The Correct The Map Project

Maps are interesting things. But world maps can be difficult and problematic.

The problem is that the Earth is not round. It is oblate, semi-spherical, more like an egg. It doesn't project well onto a flat surface. Most world maps use the Mercator Projection.

And that's a problem. So maps are distorted to make them fit a 2D surface. Various projections have been used, but good OLD Mercator is the one used most commonly And now we get down to the brass tacks. The Mercator Projection is almost FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. And no one has been arsed to update it to something more realistic. It is grossly unrepresentative to some countries and areas because, guess what!, white men rule/ruled the world. For example, Mercator shows Greenland (area=2.1ish million sq kilometers) almost as large as Africa, which is almost 15 times the size of Greenland. Similar distortions appear throughout.

Well, the Equal Earth people have put in a huge amount of work and redrawn the world map for a new projection. And they've produced several new maps that are quite cool. You can get Africa playing a large central role, the Americas more centered forward, the Oceania meridian with Australia centered forward, and Oceania with the South Pole on top! (a personal favorite of mine - who gets to proclaim that North is up?!)

https://correctthemap.org/

https://equal-earth.com/

The maps can be ordered here:
https://longitudemaps.com/pages/equal-earth-tom-patterson

Microsoft Good News/Bad News

We'll start with the good news.

Microsoft may soon start allowing sysadmins to uninstall the CoPilot AI assistant from managed devices. Specifically, the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot systems. There are a couple of restrictions: "The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed, the Microsoft Copilot app was not installed by the user, and the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days."

This is currently being released in the Dev and Preview builds in the Insider Channel.

FYI, and I was going to post about this but I'm still kinda wrecked over events in December and it didn't happen. MS renamed their Office 365 app to 365 Copilot as they integrated their Copilot system into it. This makes me really glad that I bought licenses for a slightly older version of the stand-alone version of Office and don't touch 365.

Now, they're specifically talking about sysadmins being able to remove these programs from managed devices. That means this is exclusively the realm of larger, usually corporate networks. However, there are so many clever boffin system administrators out there who look out for the little people that within a week or few that instructions will start spreading on how to uninstall them from any Windows 11 system, it'll just take a little time to write up and test. But it'll get out.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot-on-managed-devices/

https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2219256/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot


On the bad news side, Windows Media Player. AKA WMP, is a decent product for ripping music CDs to formats including MP3. I've used it myself in the last year when my Apple USB DVD R/W went on walkabout, I was able to buy another at an estate sale last year. As most media players work, WMP would read the CD and supply the metadata for the album: album name, song titles, artwork.

Until last month.

Something changed, and it's unknown if MS will fix is. At this time, the only straightforward solution is to manually type all that info - readily available (usually) at Amazon, or rip it using another program which can provide the metadata (lots mentioned in the Slashdot article).

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/microsoft_windows_media_player_forgets/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1742218/microsoft-windows-media-player-stops-serving-up-cd-album-info

An interesting post on Quora re: the invasion/kidnapping in Venezuela

The question, to paraphrase, was that if Obama or Biden had invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, that liberals would be fine with it.

The respondent said, in essence, 'Nope, we wouldn't. Because we have a moral compass. You don't.'

And since it's a fairly short response, I'm going to quote most of it whole:
"You lack an internal moral compass. Your sense of right and wrong depends on what the authority you personally submit to says it is.

People without an inner moral compass literally cannot understand what it feels like to have one. Your sense of morality comes from outside authority, so you believe everyone feels that way.

You like Trump, so you think what Trump does is good. You imagine that people who like Obama think that whatever Obama does is good.

Nope.

Overthrowing a sovereign government to take their stuff is wrong. It was wrong when Trump did it, and it would still be wrong if Obama did it. The fact you struggle to imagine that is a you problem, not a liberal problem."

This is an argument that I need to remember if I ever get into a "discussion" with a Trumper.

I also see a lot of Religious Zealot vs Atheist posts on Quora, and several of them devolve into 'You can't have ethics without religion'. While you can define some ethical guidelines from religion, you can also define some really, really twisted ones from religion. I think I'll take my ethics and morality from logic and observation and readings. Yeah, I may be selectively cutting and pasting to make my personal honor code, but so many religions do the same thing that I don't see much of a difference.

https://qr.ae/pCZFf8

Humble Bundle: Fierce Women of Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror!

65 books for $18!

We've got Sarah Monet, Elizabeth Bear, Vonda McIntyre, Jo Walton, Cherie Priest, Nancy Kress, Catherine Asaro, and Andre Norton, among others! We have John W. Campbell Award winners, Tiptree Award winners, Hugo winners, Nebula winners, Bram Stoker winners, Nebula winners, Philip K. Dick winners, among others!

THAT'S A LOT OF BOOKS, PEOPLE!

All in epub format, which is easily converted to Kindle format via Calibre.

The bundle supports Active Minds, "...the nation's leading nonprofit promoting mental health for young adults ages 14-24. Their focus is on changing the culture around mental health, by changing the way we talk about, care for, and value mental health in our lives and in our communities. They're best known for their National Chapter Network at high schools and universities, an iconic Send Silence Packing suicide-prevention exhibit, Active Minds Speakers, and their new work corporate programs."

It just launched and will be available for another 20 days.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fierce-women-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-open-road-media-books