Everywhere you go, you see 16:9 widescreen television screens playing regular 4:3 video programs stretched out to fit across the whole screen. You see these in airports, banks, bars, and offices. Maybe you even see this in your own home.

Presumably, the owners of these TV screens can’t bear to see all those extra black pixels on the left and right sides going to waste. The thought of not using those pixels — pixels that cost hundreds of dollars! — is so unbearable that the owner is willing to tolerate the fact that everyone and everything they see on the screen is literally 50% wider/fatter than they are supposed to be.

To me, the sight of such a stretched-out, distorted screen is utterly unbearable. Totally unwatchable. It might as well be upside down to me, the people look so wrong. And yet to millions of people, this is normal and acceptable. Can they not see that it looks completely wrong? I mean, honestly: Can they not tell the difference? MORE…

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Just thought I’d post a couple world maps to compare with my own drawing.

First, let’s see what the big shots say over at Rand McNally:

Not bad. Almost as accurate as mine.

Let’s see how I compare to the 17th century cartographer Nicolas Visscher:

I think I kicked his ass.

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