Damn that’s interesting

well, at the poles, a point is the same length as the equator!

Yes, the a N to R. I wasn’t commenting on people possessing maps.
I guess it’s been a few years since that beauty pagent contestant gave that as an answer.

I took several cartography classes while in college. It’s a fascinating topic. I really like the link.

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Funny, but it’s actually true, if available when they were children.

It was a horrible answer, but with a bunch of truthiness.

I can remember summer vacations in the family station wagon, driving across the great prairies, headed towards the Rocky Mountains. My brother and I were always looking at the map, how many more miles, what’s the most scenic route, what’s the fastest route, where can we…

Today I have a collection of old atlases, some from the turn of the previous century. Those are fascinating.

Today, kids just plug in the destination in Google maps and start driving. It’s a damn shame.

We still get paper maps from AAA so when we take a road trip I can make the kids figure out how far and try to estimate how long it will take to get there. Gives them something to do other than watch movies in the back of the van. Plus just figuring out how to fold the map back up is a learning experience in itself.

wow, didn’t know you still could

RN, I think

ETA, oh, yep, that’s what I thought you were referring to.

She was on The Amazing Race one season, which made for some interesting drama when people figured out who she was.

She did not come across as a genius by any means, but she avoided the verbal diarrhea of the Miss Teen USA pageant. I felt kind of bad for her. She was only 18 when it happened and now she has to live that down for the rest of her life. It was in 2007 so maybe people are starting to forget now.

The best part is how obvious it is that she was coached to not say “like”, but us “such as” instead, so she corrects herself each time.

Can anyone find a link to that? I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.

It was all over the internet when it happened.

She went on Today or Good Morning America or one of those shows a couple of days later and attempted to redeem herself, but the damage was done.

Of course I am not helping her cause by posting the video. I really do feel bad for her. She was perfectly coherent in The Amazing Race and that’s a scenario where she was certainly given enough rope to hang herself.

So logically the names really ought to be reversed. Greenland is covered in ice and Iceland is pretty green.

There’s a fake story floating around that they did this on purpose to trick their enemies into sailing to Greenland instead of Iceland. But apparently it’s untrue as Iceland was already well established (and named) by the time Greenland was discovered. But Greenland’s name was definitely marketing… hoping to lure people there by any means necessary.

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I thought Iceland was an English pronunciation of a (Scandinavian?) more native name

Greenland I believe was marketing

Thanks for posting! I have seen that, but it had been so long I had forgotten about it.

That might be true. Doesn’t contradict anything in my post though. I just remember reading that they did not intentionally name them backwards in order to keep the closer and more valuable Iceland for themselves as Greenland was discovered much later.

In case anyone cares, here are 2 videos I found around the miss teen thing from 2007:

Her interview on the Today show right after:

Her reflection on the event from 1 year ago:

Just saw this on fb that’s relevant:

The Northern-most part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southern-most part of Brazil.

Brazil is biiiiig.

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IFYP?
:grimacing:

That too. but it’s also girthy unlike Chile

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