Lambda the Ultimate

Maps are like programming languages, in that they can't be judged without context. Google maps represents a way to summarize and navigate information tied to geographical regions.
If I wanted to know the land mass of Greenland, I'd use a different tool.

Google maps represents a way to summarize and navigate information tied to geographical regions

Mercator is not the appropriate map projection for that purpose.

How's that? As someone planning a roadtrip, looking for locations in a city, or making obervations like "most LtU readers live in New England," I don't see how the distortions of the projection would effect me as a user.

I don't see how

On some map projections New England wouldn't be visible - that's how the distortions of a map projection effect you as a user.


Do differences between programming languages effect you as a user of programming languages?

Well, you have to be able to zoom in and get the usual streep maps. So it has to be a map that preserves angles and keeps north/south vertical. I think Mercator is the only conformal map with vertical meridians, so Google had no choice.

What makes you think the street maps use Mercator?

It would be very unusual to base large scale maps (street maps) on Mercator - with a different map scale there are different trade-offs, and different appropriate map projections.

NGI

I did not say that street maps use Mercator. I only said that you need a map, which when you zoom in look like regular street maps. So it has to be a map that preserves angles. Show me a conformal map that would be a better choice than Mercator!

Btw, Google Maps started with using the plate carrée projection, but they got complaints. F.e. I saw a complaint once on Slashdot that the perpendicular streets in Anchorage did not look perpendicular at all.

So Greenland is no smaller than the continent of Africa, either, from some perspective. Perhaps size is not as important as people or the digital divide. Perhaps it's better to take it from the top, or take a sideways glance.

When you find yourself thinking that everyone else is a living in a fool's world, it might be time to take a wider pespective and remember that not everyone is looking at the same map. As every mapmaker knows, to show one truth, you must distort another.