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Comment by brezelgoring | Hacker News Reader

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brezelgoring

I got 0 mi! [1]

After the first 2 I stopped attempting cities and figured the picture didn't matter, it was a game of triangulation.

Nice game, I like it, even though I've never set foot in the US.

[1] Spoilers! - https://i.imgur.com/azCWc3i.png

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Right click image, open in new tab, read URL of image which is helpfully descriptive, search wikipedia for that bridge. Wikipedia article shows location of the bridge on a map.

In reality, I didn't cheat until the 2nd picture, because a picture of some guys shaking a politician's hand isn't really that helpful. If the image didn't tell you what union was talking to what politician, I wouldn't have been able to look up the street address of the union hall. Even then, I still couldn't find the town on the map, so I had to eyeball it to get 0 mi.

I must have missed the part in the instructions where all the photos are from the same place. Is that what you mean by triangulation?

Yes, you can use a ruler and the scale to get closer with each guess, regardless of what the picture shows. I use the built in drawing app on Linux Mint.

Here is another attempt, with my triangulation circles written (don't judge me)

Attempt: https://i.imgur.com/Hz3c37c.png

To help others understand, This image shows that there's only two possible locations left where all the circles intersect. Because the game gives exact distance to the target the correct answer must be on the circles.

Imagine drawing a circle with a radius of your error each time you guess. After the second guess, there will be only two intersecting points. A careful third guess should tell you which of the two it is.

They are, yeah. I didn’t realise to start with. I played a couple of older games and managed to get 0 miles on one too - though there was a hint in the second photo that got me within 12 miles and it was easier find it from there.

I was off by 6 miles because the actual pin is off by six miles for the last picture.

Also, as an American, the fact that I recognized the first picture to within 50 miles makes me sad. Our bridges should not look like that, even there.

The bridge in the fitst photo is an old one lane bridge, probably was used by carriages. It looks like it mostly just connects a small neighborhood of houses, not a main road by any means. There are probably newer concrete bridges out of frame, but they're not as picturesque as old steel bridges.

There are plenty of old steel and wood bridges across the northeast that are exactly like that. They are closed to general traffic and only used by locals.

I’ve never been to the US but somehow West Virginia was my first guess and I got it down to zero miles eventually. I don’t know why that state is so particularly recognizable

Agreed. I grew up in Pittsburgh, but even after 10 years after moving away, I immediately recognized the first picture as "somewhere in West Virginia" as if instinctually.

I saw a rusty-looking bridge and thought of Pittsburgh so I picked interior Pennsylvania (somewhere, 209 km off).

I saw a rusty-looking bridge and thought of Pittsburgh so I picked interior Pennsylvania (somewhere).

That state has a powerful Senator though, so not all the roads are like that. There are some ridiculously overbuilt highways with no traffic.

I got 0 miles because the first photo was exactly the kind of landscape I grew up with. It also helps that almost all of the Texas photos are sure to have a flag or the shape of Texas somewhere.

I got very lucky. My first guess was only off by 5.5 miles. If I knew the exact location ahead of time I probably couldn't have gotten that close if I tried, considering the zoom level of the map when I guessed it. That got me close enough to get right on for the second guess.

After reading your comment (but not looking at the spoiler), I attempted triangulation from the get-go.

I managed to get 60 mi away.

I think 0 mi away is very impressive. Especially since you had already used some of your attempts without initially aiming for triangulation!

Kudos to you :)

0 mi in 4 guesses. The funny part was I forgot to look at the photos after the first two and had to go back and look at the photos to see what I missed. The first photo has a bridge, so that informed the clicks a bit since I knew I needed a stream, so some help from the content.

I managed to get 0 mi, as well. I guessed the state based on the first image and was able to rapidly narrow it down from there. Kind of cool today's happened to be in the state I was born in, yet have no memories of.

I did not even notice that it was giving me distance feedback after each guess.

I tried a similar approach. I only got as close as 126 miles...

Got 23 miles on the first guess!

Spoiler: https://i.imgur.com/HK6sNsf.png

I was like "Huhm... a rural area?" and got very lucky: something like 1280 miles on the first guess and 0 miles on the second guess.

Triangulation from guesses #3 and #4 gave me the general area, but then picture #5 shows what feature to look for on the map. Got 0.5 miles.

Ooooh I got 99 miles on guess 3 and then started guessing 2000 miles away because I assumed they would be distributed.

18 miles using triangulation

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