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This map is not upside down

maps.com

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Re: This map is not upside down

#351

Post by Propelloni »

Cordiali wrote: post #338
dylan604 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen the increase by five, but by twos when the odds/evens are separated across the street from each other. 101's next door neighbor is 103 while 102 is across the street next door to 104.

That's what the European sequential method is. We have that in Australia, odd numbers are on the left, even on the right. ...Although sometimes it's the opposite, from before it was standardised.

Depends on from where you enter the street, does it not?

(I kid, I know what you mean ;))

Re: This map is not upside down

#352

Post by padjo »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #125

Yeah, sure, I've heard that before... master/slave, black/white lists... and now, north/south. I wonder what they'll come up with now to explain reading from left to right (don't even think about the majority of right-handed writers, that would ruin the fun). ".snoitnevnoc fo yticilpmis eht dnihneb noitnetni neddih a eb ot dnuob si erehT"

Who’s “they”?

Re: This map is not upside down

#353

Post by [deleted] »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #350

There's a practical reason for the map to be north facing. If you use a compass, the needle points north. So, if you then orient your self and your map facing the same direction, it's easy to figure out headings and bearings because they'll match what you see on the compass. Even in the southern hemisphere, compass needles still point north. So, orienting maps north seems like a pragmatic thing to do.

[deleted]

Re: This map is not upside down

#354

Post by el_oni »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #350

There's a practical reason for the map to be north facing. If you use a compass, the needle points north. So, if you then orient your self and your map facing the same direction, it's easy to figure out headings and bearings because they'll match what you see on the compass. Even in the southern hemisphere, compass needles still point north. So, orienting maps north seems like a pragmatic thing to do.

They also point south. If you changed which end of the needle was painted red it would be just as useful for orienting to the south as existing compasses are for facing north

Re: This map is not upside down

#355

Post by skerit »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #51
sivers wrote: post #24

It's also a wonderful metaphor for how the opposite can also be true. Japanese addresses that name the blocks, not the streets: https://sive.rs/jadr West African music that uses the "1" as the end of the phrase instead of the start: https://sive.rs/fela “Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true”, Joan Robinson https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_differe...

Also in the address department: Europe numbers houses roughly sequentially along the whole street, while the Americas (generally) assign house numbers based on the distance to the beginning of the block. And BTW, in the old towns of Sweden and Finland blocks do have names!

> while the Americas (generally) assign house numbers based on the distance to the beginning of the block

What? That sounds great! So if you're at house number 247 could you deduce, in meters, how far away house 1483 is?

Re: This map is not upside down

#358

Post by helsinkiandrew »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #350

There's a practical reason for the map to be north facing. If you use a compass, the needle points north. So, if you then orient your self and your map facing the same direction, it's easy to figure out headings and bearings because they'll match what you see on the compass. Even in the southern hemisphere, compass needles still point north. So, orienting maps north seems like a pragmatic thing to do.

The needle is pointing to the magnetic south, which is near our geographic north.

Re: This map is not upside down

#359

Post by kunley »

marktani wrote: post #142
bombcar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to the modern car GPS question → do you always have the little arrow pointing up in the middle and the map rotates, or is the map still and the car rotates?

True! When I started driving, I was using the "north is always up" setting as it helped me get a better understanding of where I was in the city. Somehow this was more fun. At some point I switched to the more common setting (I assume) of having the map rotate.

Good point is - "it helped me get a better understanding of where I was". That's repeated by many users having the "north is up" setup.

Certainly, if you have the other setting where your arrow is following the vehicle's direction, then what you see on the map is just an extension of what your eyes see already. While it might be very helpful in specific situations like crossroads and switching lanes, in general it doesn't help much when one wants to learn how things are interrelated in space around. "North is up" gives that. Mind has amazing capabilities of learing even when busy

Re: This map is not upside down

#360

Post by benrutter »

patternMachine wrote: post #48

The moralizing that always accompanies (not) upside down maps is so tedious. It's a genuinely interesting example of how something can look so wrong and yet not be wrong at all. To try to extend that "wrong" feeling to some kind of moral failure on the viewers part is just silly. You (or society) are not a bad or prejudiced person for thinking this way, it's just that nearly all maps produced have chosen a different…

Is the moralizing you're referencing coming from the article or comments?

I can't see anything in either implying people are bad for seeing world maps as "upside down" when the Southern Hemisphere is at the top. The article does say that looking at it that way "encourages us to think more deeply about such conventions" - I don't think it's saying people are morally bad/prejudiced/etc (or anything) for accepting those conventions.

I don't want to acuse but it seems to me like you're assuming a response from an imagined liberal-woke-type-persona(tm) that doesn't exist?

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