Map vs. Terrain vs. Mildew-resistant liner

10 observations about my new world map shower curtain

1. The map includes states and provinces, but only for the U.S. and Canada -- which is to say only for the two countries in the world whose states and provinces I could already identify on a map. This diminishes the educational potential of my shower curtain. You'd think they'd at least have finished off North America and done Mexico too, but no. So I still don't know Durango from Jalisco.

2. The curtain was made in China. The map shows 43 Chinese cities. Granted, China has at least 47 cities with a population of 1 million or more, but I can't help but wonder if one of these little black dots on the map was slyly added by someone in the factory where this curtain was made.

3. Does a plastic shower curtain count as a Chinese "textile"?

4. The map uses only six colors (the oceans are clear) without using the same color for adjacent countries, states or provinces. They screwed up twice: Italy and Austria are both orange; Idaho and B.C. are both blue. This is doubly disappointing because these areas should've been easy. I'd have let it slide in New England or the Balkans -- or even there in the Alps if they'd tried to fit Liechtenstein in, which they didn't -- but in the Northwest it's just inexcusable. This is starting to bug me.

5. I wouldn't recommend a Peters Map if you're sailing around the world, but if you're making a shower curtain and you need to squeeze in the names of all 50+ countries in Africa it's probably a better choice than the navigation-friendly Mercator. The traditional Mercator, however, does give you tons of room to write GREENLAND and ELLESMERE ISLAND in as large a font as you'd like.

6. Since, as I said, the map does not include states and provinces except for in North America, it does not indicate the location of Waziristan. But I know where it is. And I know who it's become home to. And sometimes I look at that part of the map and I wish that God or karma or something would step up and do the job that our incompetent and easily distracted-by-shiny-things commander-in-chief has shirked for more than four years now.

7. Viewed backwards, from in the shower, I think my favorite word is "Galapagos."

8. There is something about islands on a map that makes me want to go there, to be there. It's almost the feeling that C.S. Lewis liked to describe as sehnsucht. I have no idea why looking at islands on a map should have such an effect, but for me it does. I would like to see Malta and Mauritius. I would like to stand on Kerguelen, Socotra, Tuvalu and Torshavn, to visit the Canaries, the Lines, the Gilberts, even the Belchers (in the summer).

9. I was only 13 and not really paying much attention at the time, and I'm sure there were Important Principles at stake and all, but I still can't help thinking, when I look at the Falklands on a map, that if people really want to have themselves a war they really don't need much of an excuse.

10. I think the same thing whenever I look at Iraq on that map. It's really quite a long ways away from Waziristan.

Comments

[kodi]

8. I get that way with globes - especially raised relief globes. Even more than looking at pictures of distant places, or the satellite photos on Google maps, I love to look at relief/topo maps and imagine what it's like to be there.

[LN]

Hey! Some of us Balkanists take issue with your all-one-color dismissal of them... :(

[perianwyr]

Man, I had one of these when I was a kid, and half the place names were COMPLETELY WRONG in both spelling and location. I also developed a reflexive habit of hiding behind Africa whenever anyone opened the door.

2. I can't help but wonder if one of these little black dots on the map was slyly added by someone in the factory where this curtain was made.

I hope so, man. Ain't much to pass the time, otherwise.

In fact, why don't you mark your own? Put your birthplace on there. And why not mark the exact geographic center of the US (it's at 98°35' W 39°50' N, in Kansas.) Oh, and how about the location of the Tunguska impact (60°55′ N 101°57′ E?) The possibilities are enormous.

3. Does a plastic shower curtain count as a Chinese "textile"?

Plastic curtains and draperies are not textiles. Textiles are a completely separate rate (note that plastics and synthetic fibers are completely different categories, even)

4. The map uses only six colors

Crap, man, these guys put this together in a factory that probably only recently got a fourth wall to keep the wind out, and you're expecting them to apply the lessons of the four color problem? Just be happy they didn't mark Panama as being in the middle of Colombia. Draw some lines on there with a sharpie if you have to, right after you mark up Napoleon's advance into Russia or something.

7. Viewed backwards, from in the shower, I think my favorite word is "Galapagos."

One of my great lessons from this was that rearranging the letters in names of places is a wonderful way to make up names for fantasy RPG towns.

[bulbul]

3. Does a plastic shower curtain count as a Chinese "textile"?
Nope, not even per EU legislation.

8. There is something about islands on a map that makes me want to go there, to be there.
I know how you feel :o) I have always felt this way about islands, ever since I started reading books by Jules Verne - the book in one hand, map in another. Not all islands, though - for example, Sicily, Corsica and the Canaries do nothing for me. Malta, on the other hand, had been on the top of my "must see" list until two years ago when I finally got to go there. Socotra, Fiji, Tuvalu and all those funny island states like St. Kitts and Navis are on that list too. So is the Croatian island of Krk which, I am ashamed to say, I have not visited yet. Maybe this could be the year...

[Jen]

Jeebus, you think they'd at least do the Australian state divisions; it's not like there's that many, and all but the NSW/Vic border are straight lines. Oh, and that weird one for the ACT. I always forget the ACT.

[forestwalker]

2. The curtain was made in China. The map shows 43 Chinese cities. Granted, China has at least 47 cities with a population of 1 million or more, but I can't help but wonder if one of these little black dots on the map was slyly added by someone in the factory where this curtain was made.

What? Are you imagining that one of the city names really means "f-you America", or something? :)

[rachelrachel]

The map uses only six colors (the oceans are clear) without using the same color for adjacent countries, states or provinces. They screwed up twice: Italy and Austria are both orange; Idaho and B.C. are both blue. This is doubly disappointing because these areas should've been easy. I'd have let it slide in New England or the Balkans -- or even there in the Alps if they'd tried to fit Liechtenstein in, which they didn't -- but in the Northwest it's just inexcusable. This is starting to bug me.

The four-color map problem was for many years one of the great unsolved enigmas of mathematics. It's long been proven that five colors were sufficient, and strongly suspected that all you needed were four. In 1977 (I think) the four-color theorem was proved, albeit with a computer.

It's very, very easy to fill in any map with only five crayons, letting adjacent regions be different colors. It's always possible to do it with four, but sometimes it takes a little experimentation to get it right. With six, it's so childishly easy that no matter how complicated the map, there's never any reason to "let it slide" if they screw up.

There's lots of stuff on the web about this. Here's a place to start:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_four_colour_theorem.html

[Stan Taylor]

We have one of these. I see you haven't yet found the typo (unless they've fixed since our curtain was manufactured. Hint: it's near eye level when you sit on the toilet next to the curtain.

Galapagos is one of my favorite words to look at viewed forwards, too.

[Alison]

Jen, everyone forgets the ACT. Just be grateful they remembered Tassie.

They did, didn't they?

[John Robinson]

Jalisco is on the southwest coast. It is where they make tequila. It's a nice place.

Durango is in the west-central. Doesn't have much going for it that I can tell. :)

[Mnemosyne]

The Peters Map reminds me of one of my favorite moments on "The West Wing" when some geographers are showing C.J. the difference between the Peters and the Mercator. At one point, the head geographer turns the map upside-down, so the Southern Hemisphere is on top and the Northern is on the bottom.

C.J. immediately says, "Change it back, change it back."

The geographer says, "Why? It's just as valid to look at it this way."

C.J. says, "Yeah, but it's kinda freaking me out!"

The Peters map may not be as good for navigation, but it does at least make one realize that, yes, Africa is a VERY big continent, much bigger than Greenland.

[robert p]

Good to see New Zealand on top of the world, as it should be! I see that Auckland was tragically truncated. Ah well, no great loss :o)

[Mark / Sparticus]

I'm with Mnemosyne on the map projections. Show some young people a Peters map and they're all 'dude that's so wrong' (if they are from the early 90's). Then you explain that actually it's quite accurate, that Africa is that big, that Britain is still tiny and that America is really quite small in the scheme of things. They're generally impressed, although slightly weirded out. It's fun.

[Ice]

I don't understand the Galapagos comment? Is the curtain made so that you can read the map while you shower, or while you're on the can? Or is it user's choice?

[ajay]

"I still can't help thinking, when I look at the Falklands on a map, that if people really want to have themselves a war they really don't need much of an excuse."

GK Chesterton made this point in "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", about a civil war in London. (Forget Hugh Grant - at the time Notting Hill was a rather shabby and boring area, almost a bit of a joke. I suppose that the US equivalent might be something like "The Eisenhower of Staten Island" - not sure so apologies.)

One character asks another "But don't you see how ridiculous it is to go to war over Notting Hill?" And the other one replies, more or less, that Notting Hill is a patch of ground where people are born and live their lives: and it's no more ridiculous to fight for Notting Hill than it is to fight for anywhere else in the world where people are living as they choose and wish to continue to do so.

The comment by Jorge Luis Borges that the war was "like two bald men fighting over a comb" always struck me as rather evil in nature. It's saying "if only there was gold, or oil, or diamonds, then the war would have been OK and quite understandable. But there was nothing on the Falklands worth fighting for! Only a few boring peasants and some sheep! Where's the glory and gain in that?"

There wasn't any gain to be had - but that doesn't mean that the war didn't touch on Britain's vital national interests, because, ultimately, the protection and welfare of its citizens is a country's only vital national interest.

(Not to mention that, if you should want to stop people going round Cape Horn, the Falklands are a fairly good place to do it from.)

"Sogapalag" sounds a bit Filipino to me.

[Ray]

But how many people were living on the Falklands at the time? For the cost of the war they could all have been relocated to a deserted Scottish island, and continued sheep farming there, exactly as before - except they'd be living in diamond-encrusted houses. Neither the UK or Argentina were fighting to protect their citizens, it was all about imperial pride.

[Ray]

There's a good article on the Falklands here
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n20/port01_.html
a review of the official (British) history of the campaign

[Puck]

> The four-color map problem was for many years one of the great unsolved enigmas of mathematics. It's long been proven that five colors were sufficient, and strongly suspected that all you needed were four. In 1977 (I think) the four-color theorem was proved, albeit with a computer.

"Albeit" is the correct word - they cheated. The computer simply checked all possible combinations. Computational mathematics is like letting a motorcycle enter the 200 metre dash - and take a shortcut through the infield to boot. Deduction has elegance.

On the other hand deduction requires axioms - which computation doesn't. hummmm

Anyway I want to see a picture of the shower curtain in use. Please post.

[Mike Timonin]

Huh. I was in England the summer of the Falkland's War - I was 11 - and I think it had a profound effect on me. Dad collected the magazines that were published (one a week, I think) during the war in a handy-dandy binder. Each magazine had, on the back, a handdrawn picture of a British troop in uniform - different uniform for each magazine.

Not arguing the relevance of the war - it was clearly a case of "It's OURS, keep out!"

[grenadine]

i remember having seen a south-at-the-top world map for sale, but unfortunately i passed it by at the time, and have been unsuccessful in googleing it later. if anyone knows where such a one can be had, i'd be grateful to know. i'm pretty sure, for obvious reasons, that the map was either printed in, or commissioned by, Australia.

[Iwannaliveinabluestate]

The Falklands War marked the beginning of my metamorphosis from teenage Tory to adult progressive. I'll never forget the solemnity of the announcements of casualties, and while they were admittedly British-only casualties, I can't help wondering if things would be different if Bush or Rumsfled had to go on tv each time there a US soldier was killed and break the news to the nation.

[ProfessorPlum]

Hi Grenadine,

I have a beautiful, large South is up map that I got online about 3 years ago, but I can't find the URL . . . I'll keep looking.

PP

[ProfessorPlum]

Grenadine,

Try http://www.odt.org/ or contact Petersmaps@aol.com

[grenadine]

prof. plum, thankee kindly.

[bellatrys]

Grenadine, Working For Change had one in their catalog at Christmas.

[Steve]

Okay, that is weird...yesterday when Slacktivist first posted this, I clicked on the Amazon link and saw the map shower curtain for sale, including pictures. Today, the map shower curtain is sold out and there are no pictures.

So Slacktivist's massive following rushed Amazon.com and bought out their entire supply?

[Mabus]

Bulbul, you have the money to take island vacations?

Why haven't you given it to the poor?

[rachelrachel]

"Albeit" is the correct word - they cheated. The computer simply checked all possible combinations. Computational mathematics is like letting a motorcycle enter the 200 metre dash - and take a shortcut through the infield to boot. Deduction has elegance.

Well, assuming that there were no mistakes (and I certainly haven't checked it for errors) the computer proof does answer the question of whether the conjecture is true. Checking all possible combinations is a well established method of mathematical proof. X is true for all possible combinations, therefore X is always true.

A proof can be inelegant and still be valid. Maybe there is no "elegant" solution for the four-color problem. Computational mathematics is exploring areas that can't be arrived at by pencil-and-paper methods.

[AkhRani]

Actually, the computer-aided proof did not test "all possible" graphs, since that would be an infinite set. It was a sort of inductive proof. First it was prooved that if a certain (large, but finite) set of graphs could be colored using four colors, then all graphs could be. Inductive proofs are common, but usually the (forget the proper name) base set is one or two items. The fact that the set of graphs is too large for the proof to be verified by a human leaves mathemeticians desiring a cleaner proof.

[Henry]

On looking at maps as a kid: when I was twelve I discovered two tiny countries on the wall-size map of Africa in our 6th grade class, Fernando Po and Ifni. So did Ricky Guildemeister, the kid from Peru with German parents, so we immediately formed two factions, which struggled over the next year over anything we could find to disagree about. I forget now whether I was an Ifnite or a Povovian.

Unrelated note: the folks from Durango will tell you they have a lot to be proud of and they don't care if the tourists know it or not. Durangense music is now a big deal for people tired of banda and not into Reggaeton.

[the bewilderness]

http://sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

a gift for you.

[Haukur Þorgeirsson]

Tórshavn ("Thor's Harbour") is not an island, it's the capital of the Faroe Islands. The island it is located on is called Streymoy ("Stream Island"). And it's a fine island to stand on :)

[Fernmonkey]

Actually, if the oceans are clear, then it's the seven-colour problem on this map.

I've always loved maps.

[jhlipton]

Just because you can color a map with four colors doesn't mean you have to. The cartographer may have decided that 6 colors wer "prettier" than just 4.

Or maybe they just didn't want to bother figuring it out...

[pharoute]

Perianwyr: the geographical center of the U.S. in in South Dakota when you include Alaska and Hawaii...pesky states I know but what can you do?

http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.html#Geographic%20Centers

[Matt McIrvin]

Here's where I give my spiel about the Peters Map. You may have read it before...

The attention given the Peters Map irritates me a bit. There are lots of map projections that share its essential quality of representing the relative areas of countries and continents equably; they're called equal-area projections. Several of these projections are equal-area, for instance. Most of them are better than the Peters Map, in that they are just as good at representing areas, but distort shapes less. Yet the Peters Map, which is distinguished from the other equal-area projections only by being rectangular, is the only one that gets perennially touted as the socially just world map, essentially because Arno Peters was very good at promoting it that way in the 1970s.

He used the Mercator projection as his strawman, but it's not the only other world map there is; the Mercator is unfortunately still used in some wall maps, but most of the better publishers switched to something that doesn't exaggerate the polar regions nearly as much long ago.

The Peters map's weird appearance is usually explained as an illusion resulting from the shock of seeing our Mercator-engendered, America- and Europe-centric prejudices about the sizes of countries confronted with reality. But if that's true, why doesn't a globe look just as weird, or the Mollweide projection? Africa's just as huge on those. I think it's more that the Peters stretches the shapes of arctic regions tremendously in the east-west direction and equatorial ones in the north-south direction. (The temperate countries get to be relatively undistorted, which is hardly fair.)

I will admit that a rectangular map does look better on a shower curtain.