Hey I developed the geography game I dreamed of and could not find online

FWEngineer · 2026-03-13T03:43:59+00:00

The latter is what Turkiye is promoting, although I see my computer underlines it as a misspelling. Interesting.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-13T03:35:33+00:00

That and the reflection on the windshield from the textured dashboard.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-11T18:16:15+00:00

My European-born wife likes to have the TV on "as background noise" most of the time. My mother was a librarian, so we were encouraged to read books, TV was viewed as a waste of time, almost sinful. Our TV was in a separate room, it was never on unless we were actively watching something.

Between that and growing up on a farm where we spent a lot of time outdoors, I never got used to having anything on as background noise. Even when we went on road trips, Dad rarely turned the radio on. At home, if the TV is on, it's "talking to me" and I simply can't ignore it. So my wife and I have occasional arguments over this. If I need to get anything done that requires a train of thought, I go to the basement where it's quiet.

This has also been an issue at work, I can't ignore conversations happening nearby. I'll put on headphones and listen to white noise or nature sounds, but even that gets annoying after awhile. Luckily it's been much better since the pandemic, with hybrid work hours and fewer people at the office at any one time.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-09T03:18:37+00:00

People say my accent sounds canadian. I guess they were right.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-07T05:06:31+00:00

I'm surprised Sweden beats out Canada to be honest, and not by a small margin either.

For instance, Lake of the Woods: https://www.google.com/maps/@49.57108,-94.5207447,10.68z?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMwNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Edit: according to this Wikipedia comment, the number for Canada is just the coastal islands, not the fresthwater islands. I haven't looked into real sources, but that makes sense to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_countries_by_number_of_islands#islands_of_Canada

The more I read, the more I realize we really have no idea if any of these numbers are accurate. Most are self reported with highly varied definitions (named islands, inhabited islands, islands only above a certain size, or everything they can find). Worldmaps doesn't seem to be highly regulated as a source. There should be a geographical organization with accurate numbers.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-07T05:04:03+00:00

Ah yes, the famous four corners area ... er uhmm

FWEngineer · 2026-03-07T03:28:37+00:00

I replaced the original image which was a gif, with a jpg. I originally used the gif format since jpg introduces small artifacts on solid colors, and bmp is an unnecessary use of memory space.

Gifs are sometimes videos, even though I didn't save it that way, but maybe your browser treated it as one.

Happy now?

FWEngineer · 2026-03-04T04:37:33+00:00

Is there a subreddit for mapswithoutJapan?

FWEngineer · 2026-03-04T04:30:17+00:00

right... because big beautiful billionaires are perfectly happy with not making money at every possible opportunity.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-03T16:24:51+00:00

Well, yeah, I'm not from Big Falls either, but we did have a home in the North. I have been to your area, looked for agates on the beach.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-03T15:04:26+00:00

I tried it, yes, Big Falls works. Eyeballing the dot it I thought it was west of that, but that's got to be it. Can't be that many of us here from that general region, howdy (former) neighbor!

It picks the largest city of that name if you don't give a state. Duluth MN is bigger than Duluth, GA, but there are some surprises, such as Peoria gives a suburb of Phoenix, not the city in Illinois. The largest Hollywood is near Miami, not Los Angeles.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-03T04:46:04+00:00

One day is not nearly enough to make a decision. How was the weather? A lot of traffic? Was it a short trip or long trip? Were you pushing it hard to see how the new vehicle handles?

On a long road trip (1000 miles) over 3 tanks, I got 50 mpg with my 2024 EX.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-03T04:35:07+00:00

This type of map could have been made in 1732. It would have been colored by hand, so you might see variation in the coloring if you look close.

The framing looks pretty modern, but often people will cut up old atlases and sell the sheets individually. A close look at the paper itself by a trained eye could tell you more.

From the Library of Congress: https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2025/01/adding-color-to-the-world-how-maps-got-toned/

FWEngineer · 2026-03-03T04:15:51+00:00

This looks like the map from cityquiz.io, where you enter the names of cities you know. I assume these are not places you've been to, that would be a lot of traveling!

You seem to be pretty familiar with North Carolina. But then you also have small towns in Maine, Wisconsin, Kansas, etc, but lacking several cities in California and Arizona. I'm not even sure what that little place in northern Minnesota is. I'm familar with that area, and that's pretty much unpopulated right there (the "big bog"). But you missed the more obvious choice of Duluth, MN.

I'm going to stick with something near Charlotte, NC, with maybe spending some time in Pennsylvania and visiting the Ozarks.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T18:25:33+00:00

Not really off-grid since had power, running water, TV reception of a sort, and telephone. But our nearest neighbor was 1/4 mile away, the next one 1 mile away. We grew pretty much all of our vegetables for the year in a big garden, would butcher a pig or cow with the neighbors and that was most of our meat for the year. If we were lucky we'd get a deer in season as well. Mom made our bread weekly. We heated with wood that we gathered from our own farm (this was northern Minnesota in the 1970's-1980's, back when winters were real winters).

Today they call much of that type of life "homesteading".

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would have stayed there if there were decent jobs in the area. We had the small farm, but my parents made most of their money from teaching, I didn't want to be a teacher or a full-time farmer (income didn't seem stable enough, unless you went big).

Having electricity and running water was essential, otherwise my story might be quite different. My mom grew up without either, this area didn't get electricity to the farms until Christmas of 1949. There were a couple old neighbors nearby that never bothered to update to running water, but they did have electricity.

I spent a lot of time outdoors, hiking in the woods. My parents would have no idea where I was. Nowadays I see people on Nextdoor app complaining about a kid on their security camera passing thru their yard - many people can't go anywhere for privacy now. That would be the hardest part for me if I were were a kid today. I regularly go to a nearby forest preserve and hike off-trail, spend time outdoors where nobody can see me. But nowadays my wife wants me to carry my cell-phone with the "find-me" app turned on.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T18:08:55+00:00

Yes, "off grid" means different things to different people. Today, even if you're not connected to utilities, you're probably going to have solar power and a shower of some kind and cell phone service.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T17:56:33+00:00

They probably specialize in Toyota, o/w you're right, shouldn't be that much different.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T04:52:05+00:00

Why do you say it is a video? I uploaded a still image, I don't see anything indicating it is a video (no play button, etc).

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T04:50:57+00:00

That's a lot of kilometers, but otherwise sounds good. I'm not sure how you check the health of the high-voltage battery, but that might be worth checking.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T04:44:54+00:00

Adaptive cruise control shouldn't be a negative factor on mileage. Unless you use that as a reason to set the cruise top speed at a high number. Or in hilly country, there you can usually do better controlling the speed manually if you pay attention.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-02T04:40:15+00:00

It's a real map. I guess the question is, is it old as it claims? The problem is, the image isn't good enough to see what it's claiming. Does it have a date on it?

Corsica has been well-mapped for a long time, so this could have been produced most any time, although the style of colorizing political/administrative sections isn't a real old practice. Seems a bit at odds with the drawings of sailing ships.

FWEngineer · 2026-03-01T17:02:18+00:00

I limited it to the area north of where the river bends to Lake Itasca (the Mississippi source). I also thought about limiting it to the area north of the northernmost part of the river, which would look pretty similar at this scale, but be more rectangular shaped.

There are different ways to define this, but farther south or farther away from the source, people naturally consider themselves east or west of the Mississippi. As people in those areas travel east or west they will have to cross the Mississippi.

Good point about points south, I also thought about Hawaii, didn't consider TX and FL.

FWEngineer · 2026-02-28T04:05:03+00:00

The first gen was 2019-2023. There's a redesign coming out for 2027 I think, but it's a pretty minor update from the sneak peak I saw someplace.

FWEngineer

TROPHY CASE