{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1737",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1737,
    "subject": "What On Urth Would You Do With Monopoles if You Had'em, Anyway?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-08-11T14:24:07+00:00",
    "last": "1999-08-11T14:24:07+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0042@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-08-11T14:24:07+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) What On Urth Would You Do With Monopoles if You Had'em, Anyway?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Furthermore, regarding use of monopoles and interactions w/ Urth's\nalleged magnetic field - rising above the trees to see the forest...\n\nBack when I first started posting, I posed a question about examples of\nthe use of magnetic compasses on Urth. I couldn't find any. Most of the\nnavigation potrayed for us takes place on Gyoll, a river channel, where\na compass would be of limited use anyway. The exception was Eata sailing\non the new ocean of Ushas, upon which he was lost regardless. Navigation\non the open ocean of Urth I suppose could be accomplished in the absence\nof magentic compasses by celestial sightings or the Polynesian method,\nby which adepts actually read the wave patterns. Or maybe a GPS network\nof some kind still exists. Eata and the other sailors never to my\nrecollection make any reference whatsoever to the use of magnetic\ncompasses.\n\nThen there is that story \"The Tale of the Student and His Son\". You\nwould think that a compass would have been a salvation in the channels\nof Ogre's Isle, yet no use was made of one. However, when the ship was\ngiven a directional datum (the flights of birds), it was soon able to\nreach its destination.\n\n(Awright Bailey, what's your point?!) My point is that Urth should have\nlittle or no discernable magnetic field, and this seems borne out\nempirically by the text.\n\nIt is widely accepted that Earth's magentic field is generated by the\ncurrents induced in its core of molten iron and nickel by rotation and\nconvection. Urth is said to have nearly solidified through to the extent\nthat plate tectonics and volcanism have ceased and the crust has\nshrunken. Urth presumably would have less of a magnetic field than\nMars-er Verthandi. So I have to wonder how much good any levitation\nmethod which relies on interaction with Urth's magnetic field might be?"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}