Category: Perspective

Maps Have Been Lying To You Your Entire Life

July 19, 2015

“One of the most popular projections is the Mercator, but of course, it too has its flaws. In truth, Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland, Canada is only 1.2 times the size of the United States, and Antarctica is definitely not the colossal continent it is portrayed to be.

“However, don’t get the idea that the Mercator is a bad map. It’s not. The map preserves “true compass bearings between any two points” and has become a standard in nautical navigation.

“Since there is no perfect map for all occasions, your best bet is to pinpoint what you need a map for and then to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each to suit your goal.”

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/how-maps-can-lead-you-wrong-idea

The Problem With History Classes: Single-perspective narratives do students a gross disservice.

March 16, 2015

“Perhaps Fisher offers the nation an opportunity to divorce, once and for all, memory from history. History may be an attempt to memorialize and preserve the past, but it is not memory; memories can serve as primary sources, but they do not stand alone as history. A history is essentially a collection of memories, analyzed and reduced into meaningful conclusions—but that collection depends on the memories chosen.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-problem-with-history-classes/387823/

Morning Joe Finds the Real Racists in Oklahoma: Rap Musicians

March 11, 2015

What makes a word offensive? This article gets into a discussion that has been going on for some time about who can say what words and what makes them offensive. It’s an interesting discussion on language and what gives it meaning and also what makes it offensive…or not.

http://news.yahoo.com/morning-joe-finds-real-racists-oklahoma-rap-musicians-145348684.html

This American Life Podcast: Cops See it Differently

February 21, 2015

A really amazing two part podcast about policing in the United States. Through the different parts of this podcast, we hear from police departments and officers around the country and how they’re dealing with the challenges they face. What’s fascinating about this is the role of perspective and how different experiences affect how people see different situations. Part 2 Act 2 discusses the implicit association test and what a police department is doing about how to deal with implicit bias while policing. Part 2 Prologue is an interesting and short bit about a reporter watching the Eric Garner video with a friend who is a police officer and how the two of them see completely different things and interpret the video in very different ways.

Below are links for the full episodes.

Part I

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/547/cops-see-it-differently-part-one

Part II

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/548/cops-see-it-differently-part-two

Different Map Projections

January 29, 2015

Upsidedown-Map-Of-The-World-OptimizedAny time you take something as massive and complex as the earth and try to put it down on a flat piece of paper you are going to lose details and create inaccuracies. You also have to make choices about how you represent the information. For example, what goes in the center? What goes at the top of the map? The bottom? Is the most “accurate” map the best map?

http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=752

A funny way to interpret your choice of projections

http://xkcd.com/977/

A very nerdy and almost too thorough explanation of the errors of map projections

http://geokov.com/education/map-projection.aspx

How do you frame the Greek bailout? Was it irresponsible Greek borrowers or Irresponsible German lenders?

January 27, 2015

Much news has focused on the bailout of Greece’s government. Along with that much finger wagging along with condescendingly toned speeches directed at Greece however the bailouts Greece is receiving are actually mostly going to German banks that gave Greece the money. How you frame the issue changes where you lay the blame. Framing the language is an important aspect of the way these issues are received and thought about and discussed.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2012-05-23/merkel-should-know-her-country-has-been-bailed-out-too