A web comic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
It turns out Monday was Steve Waterman’s birthday. His site has posters of his map, plus maybe the world’s only Winkel Tripel-critiquing poetry.
Scene: Drawing of twelve different types of maps of the world, laid out in a two by six pattern.
Top Caption: What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You
First Map: Mercator
Caption: You’re not really into maps.
Second Map: Van der Grinten
You’re not a complicated person. You love the Mercator Projection; you just wish it weren’t square. The Earth’s not a square, it’s a circle. You like circles. Today is gonna be a good day!
Third Map: Robinson
Caption: You have a comfortable pair of running shoes that you wear everywhere. You like coffee and enjoy the Beatles. You think the Robinson is the best-looking projection, hands down.
Fourth Map: Dymaxion
Caption: You like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. You think the Segway got a bad rap. You own 3D goggles, which you use to view rotating models of better 3D goggles. You type in Dvorak.
Fifth Map: Winkel-Tripel
Caption: National Geographic adopted the Winke-Tripel in 1998, but you’ve been a W-T fan since long before “NatGeo” showed up. You’re worried it’s getting played out, and are thinking of switching to the Kavraskiy. You once left a party in disgust when a guest showed up wearing shoes with toes. Your favorite musical genre is”Post-”.
Sixth Map: Good Homolsine
Caption: They say mapping the Earth on a 2D surface is like flattening an orange peel, which seems easy enough to you. You like easy solutions. You think we wouldn’t have so many problems if we’d just elect normal people to Congress instead of politicians. You think airlines should just buy food from the restaurants near the gates and serve that on board. You change your car’s oil, but secretly wonder if you really need to.
Seventh Map: Hobo-Dyer
Caption: You want to avoid cultural imperialism, but you’ve heard bad things about Gall-Peters. You’re conflict-averse and buy organic. You use a recently-invented set of gender-neutral pronouns and think that what the world needs is a revolution in consciousness.
Eighth Map: Plate Carrée (Equirectangular)
Caption: You think this one is fine. You like how X and Y map to latitude and longitude. The other projections overcomplicate things. You want me to stop asking about maps so you can enjoy dinner.
Ninth Map: A Globe!
Caption: Yes, you’re very clever.
Tenth Map: Waterman Butterfly
Caption: Really? You know the Waterman? Have you seen the 1909 Cahill Map it’s based–…You have a framed reproduction at home?! Whoa…Listen, forget these questions. Are you doing anything tonight?
Eleventh Map: Peirce Quincunial
Caption: You think that when we look at a map, what we really see is ourselves. After you first saw Inception, you sat silent in the theater for six hours. It freaks you out to realize that everyone around you has a skeleton inside them. You have really looked at your hands.
Twelfth Map: Gall Peters
Caption: I hate you.
Hover text: What’s that? You think I don’t like the Peters map because I’m uncomfortable with having my cultural assumptions challenged? Are you sure you’re not … ::puts on sunglasses:: … projecting?
Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).
Comic by xkcd.com. Described by BlindGadget under the Creative Commons license.
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