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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2575 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 24, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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  • Websites listing fan conventions: 1 (including a hidden list of adults-only fan conventions), 2 (apparently poorly translated from French)

  • Websites listing professional conferences: 1, 2, 3

Do you think anybody would attend a meetup on the topic of nonconsensual editing? (This is approximately half a joke.)

My vomit-inducing custom house is approximately three-fourths complete.

  • Photograph 1: Apparently, in plumbing the modern practice is to divvy up all the water pipes through a "manifold" (like a circuit-breaker box), which looks pretty cool.

  • Photograph 2: Spray-foam insulation

  • Photograph 3: Behold! A boring beige box!

Which variations of the cylindrical equal-area projection are your favorites?

I am inclined to pick Behrmann (standard parallels ±30 °, so that exactly half of the map's area is stretched vertically and half is squashed vertically; aspect ratio ∼2.4) and Smyth/Craster (aspect ratio 2∶1; standard parallels ∼±37 °).

>Invents new map projection to counter Eurocentrism and emphasize the true importance of the Global South.

>Has horrible distortion at every lattitude except 45° N and S.

Ibram X. Kendi never grifted as hard as Arno Peters.

The cable periscope kills me.

How much did this whole thing set you back (minus the cost of the land)?

The total bill is 224 k$ for 858 ft2 of house, 720 ft2 of driveway (not including ∼110 ft2 that's government-owned), 395 ft2 of sidewalk (including 270 ft2 that's government-owned), and 396 ft of fence. (An item-by-item breakdown is not available.)

The land was 29 k$ for 1/6 of an acre.

My vomit-inducing custom house is approximately three-fourths complete.

This is the first I've noticed your roof is so shallow and you have no eves. I live in perfect-weather-california, and even here I know of lots of homeowners who complain about weather-induced problems from this type of roof.

I am jealous that you actually know where all your pipes/wires are and what they do...

The roof is metal panels at 1/12 slope (comparable to a sidewalk curb ramp), not plastic sheeting or built-up asphalt at 1/24 (comparable to a road shoulder) or 1/48 (comparable to a road travel lane or a non-curb-ramp sidewalk). I don't expect any problems stemming from bad drainage.

insert an image of a flooded curb ramp

That happens because bad coordination between the sidewalk installation and the road paving makes the road higher than the bottom of the curb ramp. No such problems exist on a roof.

My vomit-inducing custom house

I don't know, I think it wouldn't look out of place as a supervisor's office at some remote lumber mill or mine.

But right now it looks like an anti-Georgist countermeasure.

According to § 155.03.01 of the Standard Specifications of the New Jersey Department of Transportation, a contractor's field office must have at least one room with 288 ft2 of area. Unfortunately, my design does not fulfill this requirement, as the living/dining room is only 214 ft2 (though you arguably could add the adjoining kitchen to that area). However, the Pennsylvania DOT's requirements (§ 609 table A) are not so picky—they have no minimum room area.

Which variations of the cylindrical equal-area projection are your favorite?

None, all of them should be illegal and punishable by getting run over by a steamroller.

This comment is harming the cylinder(s’ feelings).

The cylinder shouldn't have LARPed as a sphere.

punishable by getting run over by a steamroller.

"Hey bro, I heard you like cylindrical projections...."

That's a rather harsh response. What are your preferred map projections, then? (They had better not be compromise projections.)

Maybe I’m a cartographic basic bitch, but I like that Robinson projection more than the cylindrical ones. It’s closer to my head canon of what the continents look like.

The cylindrical ones look goofy to me, kind of like the Mercator but in a different way.

Compromise projections are the best projections. The purpose of a world map is to see where things are at, not to make precise measurements, unless you're a sailor or something. I don't care if size or shape are distorted a little, as long as it doesn't look ridiculous, and compromise projections are the only ones that don't look ridiculous. If we're talking local maps then Transverse Mercator is the only way to go, since the meridian is chosen based on the local area you're mapping. If people are going to be so insistent about the metric system then I'm going to be insistent about UTM, which by all rights should replace latitude/longitude since a grid is inherently superior to an angular system. If someone decides to send me a pin for directions I'm going to insist that it's in UTM from now on, in case my phone dies and I have to navigate with map and compass.

The purpose of a world map is to see where things are at, not to make precise measurements, unless you're a sailor or something. I don't care if size or shape are distorted a little, as long as it doesn't look ridiculous, and Compromise projections are the only ones that don't look ridiculous

In the first place, I disagree with the idea that the cylindrical equal-area projection looks ridiculous. Use the Behrmann variant (standard parallels ±30 °) for global evenhandedness, or the Gall/Peters variant (±45 °) for a bit of Eurocentrism.

In the second place, you can just use the equirectangular projection instead of a wacky compromise projection. The Robinson projection's convolutions are totally unnecessary.

If people are going to be so insistent about the metric system then I'm going to be insistent about UTM, which by all rights should replace latitude/longitude since a grid is inherently superior to an angular system.

But latitude and longitude are a grid already.

No compromise, compromise projections only! Kavraysky VII one love.

None! None! Map projections are madness! Use satellite imagery, or globes, or just go outside and look at the world with your own eyes! Maps should not attempt to show two sides of a sphere at once! It's unnatural!

Maps should not attempt to show two sides of a sphere at once!

You gotta choose a projection long before you try to show both sides of the earth at once.

Use satellite imagery

Sure! I'll just display those images on my flat monitor by ... hmmm ...

No, you don't understand. Just look at the original image, not some strange collage glued together from several images.

Just look at the original image

Which follow-up joke would you say is even harder to miss: "Okay: 100100101011010101011...", or "I'd love to, but my spacesuit is still in the shop"?

No need to get confusing. Just get a globe. That is the one proper way to display a map of Earth.

Google Earth is a thing. Having a monitor/phone and other modern tech actually decreases the relative utility of a flat map projection, as opposed to the days of yesteryear where it would have been much more convenient to carry an easily storable map around instead of an unwieldy globe, and most people's practical use of maps would (usually) have been in local small-scale contexts where the distortion would have been negligible. Now, though? I wonder why there are any map apps that don't project their satellite imagery onto a sphere.

Google Earth is a thing.

It is! It uses a near-sided perspective projection.

You may have missed the joke.

The sphere of Google Earth is projected onto the rectangular plane of your phone screen.

How is transforming the 3D surface of the sphere that Google Earth internally manipulates into a 2D image that can be rendered on a planar phone screen not a map projection?

I'll pencil you down as "myriahedral projection" (gnomonic onto a zillion-faced polyhedron).

Is that a dymaxion map I see, hiding in the options?

Technically, Dymaxion and icosahedron are not quite the same thing.

Yeah OK, I can live with that. Not actually make meaningful use of it, but at least it doesn't require the malfeasant who drew the map to be struck by lightning.

Still, I'd prefer just taking that projection and wrap it back around a sphere. Pardon, around a polyhedron.

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