On the Superiority of Cylindrical Equal-Area Projections

An ignorant American cartography professor and Apple-Maps developer was teaching a class on Gerardus Mercator, known DST advocate. “Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Mercator and accept that he was the most highly-evolved cartographer the world has ever known, even greater than James Gall and Arno Peters!” At this moment, a brave, logical European Redditor who was a long-time contributor to sporcle.com and understood the superiority of cylindrical equal-area projections stood up and held up a globe. “What is the largest continent, pinhead?” The arrogant professor smirked quite Euro-centrically and smugly replied “Greenland, you stupid pleb! Can’t you see how much larger it is than Africa?” “Wrong,” said the student, and drew a perfect circle encompassing Greenland (which isn’t even green smh), “if Greenland is so big, how come there are more people outside this circle than inside?” The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata. He stormed out of the room crying those distorted conformal Mercator tears, his world collapsing around him. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, Alphons J. Van der Grinten, wished he had received a European education and become more than yet another distributor of lies in our flawed education system, and was kicking himself for never noticing that India has a greater north-south extent than Finland. The students applauded and all subscribed to /r/mapporn that day and accepted the Peirce Quincuncial projection as the coolest projection ever. There was a school-wide renouncement of outdated colonialist maps, and south-up maps (like the ones they definitely 100% use in Australia) were hung up across the northern hemisphere. God himself showed up and enforced geography as a mandatory subject in schools nationwide. The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He committed suicide and his body was tossed into the Mariana trench. And that student’s name? Harry Beck, creator of the London Tube map.

(Not mine, but so good I had to share!)

You mean it’s not me gullet, it’s me noggin?

Well, did another sleep study last week while hooked up to a CPAP machine. Good news is the machine did a good job at keeping my airways open so I could breathe unobstructed. Bad news is I still stopped breathing, which means I have Central Sleep Apnea – which is where the brain periodically decides that this “breathing” thing is so last season, and it’s not going to do it any more. This isn’t completely disastrous, as the rest of the body soon notices and start slapping the brain around until it gets its act together, but it’s still not the kind of thing that’s conducive to restful sleep or cardiovascular health, so it has to be dealt with. With a different, much more expensive type of machine that I’m probably going to have to end up buying, or at least renting, damnit!

In any case, I don’t like to end on a down note. Here’s a song.

Oh, they’re apparently re-burying Richard III in Leicester. Good! Glad to hear it. Leicester’s a lovely city but it needs some more tourist attractions after the railway viaduct got pulled down, and that Liberty statue sure isn’t pulling in the big bucks.

Noli Timere Messorem

We’ve lost one of the greatest authors, philosophers and human beings of our time.

Sir Terry Pratchett, renowned fantasy author, dies aged 66

When I heard the news this morning I felt like I wanted to make some grand gesture as a tribute. But then I realised that the core message of Terry’s work is that we should all do our utmost to be decent human beings. So be particularly decent to each other today people.

Automusic

Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quod,
So little time, so much to blog!

So much indeed! But instead of blogging about any of it I thought I’d just hop in to mention that I was recently reminded of how Tonight She Comes and You Might Think by the Cars are two of the best songs ever written.

I mean, that keytar riff – particularly when backed up by the guitar – is just glorious! Of course from a modern perspective the video clip has something of a stalky vibe about it, but it was the 80’s when people didn’t know any better, and the computer effects were groundbreaking for the period (go Quantel Paintbox!).

That’s all I have to say right now. Stay tuned!

Well that explains that…

As part of my whole not-swell-up-like-a-walrus-and-die plan I’ve been eating cereal and yogurt for breakfast for the last month or so, as opposed to scarfing down whatever the hell grabs my eye when I stumble to the fridge in the morning. This has been keeping me feeling nice and full until lunch, resulting in much less snacking, but my weight has not changed one wit – which was puzzling.

Until today when I checked up on the nutritional figures for my cereal of choice – Uncle Toby’s Healthwise for Heart Wellbeing.

Looks healthy, doesn't it?
Looks healthy, doesn’t it?

This fine product – approved by the National Heart Foundation no less – turns out to be just over 30% sugar. 30% SUGAR.

So it’s not really surprising that I haven’t loss any weight eating this crap. In fact what’s surprising is that I haven’t gained any weight.

So tonight on the way home I’ll purchase some cereal that isn’t made by Oompa Loompas and then bin the rest of Uncle Toby’s Healthwise for Sugar Barons.

Fuckers.

And Here’s Another Thing

In a follow up to yesterday’s surprising Eurovision news, there’s a petition begging TISM to reform and represent Australia in Vienna.

Naturally I have signed it. Can you watch this performance, and dare to claim that TISM would not fit right in in Eurovision?

Of course they couldn’t perform any of their classic tracks, one of the rules being that songs cannot have been commercially released prior to competing, but I’m sure they could whip something appropriate up. In any case a song like I Might be a C**t, But I’m not a F**king C***t would probably give Europe a collective stroke.

We’ll see, we’ll see…

Well, Here’s a Thing

Apparently, in recognition of the 60th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest and the fact that a lot of Aussies (including myself) watch it, Australia is going to compete in this year’s contest!

We get automatic entry into the final (along with all the usual suspects) and – assuming that they can figure out how to do it in a sensible fashion given the time difference – we’ll get to vote! In the event that we win (not entirely impossible given the huge novelty factor) next year’s contest will be held somewhere in Europe with heavy Australian involvement. It’s also the only way we’ll get to compete in 2016 – if we don’t win then it’s a one-off.

This is going to be interesting…

Of course I can hardly mention this without posting the greatest Eurovision song never to be entered in Eurovision.

They really must lose that sax solo.

Music of the Ghosts

A few hundred years ago – according to legend – an inhabitant of one of the Blasket Islands off the west coast of Ireland heard a strange, eerie tune floating out of the night air. He grabbed his fiddle and tried to imitate it, creating a tune that was eventually named Port na bPúcaí – the music of the Ghosts. And there the tale remained, with the resulting tune becoming part of Ireland’s rich heritage of traditional music.

Until the mid 1990s when musician Ronan Browne was going through some tapes, and to his great surprise heard the opening notes of Port na bPúcaí. What was on those tapes? Recordings of the songs of killer whales, which are well known to swim by the Blasket islands on their migrations.

We can’t ever know for certain that the tale of the composition of Port na bPúcaí is true. But if it is, then think of that islander, out alone at night, hearing the mysterious songs of the whales wash across the island and frantically scribbling down the notes of a tune from another world.

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