So, on average, everyone's sense of direction is better than average...

He also mentioned, in Fountains of Paradise about a news aggregation service that went out every day and searched the planet for stories that an individual may be interested in. I think his were, 'circle, squaring of the' & 'loch ness monster, discovery'. Not quite the same Google Alerts that I have (one is 'Arthur C Clarke' incidentally, but still good ones none the less.