Author: Twelve Mile Circle
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Brezovica pri Metliki & Malo Lesce
The border between Croatia and Slovenia turns particularly unusual and twisted at several points west of Zagreb. At one point a little bulb of Croatia protrudes into Slovenia like a geographic hernia. It’s not a practical exclave or a pene-exclave, either. A road goes straight down its pencil-thin neck to connect a small town and…
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License to Map
I guess I didn’t know until this morning that license plates, those little identification signs we attach to our automobiles, are more generically called vehicle registration plates. Right now I’m sure my North American audience is wondering why I even bothered to define “license plate” when the meaning is so intuitively obvious. That’s because the…
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Natural Forces: Nuclear
My series on Natural Forces seems to be a dud based on the (lack of) comments. Usually they are rather robust in terms of both quantity and quality on Twelve Mile Circle. It goes to show that I have no idea which articles will resonate with an audience. And that probably explains why 12MC readership…
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Natural Forces: Magnetism
Twelve Mile Circle focused recently on gravity. That suggested a theme: the four forces of nature as described by physics. Magnetism comes next on the list. It has more populated places named accordingly than any of the other forces. When I mention the plethora of magnetic place names however, I don’t mean to imply that…
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Natural Forces: Gravitation
Let’s talk about gravity. No, not the physical property whereby objects attract with forces proportional to their masses, but instead the little town in Iowa. I stumbled upon Gravity, Iowa figuratively as I researched the recent Gravity Hills article. Gravity doesn’t have a gravity hill as far as I know so it didn’t elicit a…
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Deepest Lakes
It often seems to start with the simplest of questions before turning hopelessly complex. What’s the deepest lake? That doesn’t sound too difficult. It’s straight-forward. It seems to beg an easy answer, and it even provides one. Sort-of. Maximum depth or mean depth? Does it have to poke above the surface? What if it’s covered…
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Residential Airparks
I didn’t know at the time that the formal terms “residential airpark” and “fly-in community” existed. Still, I found it pretty cool that people could own an airplane, keep it in a garage attached to their homes, and roll it directly onto an active runway mere steps away. Actually I noticed the phenomenon a number…
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Gravity Hills
Many years ago I had an acquaintance who was an accomplished magician. Fortunately I got to see him practice various magic ticks as he perfected his craft. So of course I learned the secrets behind many of the illusions. The human brain likes to believe what it thinks it sees. The magic tricks often reveal…
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Semi-Practical Exclaves Galore!
I mentioned a semi-practical exclave in Australia a few days ago. This was a spot in New South Wales where a resident in an automobile could exit his neighborhood without ever leaving NSW. However, he could return only via Queensland. I noted somewhat tongue-in-cheek that the “…situation becomes very special, perhaps unique, meaning I didn’t…
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Alabama Capitals
It took awhile for some new states admitted to the United States to settle down with a mature governance structure. Alabama fit that exact pattern. It had five capital cities in less than thirty years. Montgomery is the Alabama capital today (map). It has grown in size and stature to a couple hundred thousand residents…