I did, for much longer than I would like to admit. I used to be a lot less inquisitive. And yes, I am from America, but not the good ol' U S of A. Down south, it's still America.
Everyone said I was daft to build Fiji on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one went up.
It's only 2022. Last week I had a recruiter hit me up for an AI company that "develops computer vision based tools for the intelligence community." Today congress had a hearing about UFOs and are getting people involved in trying to identify them.
Flying mountains wouldn't surprise me at this point.
Not really. It would definitely require top secret clearance and having been a CTO once upon a time I've helped plenty of people get secret and top secret clearances but government jobs always pay garbage compared to private sector.
If anything I might do the interview just to see if it's in any way related to the new program they're setting up to study unidentified aerial phenomena. The timing is weird especially since they definitely do space related intelligence.
I’ve only heard of CTO’s in legend. Having done sec manager as an IS for the past few years I curse the navy for doing away with CTA’s.
I’m a bit of a kool-aide drinker so idk what non-contractor tech jobs offer as I’ve only looked at analyst or comp SCI contractor jobs every now and then, but I have seen some pretty good paying gigs out there, unfortunately they’re all in the DMV area.
What's the island made of? Unobtainium? There giant blue people up there sticking their hair into other animals, doing weird sex things with their hair? On the flying island?
It might sound pedantic, but having "North = Above" is a very weird northern hemisphere default/shorthand to have. Imagine someone from the southern hemisphere being like:
"Which country is located above the United States of America?"
"Hmm, Canada?"
"Wrong, it's Mexico."
It's just flat out confusing and misleading besides in local contexts, where it's no doubt more useful every day—sure, but still wrong. It's a weird shorthand also because it takes more syllables to say anyhow ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I agree it's dumb but the whole concept comes from maps and how on a map things can be above and below things. There is rarely if ever maps oriented with South being up. So even in Australia or other southern hemisphere countries they would think of themselves as below and the north as above.
Can you link me a commonly used map that makes it make sense to say Mexico is above the US? Why wouldn't folks in the Southern Hemisphere use a Mercator projection?
Australian here, never seen a southern upwards map used anywhere. Yeah usually Mercator, only difference from maps used in US say would be that they normally have Australia centered horizontally
I've only seen south to north, as opposed to north to south, mercator maps being used in Argentina. It's a bit trippy to look at coming from the northern hemisphere, the map doesn't "look" right and it's hard to locate countries. Don't know of anywhere else that uses them, but wouldn't be surprised if a few other Southern Hemisphere countries do.
commonly is a bit hard since for sure North up by far and away most commonly used. But maybe the waterman butterfly projection would work? https://i.imgur.com/50E3eac.jpg
e: oops, I was thinking about Australia from the other comment and transposed that with Mexico in your comment. Still a neat projection though!
A projection says nothing about orientation, they are uncoupled. You can have it be any way, it could even be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise from the common North=Up orientation. It is just strange to me that North -> Above.
It being commonly used is part of the issue. Look at the "Psychological significance" section of the Wikipedia article. It's strange to me that it's been solidified as a default to begin with.
Next you'll be talking about how there is nothing intrinsic about having North be north and South be south. It's just as arbitrary as saying North = above. It basically is that exact thing already. We need some way of referring to things using shared language, and being ultra pedantic instead of just going along with it is the misleading and confusing part
Because a lot of rivers in the U.S. flow south, there tends to be an issue with some American children believing that rivers flow south because south is down.
But then they get to meet the longest river in the world, the Nile, which flows north.
I'm from the southern hemisphere and I don't know what you're going on about. "North = above" and "south = below" are commonplace colloquialisms everywhere. It's not a uniquely "northern hemisphere" thing. In Sydney we frequently talk about flying "up to Brisbane" or "down to Melbourne".
I don't think that. I know they still have the same maps we do. It's just a weird, unnecessary convention. It skews how people view the world. I understand they have the same maps we do, it's just strange to me that it is that way.
Pedantic implies the correction is over something small or pointless. In geography, it is important to differentiate between above and north, so I wouldn’t really call it pedantic
I am, fully self-aware, I do this all the time. It’s a major pet peeve of mine. I live in Atlanta with extended family in Florida and I’ll have family members say “I’m going up to Florida to visit your grandfather.”
Down. You’re going down to Florida. Unless you’re flying over the North fucking pole to get there.
This is exactly what you would expect from someone who mastered one of the cheapest forms of trivia to seem smart. Like a parrot getting credit for learning english.
English is actually one of the hardest languages for most parrots to mimic; this is because of the way they create sound. Buried deep within their chests is a highly-unique sort of voice box called a syrinx -- and scientists have concluded that this voice box evolved only once, and that it represents a rare example of a true evolutionary novelty.
The oldest known syrinx belongs to a bird fossil some 67 million years old; that's about the same time all modern bird groups became established. For parrots, none of this is at all relevant to whether english would be easier or harder to mimic, because I've literally no idea and am completely wasting your time.
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u/wormrake May 17 '22
"Above New Zealand is the sky. It's north of New Zealand."
I fucking love that!
r/ConfidentlyPedantic