Altered Maps XII: Not to Scale

[hoplitejoe]

From this paper.
Seems a bit dodgy, but interesting anyway.

 

[Winner]

And this shows.... what exactly?

 

[gangleri2001]

And this shows.... what exactly?

That civilization first appeared in small areas and then spread. That's something we had no idea about. </sarcasm>

What I find really interesting is how do you define a scale of civilization so you can so easily adscribe a color to an area.

 

[Kyriakos]

I guess it shows all #1 civs at the given date, or something.

England is among the best in 1500 AD? A bit strange. Two aeons later, sure, but not that early.
Not sure how France is on the same scale as any part of the Byzantine empire in the 500 AD era either (let alone that dot around Salzburg).

edit: on second thought, i guess this is not at all what the maps are about, given that almost nothing makes sense in that respect in them.

 

[Winner]

That civilization first appeared in small areas and then spread. That's something we had no idea about. </sarcasm>

What I find really interesting is how do you define a scale of civilization so you can so easily adscribe a color to an area.

Well, that was what I was asking about. What exactly these colours mean, except "red/orange/yellow = CIVILIZATION!!!; green = BARBARIANS!!!!"

 

[hoplitejoe]

I thought it explained what it was in the abstract, my bad.
From his website

Comparison between data and model predictions for three historical eras. Red indicates regions that were more frequently inhabited by large-scale polities, yellow shows where large polities were less common, and green indicates the absence of large polities.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Still seems strange though, in 500 BC Athens is not red? (in fact on that map it is not even orange. It is yellow).

Quite strange that at the same map you have orange in coastal Macedonia, most of the city population of which was in Athenian colonies anyway.

 

[mitsho]

Are you looking at the Model or the Data map? The map is kinda hard to read as they are not lineary set-up and of course, data of this kind can't be totally accurate. If you talk about the data map which seems to be a manual input, you can of course discuss single data points, but it would be more interesting to discuss their decision tree. If you talk of the model, see that the article claims a explained variance of 60 % so you can't really point to one data point (i.e. Athens) for argumentation either.

I do find it funny though in view of the civilization genre that they decided to go for tiles and not hexes

 

[Kyriakos]

Are you looking at the Model or the Data map? The map is kinda hard to read as they are not lineary set-up and of course, data of this kind can't be totally accurate. If you talk about the data map which seems to be a manual input, you can of course discuss single data points, but it would be more interesting to discuss their decision tree. If you talk of the model, see that the article claims a explained variance of 60 % so you can't really point to one data point (i.e. Athens) for argumentation either.

I do find it funny though in view of the civilization genre that they decided to go for tiles and not hexes

Still doesn't explain why in the model for 500 BCE they have coastal Macedonia and Thrace as orange, while the high-density central and south Greek city-states on the european part as yellow.

Coastal Macedonia and Thrace, by 500 BCE, only had actual cities in the Greek colonies of Athens, Megara and the Ionian states. Given that this is only 10 years before Marathon (490 BC), the map looks quite strange

 

[JohannaK]

I see it all orange.

 

[mitsho]

Still doesn't explain why in the model for 500 BCE they have coastal Macedonia and Thrace as orange, while the high-density central and south Greek city-states on the european part as yellow.

Coastal Macedonia and Thrace, by 500 BCE, only had actual cities in the Greek colonies of Athens, Megara and the Ionian states. Given that this is only 10 years before Marathon (490 BC), the map looks quite strange

Model = Computer-calculated prediction based on the data ; variables as I see them from a quick skimming of the text are things like geographical terrain, military technologies (chariot, cavalry), "imperial density" and so on. Based on that, it can't quite do what you ask it to. Also, maybe the many Greek polities didn't really factor into their calculation due to their small size, the focus of the article after all is on a different question. The article is available for free btw.

 

[warpus]

The many languages of London

I think these are supposed to be areas where more than 5% of the population speaks this as a first language.

 

[Civ'ed]

I want to know the stories behind the Yiddish.

 

[really]

It is a Jewish part of north London - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language#United_Kingdom

 

[hoplitejoe]

I didn't realise there was a Japanese or Korean community in London.

 

[warpus]

It is a Jewish part of north London - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language#United_Kingdom

Tottenham supporters are known as "Yids" for this reason. However, the term is discouraged these days because the FA consider it to be racist.. or something like that. They're usually full of crap though, so I'm leaving it in here, until someone points out that yes indeed it is racist and offensive, in which case I will remove it.

 

[warpus]

Hey, you guys might enjoy this site - where you can overlay maps overtop other maps.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Tottenham supporters are known as "Yids" for this reason. However, the term is discouraged these days because the FA consider it to be racist.. or something like that. They're usually full of crap though, so I'm leaving it in here, until someone points out that yes indeed it is racist and offensive, in which case I will remove it.

It sounds like "Hebes", which I've been told by my grandparents was a derogatory term used towards them when they were kids.

So I'd hazard guess yes.

 

[Arakhor]

Given that it sounds like a dismissive term for a particular ethinicity or culture, it would probably qualify, yes.

 

[warpus]