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From: Invisible
Subject: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 05:20:33
Message: <491aadf1$1@news.povray.org>
http://www.xkcd.com/503/

Man, the map looks weird with America in the middle! Mind you, I 
remember some astronaut saying how when you look down at the Earth, 
North isn't always at the top, and then it looks *really* strange!

Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?


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From: m a r c
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 10:16:15
Message: <491af33f@news.povray.org>

491aadf1$1@news.povray.org...
> http://www.xkcd.com/503/
>
> Man, the map looks weird with America in the middle! Mind you, I remember 
> some astronaut saying how when you look down at the Earth, North isn't 
> always at the top, and then it looks *really* strange!
>
> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?

If 'world' stands for Earth, around 6378 km under our feet :-)

Marc


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From: Gail
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 10:22:27
Message: <491af4b3@news.povray.org>
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:491aadf1$1@news.povray.org...
> http://www.xkcd.com/503/
>
> Man, the map looks weird with America in the middle! Mind you, I remember 
> some astronaut saying how when you look down at the Earth, North isn't 
> always at the top, and then it looks *really* strange!
>
> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?

Somewhere in the inner core.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 10:28:23
Message: <491af617@news.povray.org>
>> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?
> 
> Somewhere in the inner core.

Uh-huh. And since "west" is the vector product of the north vector and 
the surface normal vector, presumably it is undefined at this point in 
space? :-P


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 10:44:19
Message: <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.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Halbert
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 11:42:30
Message: <491b0776$1@news.povray.org>
> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?

Funny you should ask. The current blog entry from Strange maps 
(http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/) deals with the heart of the matter. 
Interestingly, it would seem, many cartographers seem to consider the UK to 
be the most important part of the map.
My sister, who is a cartographer, showed me this blog a while back. There is 
some pretty interesting things there.

-- 


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 12:28:20
Message: <491b1234$1@news.povray.org>
Halbert wrote:
> Interestingly, it would seem, many cartographers seem to consider the UK to 
> be the most important part of the map.

Possibly because that's where the explorers came from that had invented 
maps?  (As in, many people invented maps, but the europeans carried 
theirs with them while others tended to stay home?)

And in the USA, America really is in the middle of the maps like that. 
It doesn't look "weird" at all to me. Having the Atlantic in the middle 
doesn't look weird either. Having the Pacific or Russia in the middle 
would look weird.  All that cold-war stuff, I guess.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)


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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 12 Nov 2008 17:18:16
Message: <491b5628@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Anybody wanna take a guess where the "correct" center of the world is?

In the middle of the US.

Or that's what some people living there seem to think.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 13 Nov 2008 04:21:00
Message: <491bf17c@news.povray.org>
Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> In the middle of the US.
> 
> Or that's what some people living there seem to think.

I remember when Jeremy Clarkson got his own TV show. The first thing he 
did was take North America off the world map and throw it in the bin. I 
recall he had a Canadian guest who said "most yanks wouldn't even know 
that America is missing. They'd just assume 'oh, hey, we must be that 
BIG one over there'." (I.e., Russia.)


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From: Halbert
Subject: Re: Center of the world
Date: 13 Nov 2008 10:27:52
Message: <491c4778$1@news.povray.org>
As an American I sadly acknowlege the truth to this; most of these people 
here couldn't learn there way out of a wet paper bag. On the positive side, 
our grading curves are skewed to the left.

-- 


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