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this is the difference btw
to
What we had in school in the U.S.
The Robinson projection:
What many U.S. texts moved to after I left school.
The Winkel Triple Projection:
Apparently the Mercador map is what digital maps seem to use because the lines are 90 degrees so it makes it easier.
Great to see the United States being humiliated internationally again.
I'm sure that Google will quickly change their map projections from Pseudo-Mercator to Equal Earth projection as quickly as they changed the names of the bodies of water because President orange cheeto said so... right?... Riiiight?
Web Mercator is a special kind of abomination, even down to the way the map is cropped to be exactly square. But it is probably the most suitable for navigation, as Mercator itself was designed specifically for it.
Buildings, streets and map features would be more distorted under Equal Earth projection than they already are with Web Mercator. Web Mercator also has the benefit that the cardinal directions are always straight respective to the XY grid, even though the Y direction is non linear.
There is no perfect way of flattening a 3D spheroid into a 2D map, sadly.
But at the scale of streets and building surely the type of map projections is such a mute point the earth might as well be flat.
Not actually, it depends on the projection.
The most noticeable visual distortion of a map projection at street level isn't actually size and area, but angle. While Mercator and Web Mercator distort both size and area, angle remains the same. But projections like Equal Earth distort angle to keep area and size the same.
In practice, what this means is that with Web Mercator, you will see an intersection as 2 perpendicular lines crossing each other, leaving four 90° angles. But with Equal Earth, depending on the location, all those angles will be different, and the lines won't be perfectly perpendicular.
(of course, Web Mercator also has this issue, because it uses a perfect sphere instead of a spheroid for the projection, but the very slight difference isn't really noticeable, and using a spheroid is more compute-heavy)
Map navigation and satellite imagery are very specific cases where a Mercator or Mercator style projection are better suited, mainly because of the preservation of the angles. However, for any other case, Equal Earth is a very good projection, and I agree it should be used over Mercator. Especially in education.
I knew there was something amiss 😄
I wonder if some people welcome trumps threats to leave nato and the UN. How many peices of logical legislation could pass without the US blocking them.
Well, NATO isn't about legislation so much as mutual defense. And the UN's resolutions have as much impact as individual countries permit, in many cases.
It's often said that the real point of the UN and the security council veto power was to offer the world's most powerful nations a way to come to a more permanent table and disagree, instead of war being the default threat.
I like that last paragraph.
And yeah, the UN resolutions don't mean much. But it would still feel a little better if they could pass things that are reasonable without interference.
Even Israel voted differently to the US, that's way funnier than it should be
Even Russia's like: sure don't care.
The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project.”
"radical" lost all meaning in the US
It has. I am just hoping that once cheeto man is out of office that life in the US can progress back to something more recognizable again.
I saw the US was against it an thought it had to be smth like this. Only americans can look at a problem like "you can't project a 3D sphere onto a 2D plane" and think "waow this is a little too political for me" (I know I'm oversimplifying but u get the gist)
I'm glad with all the issues on the planet, we've tackled this one and solved it.
Literally thinking the same thing
I guarantee you that Donny will make a freedom correct map of the world.
The fuck? Why wouldn't the US want the actual sizes. Wouldn't having geographically correct maps help the planet and the people, oh wait.... The US government hates that kind of shit
Maybe the US has a broken voting button, they would want to click "yes", but it ends up as "no" every time.
/s
They, like clockwork, vote against everything. They were one of maybe 3 countries that voted no that water is a human right.
They're just a contrarian nation.
Why do we always have to vote the dumbest possible way in these things?
"UN vote on whether we should eat glass: 99% against, US stands alone as In Favor ."
IT GIVES MY HAIR A HEALTHY SHINE
you must be kidding
And of course, nobody is surprised.
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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
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