Education

New interactive maps: Dig a hole to China? Maybe not

map
New map shows there these diggers will end up. (Youtube)

Interactive maps are cool, there’s just no two ways about it. With the advent of a personal computer in almost every home in the Western World, with just a few mouse clicks anyone could be taken to a time and place that once took weeks of page turning.

To further the cyber-experience, code writers and computer engineers have made readily available something that only a generation ago was reserved only for presidents and the top military brass – interactive maps.

The latest of the bunch answers the age old question: If any given oil driller or Marine PFC digging a foxhole keeps displacing dirt, where will that same wildcatter or Leatherneck eventually reach China?

According to reporter Tim Collins of Britain’s The Daily Mail, the latest what if map to his the internet is something called the Antipodes Map.

As reported, an antipodal region is defined as if a person were to dig to the exact opposite side of the globe, the antipode is where they would pop-up on the other side.

An American digging a hole from Times Square in New York would end up in the ocean off the coast of Australia.

Brits wouldn’t fare much better, with a tunnel dug from under the Houses of Parliament finishing up off the coast of New Zealand.

Cities which are almost exact antipodes:

  • Christchurch (New Zealand) and A Coruna (Spain)
  • Auckland (New Zealand) and Seville and Malaga (Spain)
  • Madrid (Spain) and Weber (New Zealand)
  • Xi’an (China) and Santiago (Chile)
  • Wellington (New Zealand) and Alaejos (Spain)
  • Shanghai (China) and Buenos Aires (Argentina)
  • Hong Kong (China) and La Quiaca (Argentina)
  • Beijing (China) and Bahia Blanca (Argentina)
  • Nelson (New Zealand) and Mogadouro (Portugal)
  • Taipei (Taiwan) and Asuncion (Paraguay)
  • Whangarei (New Zealand) and Tangier (Morocco)
  • Bangkok (Thailand) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and Lima (Peru)
  • Tauranga (New Zealand) and Jaen (Spain)
  • Montevideo (Uruguay) and Seoul (South Korea)
  • Hamilton (New Zealand) and Cordoba (Spain)
  • Bogota (Colombia) and Jakarta (Indonesia)
  • Junin (Argentina) and Lianyungang (China)
  • Suva (Fiji) and Timbuktu (Mali)
  • Ulan Ude (Russia) and Puerto Natales (Chile)
  • Melbourne and Canberra (Australia) and Azores (Portugal)
  • Masterton (New Zealand) and Segovia (Spain)
  • Manila (Philippines) and Cuiaba (Brazil)
  • Palembang (Indonesia) and Neiva (Colombia)
  • Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Cuenca (Ecuador)
  • Wuhai (China) and Valdivia (Chile)
  • Singapore and Quito (Ecuador)
  • Padang (Indonesia) and Esmeraldas (Ecuador)
  • Doha (Qatar) and Pitcairn Island (United Kingdom – Overseas Territory)

Other examples of rather interesting interactive maps:

  • Zombietown, USA – Zombies: The Other Dead Meat. You set the parameters, then watch how fast the Zombie Apocalypse would spread from sea to decomposing sea
  • NukeMap – One guess what NukeMap is all about. If you get it wrong, you deserve to get nuked. Or at least eaten alive by the undead

Then there are the ones that answer the question, “How did America get $20 trillion in debt?”

  • Federal taxpayers pony-up for the Department of Agriculture’s programmable Plant Hardiness map. If you need an explanation of what exactly it is this map does, the plants are surely smarter than you
  • Then there’s the map from the government (taxpayers) of Ohio which… wait for it, gives the viewer useless information such as the location, date and strength of all recorded earthquakes that have struck the Buckeye State. BTW, what’s up with all the earthquakes in the Cleveland area? Maybe it’s just the Browns getting comfortable in the cellar

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