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As I've previously pointed out, geography
is in a very unsatisfactory state, due
largely to the poor arrangement of
tectonic plate boundaries (see link).
However, there is a more immediate
problem on a more local scale. As you
cannot failed not to have missed noticing,
maps are seldom
an accurate reflection of
local features. Clearly, this is not a fault of
the map-making in most cases. The good
officers at the Ordnance Survey, for
example, have produced exquisite
renderings of the United Kingdom,
showing exactly how it ought to look.
There are contour lines, clearly-named
roads, and consistent symbols for things
like escarpments, churches, tumuli,
historic battle sites and the like. Such
maps are a joy to read.
Yet the English countryside is, at best, a
sloppy and incomplete representation of
these maps. Many churches, for example,
are a completely different shape to that
represented on the maps.
This cannot be allowed to stand.
MaxCo Geographical Rectifiers, Inc. (a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Buchanan
Hand-Cream and Tyre) is seeking public
funding to expand its ongoing scheme of
geographical rectification. Work has
already begun in Leicestershire, and we
hope to begin operations at several other
sites in the UK.
As a first step, gridlines have already been
excavated across an area of almost 7000
square miles. Each line is quality-
controlled for width (50.4 metres, this
being a scale representation of the 0.2-
point line thickness used on the reference
maps), straightness and spacing. Work is
underway to have all gridlines filled with
slate chippings of the appropriate blue-
grey colour.
The road-painting scheme is also well
advanced, with all motorways and A-
roads, and the majority of B-roads, now
the correct colour. Dashed trenches have
been dug along almost 2300 linear miles
of footpaths and bridleways. Although
some local archaeology groups have raised
objections, excavation of standard 500-
metre five-pointed stars at 23 tumuli, and
of crossed 800-metre-long sabres at 17
historic battle sites, has gone largely
without a hitch.
Greatest effort, of course, has gone into
the lettering. Although it has taken longer
than first hoped to train and deploy the
necessary teams of calligraphic earth-
moving contractors, lettering is almost
complete for all towns with populations
above 25,000. In those cases where
lettering overlaps major roads, there has
of course been some disruption, but this
has been kept to a minimum. (The
typographical error at Thurmaston has
been blown out of all proportion by the
local press, of course.)
The regularization of churches, as
expected, was a major sticking-point but,
with appropriate incentives, most
communities have accepted the
inevitability of the remodelling, and have
managed to add their own personal
touches to the standard square-and-
cross design. We are also particularly
proud of the completion of a series of over
25 public telephone symbols, whose
excavation (often deep into bedrock) was
particularly difficult at times.
Contour-lining, and the correct colouring
of urban areas and farmland, of course,
will represent an order of magnitude
increase in the workload, and will place
heavy burdens on our resources.
Nevertheless, a few pilot areas have been
completed already; over 670 acres to the
south east have, in fact, been completed
in all respects.
Given what has been achieved so far on
limited funds, I trust that you will not
hesitate to lobby for government funding
to enhance and extend this scheme.
Tomorrow, the world...
A better but costlier approach to geography
Rubik_27s_20Earth [MaxwellBuchanan, May 06 2008]
Europe
http://www.themanwh...eep.com/france.html as it should be [DenholmRicshaw, May 07 2008]
Diligent Line Painters at work ...
http://photo.net/ge.../2463951/possum.jpg [batou, May 08 2008]
[link]
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Someone wrote a sci fi story like this, set in some post-apoclyptic America, where religious zealots went around "correcting" landscape features that did not conform to their historic texts. |
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lester today - tomorrow, who knows. |
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Why here? Are you here too? |
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You just seriously freaked me out, man. |
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Middle class, middle of the road, middle of the country. |
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You're there? I was born there, but now I'm here (Derby). |
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Well i am, along with [Minimal] apparently, [eleventeenthly] obviously, and historically [theleopard]. |
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Oh, and there's a Thurmaston, Thurcaston and Thurlaston near here for some reason. |
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Ah, but all people who leave Leicester are destined to die, even if they come back. I'm not actually from here. |
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There's a big airplane symbol near my house. If you could make that a functioning giant airplane, I promise to bring it back whenever anybody needs the map. [+] |
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I once woke up on an air strip in the
Leicestershire countryside, with a small
bi-plane hurtling towards me
attempting to take off. So stunned at
my situation was I that I entirely failed
to move and instead watched in utter
bewilderment as it flew over me and
into the bright morning sky. |
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Now, I didn't have a map with me when
I chose that particular spot to bed down
for the night, but had this area of
Leicestershire been appropriately
converted, that field would have been
clearly marked with large black granite
planes on the ground. |
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You have my 2 cents worth [Max]. |
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Presumably all train lines would have to be converted to massively-wide-gauge monorails? |
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I see you've started to paint the A5025 with the correct shade of red. Shame you ran out after a couple of stripes. |
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A 0.2mm grid line would only be 10 metres wide for the Landranger 1:50000 range. |
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Fantastic. Imagine the clarity you'd get on Google Earth... |
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Maybe we could design a big ink-jet orbital satellite printer that will do the job for us quickly? No - it'll never print through the atmosphere. A squadron of robot ink-jet UAV's - that'll do it. |
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Worthy of a tagline, [wagster]. |
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Please can we use the map I've linked to? |
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Some terraforming will be required. |
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// with a small bi-plane hurtling towards me attempting to take off. // |
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That was YOU ? You bastard, you scared the shit out of us ! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ? Do you know how much it costs to repair the undercarriage on a Tiger Moth ? You selfish, unthinking cad, sir. |
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By the way, the jar of hand cream we recently purchased seems to have some curious and disturbing physical and chemical properties. Where shall we serve the court papers for our class action for damages ? |
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I don't know where I am half the time and the other half I am directed by TomTom, leaving me clueless but where I want to be. |
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I'll give you a bun for best written idea in some time. |
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Thanks, [DenholmRicshaw]. You have now raised the ghost in me of seeking to write the English tongue without the beshmirching of words from that land, a task i erstwhile undertook as a child who hated that speech as taught in school. |
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I think MaxCo had better halfbake some special paint to mark the channel tunnel. |
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That reminds me of the planned shutdown periods that I saw at one company. The operators had diligently painted the yellow lines to mark the walking areas. They had even painted through the puddles. Such devotion to duty! |
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//halfbake some special paint to mark the
channel tunnel// |
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[Ling], see the floating chalk-line in The
Naked Gun. |
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[nineteenthly] don't mention the crois***argh |
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Oh no! I take it all back. I humbly beg forgiveness. |
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A passenger on a flight over the eastern US looks down to see the various states clearly labeleled and in pastel-ish greens, pinks, yellows etc. Brilliant. [+] |
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Wouldn't it be easier to use Google Earth as your map? |
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//Wouldn't it be easier to...?// |
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I think you've identified the downside of your suggestion
right there. This is the Halfbakery. |
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//This idea would make those kinds of defensive measures
rather difficult to implement, don't you think?// |
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Ah, but that's where you're you're wrong. If the bombers
are ever flying over Blighty looking for Leicester, we
actually just wait until they are over Basingstoke. Then
squadrons of trained pigeons are dispatched carrying
Ordnance Survey maps of Leicester. The pigeons fly
alongside the bombers and beneath them, and (working in
teams of four) spread out the Leicester map. The bomb
crews will then think they are over Leicester, and release
all of their bombs where they can , in reality, do only
good. |
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Well, there's always Slough, which isn't fit for humans now. |
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