution too!

I know they're rich, but they're so small, you should have just let them keep it.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat 8 points 1 month ago

The alternative is pretty fucking stupid too. Imagine losing access to your freshwater because the river shifted across an imaginary line. At least when the border is the river, you always have access to the river.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Sooner or later they're going to become meander scars or oxbow lakes, when the river reconnects with itself.

[–] Dabundis 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Known in Australia as Billabongs

[–] motor_spirit 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

this just shed light on one of my fav song titles by an aussie group, thank you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

walzing mathilda jumpscare

[–] evidences 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My first thought when seeing this was future home of an ox bow lake

[–] shalafi 6 points 1 month ago

And not far future! Both bends are within a couple of trees in missing each other.

For those not on the water much, see the beach on the left of the top bow? The opposite side is where the water is deeper and faster. It'll chew through that bank and meet the other side soon enough.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Holy fuck that oxbow lake schematic on wikipedia looks earily like a vessicle coming of a piece of membrane

[–] hydrospanner 2 points 1 month ago

The only thing I know about vesicles is that microvesicles are gross... thanks to paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What's the hells an oxbow?! Are our bovine friends fashioning weaponry? Someone should tell me, do I need to buy a shield?

[–] PapaStevesy 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oxbow is when a flowing body of water curves out like this over time. Eventually it will redirect to the older, more direct course, leaving an arc of unflowing water called an oxbow lake. This one might have two.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry, I was just quoting Mr.Weebl's old video about the subject, probably should have linked it in my original comment XD Youtube link

[–] PapaStevesy 2 points 1 month ago
[–] GraniteM 2 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

I don't know much about rivers but based on the floods we had here in Brazil early this year, I don't think that house will be there by the end of the century.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yo but who is living in that little blue house, that must be sick

[–] hydrospanner 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] mhague 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The one with the blue little window.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And everything is blue for him...

[–] levzzz 4 points 1 month ago

And himself and everybody around...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Or green* might have had a night filter on my phone when i posted that haha

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

I'm surprised no one shared that

https://youtu.be/8a3r-cG8Wic

[–] BlackPenguins 5 points 1 month ago

Reminds me of a Wild Thornberrys episode I saw when I was a kid where they fell off a boat and needed to cross a mountain to catch it on the other side.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There was no one by the name Tom Bigbee, it seems.

source

The name “Tombigbee” comes from Choctaw “itumbi ikbi“, which means “box maker” or “coffin maker”. There are many stories and legends about how this name came to be. One story is the river was named after a box maker who lived on some of the Tombigbee’s headwaters. Another story is based on the need for box making in the area to ship pelts during the French-dominated fur trade in the 1700’s.

Umm... Choctaw

are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Mississippi and Alabama.

[–] Mango 4 points 1 month ago

Is it an oxbow or a puppyhammer?