Chapter 185: Escape is just a younger brother
The lights of the entire city were on, and the solid skyline was hidden in the lights.
From a distance, the high-rise buildings in the business district look like square cages woven with light. In the distance is a wide lake. Adjacent to the lake, traffic is surging on the elevated road, and the car lights merge into a stream of light.
In front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Matthew felt that every point of light in this stream of light was a living firefly. They were trapped in this curved, slender elevated road and could only run forward with all their strength to find an exit.
He wondered where his exit was and the goose that was struggling desperately.
After watching Bifang’s live broadcast in the afternoon, Matthew’s mind was filled with impulsive thoughts of going out for adventure in nature, just like the intestines that were twisted together after an attack of ascariasis. Once the pain started, he couldn’t stop.
Matthew looked at the city below his feet, took a deep breath, and gazed at the city under the night sky. It seemed as if he was standing on a cliff. He felt both dangerous and light, like a bird flying high in the wind.
He was free here, enjoying the wind, the light, and the different smells of the city as the seasons changed, sometimes irises, sometimes leaves, sometimes the sweet scent of oranges being sold in the street below.
But something always seemed to be missing. Matthew recalled the time when he was a war correspondent. He was terrified every day. The first thing he did after opening his eyes was to touch his chest to see if there was still flesh and blood beating inside. Although it was dangerous, he could clearly feel that he was still alive.
But now, going to work, punching in, going to work, punching in, life is like a pool of stagnant water, without the slightest ripple.
My heart feels empty, as if there would be a hollow sound if I knock on my chest.
"Hurry up, you lazy bastards! We are the most professional newspaper. I want to see you print all the newspapers before midnight tonight, and then appear in front of every newsstand!"
Fitz pulled his tie and walked to Matthew, enjoying the night view with him. "Matthew, you are a genius. No one knows news better than you. This is definitely the most touching story of this month. It has been pushed on the website and the paper version has been printed. It will be delivered to everyone's home tomorrow morning."
"Fitz, I want to quit."
"What?"
Fitz thought that maybe he hadn't rested for too long and his ears were having problems, or maybe the person in front of him was not Matthew, but some alien in a different skin.
“I said I wanted to quit.”
Now Fitz was sure that he had heard it clearly. He was stunned: "Are you sick? Are you kidding ? Look at you now, you are successful and famous, and now you say you want to resign? I'm sorry, Matthew, if you are serious, then I suggest you see a doctor!"
"That's what I said." Matthew laughed. "Maybe I'll forget about it tomorrow morning."
"I hope so."
On the elevated road, a car drove out of the exit and slowly stopped by the lake.
Johnny opened the car door, got out and lit a cigarette, then shouted to his colleague in the passenger seat, "You drive, I'll take a nap first."
Andrew had also been driving for a whole day and was now exhausted both physically and mentally. He looked at Johnny, who was surrounded by smoke, and coughed twice.
"I think we should just forget about it. Let's go back and tell them that we made a mistake in the report and approve their permission. That way they won't continue investigating. It's just a group of birds. Let them move away."
Andrew had reminded Johnny when he wanted to fudge the report, and it was not the first time Johnny had done this, but no one expected things to develop to this point and become known to almost everyone.
In the past, no one would cause trouble even if a fake report was used to fool people. Some people even thought that the test did not meet the standards and took the initiative to spend money to get a qualified report.
Over time, no one would feel uncomfortable about this matter, but this time the matter has really gotten out of hand. Not only might Johnny be in trouble, but even Andrew himself won't be able to get away safely.
As an inspection agency, it was revealed that the report it issued was false. No one dared to imagine the consequences of this incident. Even Johnny's father could not save him and he would definitely go to jail.
Johnny didn't respond. The cigarette in his hand was visibly shorter and faint sparks were burning in the dark car.
Seeing that Johnny didn't respond, Andrew began to complain: "I reminded you before that this is not good, but you never listened. If you had listened to me then..."
"That's enough!" Johnny roared, and the long ash of his cigarette broke off and fell directly onto the blanket and shattered. "I told you to drive, so you fucking drive!"
"Will you be okay if something happens to me? Don't even think about it! None of you can escape. What you have to do now is to drive, drive, drive! Then chase them, catch them, and shoot all those damn geese to death!"
Johnny finished his cigarette in one gulp, threw the butt on the car mat and stomped it out.
Andrew's fingers on the steering wheel were white from being pinched. Without saying a word, he turned the key to start the engine, turned the car around, and drove onto the viaduct again.
He ran forward like a firefly, looking for an exit.
…
[Can stars also measure longitude and latitude? ]
[No way, this is so exaggerated? Observing the stars at night, the modern Zhuge? ]
[This is awesome! In the middle of the night, can a stick sticking into the ground cast a shadow? ]
"Instead of using shadows, have you heard of a sextant? It is an optical instrument used to measure the angle between two distant objects. The principle was first proposed by Newton."
"In the field, we can easily make a sextant and use it to measure longitude and latitude. All we need is a night when we can clearly see the North Star, a piece of paper, a string and a small stone."
Bifang fixed the horizontal bar of the plane and began to operate it. He first took out a piece of paper, and then used a pen as the radius to draw a quarter circle in one corner. Then he carefully tore it along the edge and got a quarter circle piece of paper.
Then Bifang carefully marked the scale on it, dividing it into two parts and marking the upper 45 degrees.
"The accuracy of the scale marking is related to the precision of the sextant. The higher the precision, the more accurate our positioning will be. We can use the dichotomy method here and mark the remaining scales little by little."
After marking the scale, Bifang took out a small stone from somewhere, tied one end of the string to it, and pressed the other end on the center of the disc.
"We let the arc side of the disc hang down naturally, and use the gravity of the stone to straighten the line and align it with the number on the scale. Then align the center of the circle with the edge generatrix to form a straight line, and the end of this line should be aligned with the North Star."
Bifang aimed at the North Star and let the stone hang down naturally, and the taut rope naturally hung on a scale.
Following his line of sight, the audience looks out from the edge of the disc, and along this straight line, the top of the line of sight is the shining North Star.
"At this point, the altitude of the celestial body and the latitude of your location have actually been determined. Note that you can only use the North Star here. You cannot calculate the latitude by measuring the sun in this way, because the altitude of the sun changes throughout the year. With the altitude and latitude of the celestial body, the longitude can naturally be calculated in the same way as before. It's very simple."
Bifang knew that this method had errors, but it was enough to determine the approximate direction, at least it would not fly out of Denmark.
[Very... simple? ]
[Fuck, why do I feel so familiar with what you did? It's a bit like the plot in the movie where Sylvester Stallone escaped from prison, and it seems like they also made a sextant]
[I know, it's a silver cicada shedding its shell! ]
[It’s different, I think Lao Fang’s method is simpler, and he doesn’t even need a lens]
After seeing the comments from netizens, Bifang was surprised. Is there such a movie in this world?
He has also seen this movie, which tells the story of Stallone, a master of prison escape, being framed and imprisoned and then escaping. He remembers it very clearly: "Yes, the principles of the two are similar, but movies are still movies."
In the movie, the prison where Stallone was imprisoned was a mobile cruise ship. In order to know where he was so that he could be picked up, he used a homemade sextant to let a prisoner on guard go to the deck to measure the data, and then calculated the longitude and latitude.
"The protractor in the movie was hand-drawn like mine, but his sextant uses reflections from two plane mirrors to make the image of the star point coincide with the image of the sea level. Not to mention where the plane mirrors came from, the bigger problem is that his reflector in the movie is made of glasses! Not to mention that there is no reflective film, the key is that it is not flat at all. All connections will eventually be shaky, even if they are very tight and have not been calibrated before use. In addition, you have to see the sea level. How can that Arab who stays in a place similar to a patio see the sea level? Even Brother Nuo asked whether it was the southern hemisphere or the northern hemisphere. This is actually redundant. I have just said that the North Star cannot be seen in the south, but it is also interesting to judge the northern and southern hemisphere by looking at the water vortex."
[Fuck, that's awesome! ]
[Just keep blowing it. If you can do it, go ahead. What? You are Fang Shen? That's fine.]
[It is strongly recommended that directors of such films in the future invite Fang Shen to be a consultant. This is the real survival master! ]
[I think Fang Shen can take the photo himself... handsome and fierce? ]
【Why shoot it? I feel like I’m already watching a movie. 】
【What if I don’t have anything on hand? 】
“Nothing is fine.”
A master is someone who can do what others cannot. Even if he doesn’t have paper and pen, he should at least have hands, right?
If he didn't even have hands, Bifang would have a hard time surviving in the wilderness, so he might as well dig a hole and go to bed.
Bifang stretched out a hand, stretched it as far as possible, and extended his index finger: "A beginner astronomy enthusiast can easily measure the height of celestial bodies quickly through fingers, joints and palms. I estimate that the accuracy is about the same as the simple sextant in the movie."
"First, we stretch our arms as far as we can, with the index finger pointing out, the width of the fingertips is 1 degree, the index finger hooked up, the widths of the three joints are 2 degrees, 3 degrees, and 5 degrees respectively, the hand is clenched into a fist, the thumb is not clenched, the width of the fist is about 10 degrees, the thumb is clenched, the width is about 8 degrees, the hand makes a six gesture, the width from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger is about 20 degrees."
"Latitude can also be measured using this method. The accuracy may vary from person to person, but it is simple and convenient, with an error of about 5 percent."
