"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:491af9d3@news.povray.org...
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/503/
>
>> Man, the map looks weird with America in the middle!
>
>  In Japan world maps always have Japan in the middle. It's even more
> ironic than the map in that comic. "The west", which includes America
> and Europe, is on the east on the map, and "the east", which includes
> Asia, is on the west on the map. Yes, they are known as "the western
> countries" and "the eastern countries" there in the same way as here,
> even though in their maps it's the opposite.

"Has in the middle," or placement of the boundaries of the map, has nothing 
to do with demarcation of coordinates.  Greenwich, England was decided upon 
as the Prime Meridian, and most modern maps use this standard reference 

positioning of the map contents.  So there's really no irony.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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