Sunday, April 27, 2008

No news is good news

I live in the land of no-news. Suits me fine, since after living here for almost two decades, I'm slightly afraid of hip-and-happening places. Apart from the absence of globalized marketplaces and entertainment complexes which are so de rigeur for modern city living, I have little to complain about this back-of-beyondness. The no-good surd visited our city just the other day. During his ten-minute speech, we noticed something . That the name of our city had completely escaped his consciousness. He mentioned Jharkhand six times and Jamshedpur, four, but not for once did he utter the name we so wanted to hear, from his lips. I think he didn't learn zis' vaard.

We were a bit depressed at first. Then I saw this cartogram of the US of A. Modified by the quotient of news generated vis-a-vis territory. And realization dawned.

pic courtesy : Strange Maps

Apparently we are in good company. Good company like Topeka, Boise, and Cheyenne, to name just a few. If that sounds incomprehensible, read this. This cartogram, originally from the August 2004 issue of Science News Magazine, where it illustrated an article entitled ‘A Better Distorted View: The Physics of Diffusion Offers A New Way of Generating Maps’. Seems news has a system of redistributing maps. What do you think?

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