If you can't beat 'em...

[camwyn]

then rummage around the local stores until you find a way to join 'em.

Translation: I've been trying to keep the map of VicMage.Asia straight in my head, and it hasn't been working very well because I haven't been able to figure out where the equator and the prime meridian are in relation to the general vicinity of China. So I went to Staples today, and I can report that the Staples in Parsippany on U.S. Highway 46 does not have globes. . .

Getting an idea where I"m going with this? Good.

Next up was GOING to be Toys Ya* Us, on the grounds that they might have 'em as a concession to educational crap, but before I got into the car I looked across the parking lot. Lo! K-Mart!

Fifteen minutes of looking later (the season transition is hard on any retail setting, especially one where most of the people probably don't give a rat's ass any more because they're working minimum wage for a Chapter 11 employer), I had not only a lovely 12-inch globe, but a bottle of bluey-silvery nail polish that very nearly matches the colour of the oceans on this globe.

I will admit I am feeling horribly guilty about the idea of mutilating a perfectly good globe. I think my brain files it as an Educational Device of Accurate Information, rather the same category as a reference book, and is extending the protection offered to books to the globe as a result. It won't work, though. Tonight I'm getting an awl or something and boring holes through 0'0" and 0'180"**, then re-mounting the globe, then painting over anything that's now under water. True, the map will still be inaccurate due to geological shifting and such, but at least I'll have an idea of where things are in relation to each other. And I won't accidentally dress denizens of islands that ought to feel like Key West in, yanno, snow leopard furs or something.

*If I remember correctly, and there is no guarantee that I do, the backwards R that appears in the Cyrillic alphabet represents the sound 'ya'.

**I may have the second one wrong. The place where Longitude 180 crosses the equator.

Comments

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Any chance you could take pictures when you're done? I'm having a HELL of a time visualizing VicMageWorld at all, Asia or otherwise.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Re: longitudinal/latitudinal notation:

It's all about circles, really. Longitude is measured in degrees east and west of Greenwich, England. Now, if you've moved the British Isles over by Greenland, that's a significant chunk of water to have moved the Prime Meridian (0° Longitude) by, not to mention the notion that you have to decide if the Empire is still puissant enough in this world to be the ones to make that call.

Anyway, back to circles: if you'll recall Ye Olde Geometry, there are three hundred sixty degrees (360°) to a circle. Longitude goes to +/- 180° East and West of Greenwich, whereas latitude (the parallels) goes in concentric circles, centered on the polar axis -- what this means on your Great Circle is four quadrants of 90° each, and which quadrisphere you're in is determined by the equator (0° latitude) and the 0°/180° line (Prime Meridian/International Date Line).

What they didn't teach us in ninth grade, but you learn pretty damn quick if you want to learn to sail, is this: if you're dealing with a big enough circle, like a Great Circle, one degree is pretty farking huge, so it needs to be split up into sixty minutes ('), each of which can, if needful, be split into sixty seconds ("). Indeed, one nautical mile is defined as one-sixtieth of one degree of longitude as measured at the equator. NB that nautical miles (nmi) != statue miles (mi), although at 1.1508 statute miles to the nautical mile, they may be considered equivalent for rough calculations.

Anyway, you may want to consider how people in your VicMage.China would navigate and mark their maps, as this is all at its base founded on Babylonian principles (360° being one of their holiest numbers, as you can divide a ridiculous number of ways without getting remainders), which your Chinese cartographers may or may not give a fig about.

But really, all I meant to say was that the IDL, she is at 180°0'0" Longitude, not 0'180" (which you should hopefully realise Makes No Sense after all my blather).

Oh, and ° is the HTML-fu for 'a degree symbol,' while I'm being hopelessly pedantic. Then again, you tend to pay as much attention to detail as I do, so you're hopefully not offended by my droning on...

-- Lorrie