51–60 of 137 posts
Saw a population map of Canada once. There's a thick line right along the US-Canada border. Its as if Canadians want to be Canadian, but really don't want to live there. They go as far south as possible while still technically being in Canada. (Not counting big coastal cities).
Note the population density in relation to bodies of water. It has less to do with borders than you seem to think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A favourite question of mine: Which reaches further south, Ontario or Oregon? As you said, the answer is Ontario, but it's counter-intuitive without a map.
Growing up in Michigan, this isn't all that counter-intuitive. ;) What I initially found more confusing were climate patterns, thanks to the coastal effects on the west coast.
Saw a population map of Canada once. There's a thick line right along the US-Canada border. Its as if Canadians want to be Canadian, but really don't want to live there. They go as far south as possible while still technically being in Canada. (Not counting big coastal cities).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that a large percentage of the US population lives near the canadian boarder. The line was drawn through the great lakes. So everyone in New England, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati etc can be said to be living near the canadian boarder. It's not that canadians need to be near the US, but near the water routes for trade with the rest of the world.
"Line was drawn through the great lakes". You might want to check that. Please examine the image very closely; it appears to be based on the border. Note Lake Superior and positions near lake Erie. https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-073611f762cf3ef329ee65... About 45 pixels to border, which is down the middle of the lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw
(And that map missed a huge part of the can-us boarder, focusing only on the southern one.)
This is missing the point. People think of Canadians as tough hardy, northerners because it's -8C in Toronto and we've been having really nice February, last year it was like -20C all month. It's -12 in Montreal right now. It's still interesting to think about it but don't try to imply that it's not actually cold, bitter and rough sledding here because we're "south" of London. Because it's 8C in London right now.
I once had a coworker from Atlanta at our office in Toronto. Overheard him on the phone talking to his wife, gobsmacked by the cold, which he said "it's just so far north!" and yet that's not the reason -- we're no further north than northern California. He happened to be here during a cold front that came out of northern Ontario. It's a classic continental climate; summer heat here is as intense as that of many southern US states.
The climate on the north side of Lake Ontario is actually milder than on the other side due to lake effect and weather patterns. Just got back from a trip to the Finger Lakes; our wines in the Niagara region are noticeably riper than those from down there.
Canada also isn't as big as you think, as hinted at in the article. It's still big though. Try asking people which they think is bigger, Greenland or Brazil. Brazil is of course much, much bigger but projections can be deceiving if you've only looked at flat maps.
Thanks for pointing to that, I'm always baffled at how few people fail to acknowledge the most "basic" complexities of meteorological reality. I have the suspicion that our inherent bias for linear thinking is the culprit here. Some things can't ever be grasped intuitively and as long as education doesn't at least catch up with our propensity towards boundless optimism our and many more species are essentially doomed…
Well, that escalated quickly.
Even though I'm not a fan of it, there is a reason for the old ops adage of "never touch a running system".
Complexity is hard (i.e. global climate) and even if life on earth is essentially anti-fragile that might not include our own cohort.
Also, I just might have pulled a human and have been subconsciously "cross-posting" as this super depressing article on "Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply" is trending on HN right now as well:
Canada also isn't as big as you think, as hinted at in the article. It's still big though. Try asking people which they think is bigger, Greenland or Brazil. Brazil is of course much, much bigger but projections can be deceiving if you've only looked at flat maps.
So what projection is better at showing the relative sizes of countries, particularly when most projections seems distort at the poles (thus making greenland and canada huge)?