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The True Size of Africa (2015)

kai.sub.blue

191–200 of 226 posts

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has to be including all of Russia as part of "Eastern Europe" (indeed, if you drill down into the data, that's what's happening). When we're talking about geography, you can't include anything east of the Urals in the European subcontinent.

The Urals as a border is purely political and historical in nature. It has no particular geographic significance.

Huh?

In Geology class they teach that the Urals formed about a quarter of a billion years ago when Europe and the Khazak land masses collided. I know this because we had to do a group paper on why such an old mountain range would be so unusually high. (Long story and not important.) Point is that though my degree wasn't in geology, and I'm only going from memory, I'm 99.999% certain that the Urals are the Urals for a critically meaningful geographic reason. At least, geologically speaking.

Of course, if this is all just political, then you can take any borders you wish to be Europe. I was only pointing out that if we're talking about landmasses in the geological sense, then the commenter was correct, Europe clearly does not extend past the Urals. Scientifically speaking.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#192
post #153
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking away anything from what you said, my experience has been a bit different. I actually found US more federal in nature for doing business compared to India and to some extent Europe. The tax laws are lot more state specific than India, California has very different rules for privacy(ccpa) or environmental regulations than other states. Europe largely following GDPR is good enough (with some exceptions for Ge…

Try running a barbershop in France, Germany and the UK. They are far from business homogeneous. In eg Germany you need three years of government approved training to work in one. And another two years of government approved training to run one. (And I don't think those training certificates can be used for anything in other countries?)

The training is often transferable.

Here is a link to a database of regulated professions in the EU: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/professional-qual...

A hairdresser in Czechia, with equivalent qualifications from other countries listed: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regprof/index.cf...

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#193
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the one example you've picked there (grocery stores/supermarkets) is quite a bad one. There are very few national supermarkets in the US. Ironically, Whole Foods Market (now owned by Amazon) is as close as any to this title. Safeway may once have been widespread, but in terms of stores bearing that brand (as opposed to be owned by the company), there are not many Safeways anymore. Instead, there are regiona…

Trader Joes has a pretty wide presence across the country (in 43 out of 50 states). And while they're not supermarkets per se, Walmart and Target have also got into groceries in recent years. There's also Costco in a similar boat.

Trader joes is the best example of homogenous because they sell mostly their own brand cross-country, so local stock doesn't dictate what is available on the shelf. The prices remain static across most of their stores as well (for most items) which is a HUGE reason why New York and Cali folks love shopping there.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#194
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think so? I’m American and have never encountered that belief.

There's the fact that not many Americans can name more than 3 countries in Africa. And the ratio of people mentioning "Africa" rather than a particular nation in Africa is much high than the ratio of other continents being mentioned rather than their constituent countries. Also, "African American" is a common term; "European Americans" not so much.

All of these imply that Americans know less about Africa than other continents, which is true (and makes sense, since Africa is the poorest continent and therefore has the least impact on contemporary news, is relatively unpopular as a place to visit, etc).

None of it implies that we “think Africa is a country”.

> “African American”

Asian-American is a widely used term, too.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#195

>> The Good Design Grand Award, arguably Japan’s most prestigious award for design, went out to architect Hajime Narukawa’s completely groundbreaking design for a map of the world. His map, the AuthaGraph World Map, isn’t your average map of the globe: It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. https://totravelistol…

Very neat. And he didn't forget New Zealand[1] =)

I wonder how much the Mercator projection influenced the recent flat earth movement, specifically the Antarctic ice wall.

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#196

>> The Good Design Grand Award, arguably Japan’s most prestigious award for design, went out to architect Hajime Narukawa’s completely groundbreaking design for a map of the world. His map, the AuthaGraph World Map, isn’t your average map of the globe: It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. https://totravelistol…

I’m not a fan of AuthaGraph at all. It has horrible distortion look at Brazil or Alaska - and it’s proprietary (creator never released the actual map details, so you can’t make your own...) The worst thing, in my eyes, is that the distortion is unpredictable. Looking at a map where Canada is too big, you can mentally imagine Canada as smaller. But you can’t mentally undo the multi-direction transformation of Alaska i…

Your criticisms are way too strong. Every 2D projection map of a 3D globe is going to make some compromises. So you can make the similar kinds of arguments for Mercator projection maps, which preserve shapes, but not relative sizes.

>You better hope you never get on a boat or a plane using this map - try tracing a straight line if you want a laugh.

Then don't use it for that!

>Design features like “you can do nifty origami with it” shouldn’t factor into if a map is used or not.

Maps are made for functional or aesthetic reasons or both. Why shouldn't that be a consideration? The pertinent question is: what do you want to use your map for?

>In my opinion, if you want something modern and cool

Again, what are you trying to optimize for?

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#198
post #35

Africa has 54 countries, thousands of languages and 1.2 billion people. As an African, whenever I see this map I'm more astonished by how densely populated Europe and India are, how big and populated China is and how homogeneous the US is compared to its size.

The US isn’t very homogenous, it is merely depicted that way in media.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#199
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobster roll is really delicious. I’m sure you’re aware you had New England clam chowder, And that there’s also Manhattan clam chowder. But few folks know there’s also a Hatteras clam chowder. It’s made with a broth and the taste of clams really comes through a lot better than with the cream or tomato based variants. https://blog.carolinadesigns.com/outer-banks-food/hatteras-i... (And now that I’ve worked my way…

Definitely New England clam chowder. I'm not sure I'd like Manhatten style. You're just teasing me now with this Hatteras style. I don't think there's a good way to get decently fresh clams to the middle of the country. I don't have a taste for grits. I finally came around to gravy on my rice, but I'm still iffy on grits. I'm holding out hope that there's a decent lobster roll around here somewhere. You can get live…

Lobster Rolls have two styles as well, butter only or with mayonnaise.

Really you just need the right roll, and you can make the butter version yourself.

It’s the roll that is hard to find.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Urals as a border is purely political and historical in nature. It has no particular geographic significance.

Huh? In Geology class they teach that the Urals formed about a quarter of a billion years ago when Europe and the Khazak land masses collided. I know this because we had to do a group paper on why such an old mountain range would be so unusually high. (Long story and not important.) Point is that though my degree wasn't in geology, and I'm only going from memory, I'm 99.999% certain that the Urals are the Urals for a…

In terms of geology it’s all just the Eurasia pate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Plate

Europe has always just been an political/economic entity as overland passage to Asia is difficult. Which makes the border completely arbitrary with various historic maps placing it in different areas.

That said plate technics is surprisingly recent, reaching a fairly modern form and acceptance in ~1960’s.

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