antipodes people: what do you do about globes?

[krow]

i went to ikea this morning when it opened to buy this armchair (it looks better in the pictures tbh), and when i was walking through the showroom all the globes were intentionally positioned to face north america. they literally re-position the globes every night to show NA. isn't that insane? like, imagine if part of your job was to move globes away from europe to NA every single day.

i was thinking, what do they do in australia? it's literally impossible to naturally position a globe to show australia. you have to turn it upside down. so do you just leave it showing china and you're on the bottom? because that would be humiliating. i can't see australian ikea people moving globes to show china every night. imagine if THAT was part of your job. (i'd rather die). or do you turn the globe upside down so it looks like australia's on top, because that would be ridiculous.

you can't win. what's even the point of staying all the way down there? stubbornness, i think. you should just all move up here. 20 million people? we can handle that. then you'd be rightside up for a change.

[JMarkSnow2012]

If you put your globe on a high shelf then you can position it so you're looking up at Australia (and New Zealand). But make sure you follow the assembly instructions for the shelf unit, and fix it securely to the wall.

[zekekelso]

Isn't this what globe look like down there? And I assume they spin the wrong way too.

[thatsnotmypuppy]

You just tilt it so the top of Australia is basically where the equator is.

[Faster]

i went to ikea this morning when it opened to buy this armchair (it looks better in the pictures tbh), and when i was walking through the showroom all the globes were intentionally positioned to face north america. they literally re-position the globes every night to show NA. isn't that insane? like, imagine if part of your job was to move globes away from europe to NA every single day.

i was thinking, what do they do in australia? it's literally impossible to naturally position a globe to show australia. you have to turn it upside down. so do you just leave it showing china and you're on the bottom? because that would be humiliating. i can't see australian ikea people moving globes to show china every night. imagine if THAT was part of your job. (i'd rather die). or do you turn the globe upside down so it looks like australia's on top, because that would be ridiculous.

you can't win. what's even the point of staying all the way down there? stubbornness, i think. you should just all move up here. 20 million people? we can handle that. then you'd be rightside up for a change.

Just because it is you. North and South (and East and West) are arbitrary and have no actual meaning beyond what we give them.

This is just as geographically correct as a traditional map.

Mind you there is some logic to how we orientate the East/West divide because of the cultural significance of it and the positioning of the only major land mass break.

[baron-pierreIV]

My globe (pre-break-up of the USSR) just sits on my coffee table. Makes a nice prop; and since I can't afford those Mercator globes of old, this one that I got at a thrift store, will just have to do. I like it.

[krow]

This is just as geographically correct as a traditional map.

no, faster that's even more ridiculous than puppy saying that you can just move the globe so australia is in the center of the world (lol sad).

the earth really DOES look like your traditional globe. when astronauts in space stand up straight and look at the earth, they see the north pole on the top and the south pole at the bottom. the earth is meant to be viewed, by humans, the traditional way. even if we maps and our perspectives were oriented to the think that north was south, when viewing the earth from afar australia would always be rightside up. your upside down map just doesn't exist unless you view it upside down, which admittedly is easier to do in space because there's no gravity, which i guess means that astronauts, if their ship were upside down, would see the earth that way too and that there really isn't an up or down at all. OH MY GOD faster, this is really crazy.

i think we should get high together sometime.

[Sir Rols]

Hmmm. Dunno how I'd feel about being from Up Over rather than Down Under.

[JMarkSnow2012]

My globe (pre-break-up of the USSR) just sits on my coffee table. Makes a nice prop; and since I can't afford those Mercator globes of old, this one that I got at a thrift store, will just have to do. I like it.

I tried putting my globe on the middle one of my three nesting coffee tables.

Turns out I hadn't quite thought that one through.

[Faster]

no, faster that's even more ridiculous than puppy saying that you can just move the globe so australia is in the center of the world (lol sad).

the earth really DOES look like your traditional globe. when astronauts in space stand up straight and look at the earth, they see the north pole on the top and the south pole at the bottom. the earth is meant to be viewed, by humans, the traditional way. even if we maps and our perspectives were oriented to the think that north was south, when viewing the earth from afar australia would always be rightside up. your upside down map just doesn't exist unless you view it upside down, which admittedly is easier to do in space because there's no gravity, which i guess means that astronauts, if their ship were upside down, would see the earth that way too and that there really isn't an up or down at all. OH MY GOD faster, this is really crazy.

i think we should get high together sometime.

Orientation of a map has nothing to do with spacial position. And spacial position is not as easily determined as you make it seem. Because in what view are you looking? From within our own system? From within the arm of the galaxy we are on? From the point of view of the galaxy? Or the galaxy cluster?

Throughout history there has always been considerable variation in the orientation of maps. None of which are wrong. The standards and how we describe location is arbitrary and comes out of cultural, political and social norms.

[JMarkSnow2012]

Orientation of a map has nothing to do with spacial position. And spacial position is not as easily determined as you make it seem. Because in what view are you looking? From within our own system? From within the arm of the galaxy we are on? From the point of view of the galaxy? Or the galaxy cluster?

Throughout history there has always been considerable variation in the orientation of maps. None of which are wrong. The standards and how we describe location is arbitrary and comes out of cultural, political and social norms.

Ms sexycanadiansonice was referring specifically to the viewpoint of astronauts, none of whom have ever really left earth orbit (given that the Moon orbits the Earth) and none of whom have ever been in a polar orbit. Hence they will see the poles as the most fixed points in their frame of reference- and there's been a decided shortage of astronauts who think of the southern hemisphere as home.

[zekekelso]

To be clear, astronauts DO NOT necessarily see the world the way most globes are made, with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom.

Below is one of the most famous picture of the earth taken from space. Antarctica is at roughly 9/10 o'clock. The day/night terminator runs North/South along Africa, with South Africa at the left.

[JMarkSnow2012]

To be clear, astronauts DO NOT necessarily see the world the way most globes are made, with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom.

Below is one of the most famous picture of the earth taken from space. Antarctica is at roughly 9/10 o'clock. The day/night terminator runs North/South along Africa, with South Africa at the left.

Meh.

That was a Christmas snapshot and he'd probably had too much Glühwein.