If it’s before noon: Go away from the sun.
If it’s after noon: Go toward the sun.
If it’s night… Wait for morning, and go away from the sun.
Instructions unclear, I’m at the north pole
If you’re at the pole, just walk due south.
If it’s night and you can see both the Southern Cross and the Pointers it’s pretty trivial to determine south; if you’re in the northern hemisphere you get it even easier with Polaris to mark north.
The moon would like a word
There’s no idiom for which way the moon rises and sets 🤷🏻♂️.
Well it tends to rise and set in the same direction as the sun because the earth spinning is what causes them to rise and set.
*Advice not applicable if you are north or south of a given latitude.
stuck somewhere where the sun doesn’t set for like a month
Do… Do I wait?
Haha, yes there’s that extreme. However that effect is a gradient. You start to notice it north of the 60th parallel (Canada where the bulk of the population lives) but it’s only slight. In winter the sun is just slightly south of the middle of the sky.
Here in Campbell River BC we are at the 50th parallel, and on Saturday at Noon (we are out of DST now so we are talking true noon) the sun was to the direct south, 45 degrees to the horizon. It rises and sets… but to the SE, S and SW.
My initial thought when reading your comment was a response about differentiation of both hemispheres, but the way you wrote it was actually quite clever, so kudos for that! :D
Yes. Maps always have up as north. So just hold a map in front of you, and forward direction is north. Easy.
North is W
West is A
South is S
East is D… unless you hit Q or E and rotated the camera, in which case you’re fucked.
…help… Im fucked.
Just walk up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, then jump and shoot someone.
It worked! I teleported to prison!
OK but no you know where the sun rises and sets if youre in a familiar place atleast
Do I look like the person who would get lost in a familiar place?
Actually, don’t answer that.
It hurts me that people don’t realise you know where the sun rises and sets (roughly), anywhere, by looking up and roughly knowing what time it is. Other than midday, then fair enough.
No. I keep trying to go but its always too far!
Your phone is a compass
I don’t know why, but the phone compass is always so shit.
I think it depends on how you hold it.
That’s what I said
If I learned anything in geography class than that west is on the left
And North is in space
What? You don’t have an internal compass that keeps you oriented? For some reason I seem to be a lucky person that just knows which compass direction I’m going no matter where I am. And it’s a very weird and frightening feeling if I do get disoriented. I had some pain meds after a surgery that did that to me. Flushed them damn things down the toilet after the first 2 I took.
That sounds really nice. I’m sure I could develop the skill, but I have to check the Sun
While I’m sure there is learned effort, I do feel like there is something inside my brain that just has a connection to north somehow. Kind of like how ducks and geese know which way to travel when migrating. I can’t really explain it well.
And it’s a very weird and frightening feeling if I do get disoriented.
I know what you mean, there has been a couple of times in my life where my internal idea of direction has been turned off course and it is a very weird feeling indeed trying to reconcile the direction you internally believe you’re facing against the different direction a map or compass is telling you is actually true.
As a kid I also once spent a weekend in Melbourne feeling somewhat disconcerted due to not being able to get a sense of direction. I’d never been there before and flew in on an overcast day which never ended up letting up until I flew out so never ended up getting my bearings while we were down there (didn’t help that this was before the smartphone era so maps weren’t available at the drop of a hat).
I have a similar experience when I go a city in my state - St. Paul. If I go downtown for any reason, I always feel a bit uneasy walking about and I didn’t know why for the longest time. I finally found out that the streets in the downtown aren’t laid out on the cardinal points-- They were laid out on a slight bias due to being right up against the Mississippi river. And that makes me a little uncomfortable when looking down a block of buildings or from one street to the next at an intersection. It’s always a little bit wonky feeling.
I’m with you. Short of that one day dead noon Hawaii or the middle of a forest I feel like there are clues to approximate North and South even when I’m discombobulated.
One time I called 911 because I was following a drunk driver that had collided with multiple vehicles and kept driving. The operator asked me what direction so I looked at my maps app and it said I was going west so I told them west and they said “Sir that street doesn’t run west.” I was speechless after that.
So you might’ve been going west, but not westbound. Roads curve often in the USA (i’m guessing you are from the USA because 911)
East is sunrise. West is sunset. The sun will also always be slightly south and even more so in the winter (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere then it’s slightly north).
If your local area has some kind of landmark like a big tower, or a big lake, learn where that is relative to you and use it as a reference point. For me, I live near a big lake and it’s always south of me. It might be easier for you to ask yourself “which way is the lake?” instead of “which way is south?” or whatever your landmark and direction happen to be.
This is the best part about growing up in Colorado. The mountains are west. It’s like having a cheat mode compass enabled all the time.
Or… the sun is south at noon. Where is the sun at noon? That’s south.
Lol this guy over here using the stars to navigate.
You should probably mention which regions this advice is limited to, to avoid confusing people from outside those regions who see your advice and misapply it.
Same but reversed in the SLC area, mountains mean East. Having lived on both sides, West is definitely better
East? I thought you said Weast.
No I said yeast.
Boyle is that you?
No I said geese
M for Mancy
Go west. Life is peaceful there. Go west. Lots of open air.
What, doesn’t everyone have a haptic compass belt?
Should’ve just put one motor on each nipple and to direct you if north is left or right.
No but I do have something haptic in the back.
That one’s for chess moves.
At one point in my childhood, my dad made the comment, “Women don’t know compass directions.” I took offense to that and made a point to learn them to prove him wrong.
I felt vindicated in high school when he was coming to pick me up from a friend’s house and said, “I’m at the gas station. Do I go left or right?” I told him there were several gas stations on the way, and asked which direction he was facing to figure out which one he was by. He couldn’t tell me and finally hung up on me in a huff.
Coloradans be like “just look at the mountains smh”
