Highest Rated Comments


avsa374 karma

Why do you use the Mercator projection? Although I really love google maps, a cartographer kills a kitten whenever a kid in school sees this for the first time.

avsa374 karma

There is no "proper way", because it's very hard to project a globe into a surface. Maybe mercator works for zoomed in regions, but for the globe as a whole Mercator has been long considered one of the worse choices because it really distorts the northern hemisphere: compare the sizes of tiny Greenland and giant Africa, and makes northern countries seem much more near the equator than they really are.

It's about choices, Robinson used to be very popular among cartographer, but currently National Geographic uses the Winkel projection. My personal favorite is the dymaxion, because not only it shows the fewest distortion on landmasses, but it's also intended to teach about how maps are not fixed since it's a jigsaw.

But as technology progresses, we can have even better solutions. Some projection can be used zoomed in while others are picked when zoomed out. Google earth, for example avoids the problem by showing the whole eart as a globe, but this hides the other half of the world. I think a better solution for a 2D Atlas in a browser would be simply to pick any projection and change the center when you pan the map. This way you can not only see whatever you want undistorted and how the distances from the center behave, but also you can understand maps better.

avsa223 karma

No. I just happen to really really dislike the Mercator projection.

Everyone should have a pet peeve, right?

avsa223 karma

Can you provide any proof? It's just because this reddit has seen trolls before - tiny message on an official page related to you (your ibm bio page, your personal page) will do..

Anyone claiming to be a celebrity or notable public figure must provide proof (an official Twitter update or a photo holding a note works) to everyone or a moderator. Posts that don't follow this rule may be removed.

this seems to be the first comment to mention this: people if you complain about lack of verification, this (or other similar comment- should be the top one.

avsa34 karma

For the Mods: please put a verified css on each confirmed GPL reddit account