Silly Mercator projection
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I wish we would stop stretching land masses and start stretching oceans in basic maps. We don't need the Mercator for naval navigation in our day to day lives, but knowing the real size of Russia and Africa would affect our basic view of the world.
If stretching is ok, then why not go all the way.
If you dislike stretching, you can always cut instead. That's why we also have a series of octahedral butterfly maps.
If that's not polyhedral enough, you could try the Dymaxion projection instead.
That butterfly one looks sick, I'm not a fan of the overplayed "world map in a cool material" wall-art but this one might get a pass depending on the execution.
Actually, azimuthal equidistant is unironically useful if it centers on you.
Absolutely. In a sailing context, it would totally make sense to have a digital map like that. I don't know if professional navigators actually do that though. Maybe they have some even more obscure projection that has some unique benefits that fit a particular niche.
Specifically, radio operators like them - with a directional antenna, it matters which direction goes from Canada to Australia the fastest, and if your station is fixed it can even be a paper map.
I don't know what sailing yachts would use. Probably a close-up map that's nearly flat anyway, since surf, wind direction and local obstacles are the main consideration. In commercial or military sailing, it's entirely possible normal navigation just takes place automatically and digitally at this point. Sextant, compass and Mercator still exist as a backup, though!
i honestly really like dymaxion because it's a nice aspect ratio and keeping the landmasses all together just feels right.
And it doesn't even look strange if you just remove the ocean

The Russian "11 time zones" fallacy. At the north pole you can get 24 time zones into one square meter.
I really wish discussions of map projections would move beyond "wow look how badly mercator represents size"
This kind of post comes up like every week.
Do we really need all this Mercator ragebait? Just look at a fucking globe - it’s the thing your dad keeps the scotch in.
(alternatively most map apps go to a globe view when you zoom right out.)
(and wait until you see the number the Tube Map did on south London.)
Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. You put this same thing on a typical equal-area projection and it will still fail.
Projections distorting things isn't a conspiracy, it's guaranteed by mathematics.
That's why I always carry around my pocket globe and compass to scale and compare distances accurately.
Shouldn't it say 'this is the true size of Russian'? Africa is close to proportional, Russia is the half of the example stretched out.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a Mercator map except in internet content complaining about them
Have you used Google Maps? Or OpenStreetMap?



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