Gord writeth:
>Is that the outer edge of Xinjiang that is a line there? I think so,
>and
>yet I'm surprised to see the Xinjiang side of the border has more
>lights
>than the Kazakhstan side. I know it's not the most populous region in
>the
>world, but the darkness in Central Asia (North of the Himalayas) was a
>bit
>of a shock for me, even though I kinda knew to expect it.
Well, Xinjiang is the "Chinese" province just north of the Himalayas,
but Kazakhstan is northwest of there, not south. Part of Xinjiang is
the Taklamakan desert, I've heard its name translated as, "You go in,
but you don't come out"! Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic, I
think those bright lights in the middle of central asia are in
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. But the western 2/3 of China is pretty
much uninhabited.
>Something else that surprised me was the distribution of lights in
>North
>America: I didn't think it would be so much more Eastern than Western.
Actually, it's probably more pronounced than this map shows. They had
to decide what light level would warrant a light pixel instead of a
dark one. But since the human eye is very very sensitive, we can't
really show the logarithmic increases. So the really bright areas are
probably much brighter than they seem on this map while the dim but
still lighted areas are probably dimmer.
But if you think about it, the dark middle of NA is mountains and
deserts. We don't live in bio-domes yet....
Also, consider that some of these lights aren't city lights, but
industrial lights. You can see up on the North Slope of Alaska a big
bright spot north of Fairbanks. Well, that isn't a city! That's
natural gas being burned off because there is no profitable way to
bring it to market. I've seen other maps with a huge bright spot in
the sea of Japan. Squid boats use bright lights at night to lure up
the squid.
>>So here's one more indication that North Korea deserves the title
>>"Real
>>World Country that most closely resembles '1984'".
>*grin* That's probably true, in terms of the literal stuff in 1984
like
>ignorance and poverty used as a weapon against the masses. But it's
>funny,
>I was looking at the opposite -- at the amount of light being put
out,
>rather than the lack of light. The disparities between light-output
and
>population are shocking if you think about it for a few moments, and
>think
>about the general resource consumption that goes on around it in
>general...
Um, yeah, I WAS thinking about the "literal" stuff...y'know, secret
police, artificial shortages, torture, starvation, mind control...all
those cultural differences that make up the gorgeous mosaic of
humanity....
>I didn't think of _1984_ immediately, but in that novel, there is an
>inner
>party who has real coffee and so on, while the masses simply have to
do
>without. The map looks different from that perspective.
>
>Hmm. Depends what you're looking at and for, I guess. :)
Gord, you are completely wrong. The inner party deprived the masses of
the essentials ON PURPOSE. Satisfied people make poor slaves. The
people were kept on the ragged edge of starvation in order to control
them. If you are seriously trying to compare our global economy to
totalitarian dictatorship, may I suggest that you have completely taken
leave of your senses?
If you like, we can have a long discussion about whether ironically
pretending to confuse our freedoms with totalitarian slavery is more
likely to expand our freedoms or destroy our freedoms. You might take
the side that we are really living in a totalitarian dictatorship, I
might take the side that we are really living in constitutional
democracies. But perhaps that is not neccesary and you'll simply admit
you were teasing.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
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