One website that's been down for a bit but I've been meaning to bring back up is FBXL Maps. It's just an openstreetmap implementation with some basic nav features. Setting up that site made me really think about something philosophically. When you look at a map of the world, the entire world is right there, everything there is to see. But then you zoom in on one country, and then you can see everything about that country and there's a bunch more details despite there being everything there is to see in that country. Then you zoom in to a province, and then you see much more detail despite the previous view being everything there was to see about the province. Then you zoom in to a city, and then you see much more detail despite the previous view incorporating everything there was to see about the city. Then you zoom into one neighborhood, and there's so much more detail despite the previous view being everything there is to see about that city, then you zoom in on one street and you can see each building and even though that world map view incorporated the tiny piece of land that the building is on, you never saw that complexity.
Then you put the map away, and you could get deeply into the details of a certain square foot in that plot of land, you could get deeply into one rock you find on that plot of land, you can get deeply into one little part of that rock, and so on and so forth.
The big picture is accurate in that it's a view that incorporates everything on the planet earth, but it's totally inaccurate in that it's a view that makes it impossible to understand the infinite recursive details you see the closer you get to the ground.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 1 year ago
One website that's been down for a bit but I've been meaning to bring back up is FBXL Maps. It's just an openstreetmap implementation with some basic nav features. Setting up that site made me really think about something philosophically. When you look at a map of the world, the entire world is right there, everything there is to see. But then you zoom in on one country, and then you can see everything about that country and there's a bunch more details despite there being everything there is to see in that country. Then you zoom in to a province, and then you see much more detail despite the previous view being everything there was to see about the province. Then you zoom in to a city, and then you see much more detail despite the previous view incorporating everything there was to see about the city. Then you zoom into one neighborhood, and there's so much more detail despite the previous view being everything there is to see about that city, then you zoom in on one street and you can see each building and even though that world map view incorporated the tiny piece of land that the building is on, you never saw that complexity.
Then you put the map away, and you could get deeply into the details of a certain square foot in that plot of land, you could get deeply into one rock you find on that plot of land, you can get deeply into one little part of that rock, and so on and so forth.
The big picture is accurate in that it's a view that incorporates everything on the planet earth, but it's totally inaccurate in that it's a view that makes it impossible to understand the infinite recursive details you see the closer you get to the ground.