Portable Place Pointer

I remember wanting to dig a hole to China but not being quite sure in which direction to excavate into the sandbox, or dreaming of taking a hike to see Santa but being a little uncertain of the direction to the North Pole. Now, a couple of years later, a gadget has been devised to eliminate these tricky problems.

The Portable Place Pointer is a transparent sphere the size of an Indonesian Hobbit skull, housing a gimbaled pointer in the shape of an arrow, a fist with extended index finger or a Spanish hunting dog. It utilizes GPS, including a compass, timepiece and plumb, to show you the way to any place on earth.

For example, upon punching in “Hong Kong”, the 3P politely points which direction to dig a shortcut to the city, or, in great circle mode, indicates the point on the horizon one should aim for when walking/rowing there.

Then there’s the deluxe 3P that also points out heavenly bodies. Its pointer is hollow with focusable lenses to point out and maybe view Venus and space stations. Of course, to see the sun at night would mean digging through the earth, but 3P would politely point the way down.