I gave a talk at a the Boston Ruby group last Wednesday. The meeting was generously hosted by the Boston start-up Back Channel Media. On the way out, BCM offered attendees schwag in the form of branded inflatable globes and Slinkies. On Thursday, I suggested to SJ Klein and Seth Schoen that we might be able to use the globe as a research aid during the MIT Mystery Hunt. That seemed like a good idea until they pointed out that there were a few inaccuracies on the map.
Sure enough, a quick glance revealed that:
- Burkino Faso is marked as Upper Volta (it's only been 22 years) with a capital as Duagadougou.
- Rwanda seems to be a small horizontal bar across a country marked both as Ucanda and Buhuno.
- Zimbabn is labeled clearly while Morocco, clearly divided into two countries, is not marked in either of the resulting (and differently colored) states.
- A missing border and a color identical to the ocean (!) renders Egypt completely underwater. Yemen, Iraq, Thailand, Romania, Austria, Croatia, Finland, (whose name is missing), and the eastern quarter of India are better off in that they blend into the ocean but have river colored borders demarcating them from the rest of the sea.
- The Arabian peninsula is host to Qatah, the United Arab Emiraies, and the Saudi capital of Rivaiih.
- A bit to the north, Jurdan borders Irae and Lebanaw.
- The countries Czek and Slovak seem to be located just above Czechoslovakia which, in turn, is just above Huudatn.
- A similar situation happens in Yugoslavia which seems to be next to Monienegro and other more familiar Slavic states.
- Amstercam is right next to the the German city of Roro.
- Swirzerlano sits in the middle of Europe.
- England's Lworpool and Rirmingham are clearly, and clearly incorrectly, marked.
- Both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States are clearly marked while China, despite having dozens of its cities labeled, is not.
- St. Petersburg seems a full 1000+ kilometers from any body of water and closer to Bellarussian than to a port.
- Lapan shows many cities including Tokya, Kyole, and others -- while most seem to be located somewhere off the coast of Lapan in the Pacific ocean.
- The Korean peninsula contains N. Korea and S. Aurla.
- Myanmar is marked as Burma (although I might forgive that one if I had reason to believe it was intentional).
- Malaysia is labeled Malaskia.
- The continent at the South Pole is proudly marked Tarctica.
Of course, this list is extremely incomplete. I've barely looked at cities, rivers, and even some country names and I've barely looked at the degree to which the cities and labels are correct but incorrectly placed. The full list of errata would, in a manner reminscent of English As She Is Spoke, be very, very, long.
While the globe does not bear any markings of a producer (I wouldn't want to take credit for it either), a group of us suspected that we might be able to find the country of origin by locating the one country that was represented completely accurately.
We couldn't find a single one.
