[finm]

Author here — I agree the image is misleading (and added a caveat to be clearer, though I could have made the arrow smaller).

I don't think the question requires the reader to ignore what ‘east’ means, however. There is unambiguously one direction at Seattle (tangent to the Earth's surface) which is facing due east.

I also didn't mean to take a patronising/arrogant tone to the reader and I'm sorry if that was the impression I gave.

[enoch_r]

FWIW I did not get that impression at all, and I'm bewildered by all of the combative comments here. It's a cool thought experiment!

[bagels]

The article and title have changed in response to the comments.

[kuhewa]

I read it after your caveat was added, but I didn't find it intentionally misleading, from the very strong response (which is doing what it accuses the post of doing by claiming it reads 'travel due east') I get the feeling someone may be a bit peeved they didn't 'get it's and instead thought the answer would be some embassy that happens to be directly east of Seattle.

[defrost]

> There is unambiguously one direction at Seattle (tangent to the Earth's surface)

and that tangent is the straight line, at least it is within the R^3 spatial universe I live within.

There's confusion here as the article presumes humans to be bound to an S^2 manifold and to consider a Great Circle to be a "straight line" which it certainly is not unless one lives within an S^2 Flatland.

[RaftPeople]

My immediate guess was England or maybe a bit lower and France, but then I saw the arrow and thought "DOH! Canada"