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Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. You put this same thing on a typical equal-area projection and it will still fail.
Projections distorting things isn’t a conspiracy, it’s guaranteed by mathematics.
The Russian “11 time zones” fallacy. At the north pole you can get 24 time zones into one square meter.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Mercator map except in internet content complaining about them
That seems like one of those education things.
Have you used Google Maps? Or OpenStreetMap?
Huh.
Well I’ll be damned! I actually thought Google zoomed out to a globe but that’s only on the satellite layer.
At least those tools actually are for navigation, not for showing the entire world.
I wish we would stop stretching land masses and start stretching oceans in basic maps. We don’t need the Mercator for naval navigation in our day to day lives, but knowing the real size of Russia and Africa would affect our basic view of the world.
Here you go:
Perfection.
If stretching is ok, then why not go all the way.
If you dislike stretching, you can always cut instead. That’s why we also have a series of octahedral butterfly maps.
If that’s not polyhedral enough, you could try the Dymaxion projection instead.
Actually, azimuthal equidistant is unironically useful if it centers on you.
Absolutely. In a sailing context, it would totally make sense to have a digital map like that. I don’t know if professional navigators actually do that though. Maybe they have some even more obscure projection that has some unique benefits that fit a particular niche.
Specifically, radio operators like them - with a directional antenna, it matters which direction goes from Canada to Australia the fastest, and if your station is fixed it can even be a paper map.
I don’t know what sailing yachts would use. Probably a close-up map that’s nearly flat anyway, since surf, wind direction and local obstacles are the main consideration. In commercial or military sailing, it’s entirely possible normal navigation just takes place automatically and digitally at this point. Sextant, compass and Mercator still exist as a backup, though!
Thanks, I hate you.
Silly Mercator projection
Still best for sailing the high seas.
You think I just go after software? /s
No, one kilometer in Africa is about 60 % shorter than in russia.
This. It’s closer to the equator, so they are rotating faster which means the kilometers get shorter. Don’t you just love science?
