Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every map of China is wrong

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 275 posts

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#251

Post by tivert »

throwaway4good wrote: post #105
jillesvangurp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a means to keep detailed maps out of the hands of an enemy it's indeed not great. As it's all rather obvious to reverse engineer this and people have indeed done so. But as a means to force foreign companies to use Chinese data suppliers this works perfectly. Because using this software would be illegal in China and anyone looking to business there legally would end up having to use Chinese data centers, Chinese d…

Some elaborate technical trade barrier? I think that is giving them too much credit. This is thinking from a military apparatus stuck in the 1950es.

> Some elaborate technical trade barrier? I think that is giving them too much credit.

> This is thinking from a military apparatus stuck in the 1950es.

Even if it started like that, I wouldn't be surprised if they now appreciate the unintended consequence of it serving as a "elaborate technical trade barrier."

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#252

Post by chefkd »

yencabulator wrote: post #245
chefkd wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could something like the SR-71 or hot air balloons be used to make accurate maps? In my head satellites which are expensive only follow one orbital path but a plane or a balloon can cover multiple regions

Consider a Hubble-size lens at a distance of 200-1000 km. If I did my quick math right, turning just 20 degrees moves the focus by up to 350 km on the ground. And typically orbits have a pattern of gradually shifting, so the next orbit will capture a different slice. Reconnaissance planes were largely obsoleted by satellites when digital cameras were invented (before that, satellites physically dropped film to ground…

Whoa so many mind blowing facts. Does the orbit change or does the lens rotate? If one knos the rotation degree can the total number of satellites it would take to cover the entire earth be calculated?

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#253

Post by yencabulator »

chefkd wrote: post #252
yencabulator wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a Hubble-size lens at a distance of 200-1000 km. If I did my quick math right, turning just 20 degrees moves the focus by up to 350 km on the ground. And typically orbits have a pattern of gradually shifting, so the next orbit will capture a different slice. Reconnaissance planes were largely obsoleted by satellites when digital cameras were invented (before that, satellites physically dropped film to ground…

Whoa so many mind blowing facts. Does the orbit change or does the lens rotate? If one knos the rotation degree can the total number of satellites it would take to cover the entire earth be calculated?

Here's an example of an non-"changing" orbit goes over different parts of the planet over time: https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/why-do-satellites-orbi...

It's highly unlikely that a satellite-based telescope would rotate/turn the lens. Turn it relative to what? It's in 0g, there's no part that's held in place by friction to the ground. Any rotating joint would make the two sides move in opposite directions. And if you think about that, let one side be much smaller, and allow rotating by multiple turns instead of just 0-360 or such, you might just invent the gyroscope.

They turn the whole satellite with gyroscopes (flywheels) and/or propellant.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#254

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

pookha wrote: post #202
jillesvangurp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a means to keep detailed maps out of the hands of an enemy it's indeed not great. As it's all rather obvious to reverse engineer this and people have indeed done so. But as a means to force foreign companies to use Chinese data suppliers this works perfectly. Because using this software would be illegal in China and anyone looking to business there legally would end up having to use Chinese data centers, Chinese d…

Pretty nuts. The entire chinese population lives in a state of perpetual formation and "harmony" with the crony capitalist thugs that operate from behind the curtain. And this is just another case of crony capitalist bullshit. It's not at all about "protecting maps from the enemy". It's about controlling and delving out access to a good-ole boy network (party members and their cronies)...The US and Europe are heading…

I mean those cronies kinda made it rain money over that billion people. They transitioned the nation from an agrarian society to a major geopolitical economic player, and they've averaged double-digit annual GDP growth for over 3 decades, which is unprecedented in all of human history.

The real question is what happens when they inevitably have a major economic downturn. Will the cronies lose power? Will they cling to power using violence against the opposition? Will they start a war to distract and rally their population?

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#255

Post by hwbunny »

rvba wrote: post #115
hwbunny wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never had any issues. Noone cared about my camera while I was there. And I created like 5K photos there. Not that I ever use GPS, because it eats away your batter, but noone really cared about it.

Those laws are there to be applied selectively. When you are a nobody, they wont care. When you are a person of interest this law will be applied to you. If they want you are just a tourist, otherwise you are a spy who took 5000 photos.

Sure, you watch too many movies :DDD

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#256

Post by lmz »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #121
lmz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the bias against China in the comments here vs South Korea which is effectively doing the same thing.

Note the topic is about china and any restriction of "public" data will gather negative comments. The only bias i am seeing is yours.

It's biased in the sense that this seems to be common practice in the region and yet China is singled out while darling US ally South Korea which does comparable things is excused (e.g. see sibling comments excusing it because of the conflict with NK).

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#257

Post by fennecbutt »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #254
pookha wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty nuts. The entire chinese population lives in a state of perpetual formation and "harmony" with the crony capitalist thugs that operate from behind the curtain. And this is just another case of crony capitalist bullshit. It's not at all about "protecting maps from the enemy". It's about controlling and delving out access to a good-ole boy network (party members and their cronies)...The US and Europe are heading…

I mean those cronies kinda made it rain money over that billion people. They transitioned the nation from an agrarian society to a major geopolitical economic player, and they've averaged double-digit annual GDP growth for over 3 decades, which is unprecedented in all of human history. The real question is what happens when they inevitably have a major economic downturn. Will the cronies lose power? Will they cling t…

Lmao no. Only a small fraction ever see that wealth, the same fraction who are selling the cheap labour of the factory worker underclass: https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/17/why-more-workers-in-c...

No money raining down on the poor workers who gotta buy their own safety equipment or just deal without having any. Your job is to drip your hands in mercury every day don't like it then there are a thousand waiting to step in to replace you.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#258

Post by qingcharles »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #208
SeanLuke wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just accurate: far and away the most accurate.

It’s nice that USSR dedicated more money to this than UK government did

Are the USSR ones technically copyright-free? Because the UK ones are Crown Copyright IIRC and can't be used by the public without fees.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#259

Post by keepamovin »

em500 wrote: post #172
keepamovin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In official parlance it does occur, tho there's a move away from that in some quarters. But in everyday parlance no, the US does not. But everyday Chinese describes "non Chinese" people as "outsiders". Hahaha! :) That's the point :)

Everyday Chinese describes foreigners as 外国人, literally "people from outside the country". Everything non-domestic is 外国 "outside the country". These seem to be pretty neutral terms to me.

This is the point! Hahaha :) It's not neutral at all. It literally means "outsiders":

so, if you're not Chinese, you will have Chinese people saying to your face "Oh, that outsider whatever whatever". Can you fucking believe that? That's not okay at all. But they've normalized this to be normal. To always use and normalize the use of an othering label. It's ridiculous.

It centralizes a kind of racist homogenity and monoculture. And anything outside of that? Outsider. Admittedly, I didn't see it at first. I thought, Oh okay whatever. But observe a lot and reflect a lot and you really see and feel what this does.

It's a normalization of othering encoded into the language, presented as okay.

I think if you don't see the problem with that, then you're either an "insider": a Chinese, for whom this is normalized, and like the water you grew up in, so you don't even see it, and you wouldn't see a problem because and you haven't experienced the other side of it. And verily this term and this othering creates this empathy gap.

Or if you have experienced this, maybe you haven't thought about it enough, or been around or living among Chinese people enough to really feel this. Idk, what's your story? :)

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#260

Post by throw3737284 »

fennecbutt wrote: post #257
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean those cronies kinda made it rain money over that billion people. They transitioned the nation from an agrarian society to a major geopolitical economic player, and they've averaged double-digit annual GDP growth for over 3 decades, which is unprecedented in all of human history. The real question is what happens when they inevitably have a major economic downturn. Will the cronies lose power? Will they cling t…

Lmao no. Only a small fraction ever see that wealth, the same fraction who are selling the cheap labour of the factory worker underclass: https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/17/why-more-workers-in-c... No money raining down on the poor workers who gotta buy their own safety equipment or just deal without having any. Your job is to drip your hands in mercury every day don't like it then there are a thousand waiting to…

Lmao no. It's a large majority that have seen the wealth.

Why do you think companies are leaving China? It's because the workers are now demanding more money because everyone is richer.

Post reply on HN