• NeilNuggetstrong@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I’m so sick of this shit. You want an accurate map? Buy a globe. There is no accurate flat map projections. All are wrong. Different projections have different flaws and serve different purposes.

    • Axolotl@feddit.it
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      4 hours ago

      Maps are especially used in education, i see it very hard to include a globe with every book and set up a big ass globe in every classroom but whatever

    • Wolf314159@startrek.website
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      4 hours ago

      Lol, good luck “accurately” mapping our irregular oblate spheroid on to a globe (i.e. a regular sphere). You’re correct that map projections inherently make concessions and introduce inaccuracies. But a globe would just require a different kind of projection in this context. And that projection hides more subtle inaccuracies. Gloves are not an answer to the problem of map projection distortion.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      Also, unless you’re using a paper map, you should never have to see a flat map projection.

      We all carry around supercomputers in our pockets that can easily do the math to render a globe. If we want to use a bigger screen, they have even more powerful processors.

      Does anybody actually use paper maps at all anymore? I guess sometimes people mount them on the wall and point at them, but I mean using a map to calculate distance, find a path, etc.

      What’s ridiculous is that even though computers should be rendering the world as a globe, some websites (even Google Maps) still sometimes use Mercator. It’s especially ridiculous when it’s something like a flight-tracking website where the flight is going in a straight line on the globe, but is rendered as a curved path on a stupid map projection.

      • hegus@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I mean the good thing about a flat projection is that you can see everything at once. When you’re comparing data points of different countries it is nice to see them on a flat map. Neither the actual size nor the angles really matter in that case.