The Macho Men of Mercator
Mer.ca.tor, adj (ca. 1758): of, relating to, or drawn on the Mercator projection…Mercator projection, n, [Gerardus Mercator] (ca. 1881): a conformal map projection of which the meridians are usually drawn parallel to each other and the parallels of latitude are straight lines whose distance from each other increases with their distance from the equator.
I guess that you, too, is finding it hard to decipher the word Mercator (and its derivative) even with that definition by Merriam Webster. But it’s easy to understand why talent manager Jonas Gaffud called his agency Mercator because he finished B.S. Geography from UP (Diliman).
In a sense, Jonas is an “anthropologist” who can spot star material from a mile away. And what a good harvest Mercator (Artist and Model Management) has made in the past seven years!
Miss Universe-Philippines Venus Raj, a Mercator talent, has already written about her female colleagues at the agency in her Major, Major column in The STAR. Here now is the honor roll of Mercator’s Macho Men:
• Mikael Daez — He’s the “executive” leisurely enjoying a burger at his desk in a fast food ad and is now seen as Lumad, an uripon, in Amaya, the GMA 7’s hit series starring Marian Rivera. Mikael is also in the cast of the remade Temptation Island.
• JC Tiuseco — The first Filipino Survivor has gone a long way (well, almost!) in his career, hosting a TV show (X-Life) and playing Ahmed in GMA’s Sisid (with Jackie Rice as female lead).
• Victor Basa — He was in the cast of the just-concluded TV5 soap Nagbabagang Bulaklak and is now in Bangis, also on TV5. Victor continues his hosting stints at events and guest appearances in provincial sorties.
• Ervic Vijandre — A La Salle varsity player (and reported to be Marian Rivera’s former boyfriend), he started as a commercial model and was introduced to showbiz as a finalist in Survivor Celebrity Edition. He plays Kidlat in Captain Barbell.
• Ian Batherson — A StarStruck 5 discovery, he graduated to a “higher level” as a finalist in Survivor Celebrity Edition. He plays rich boy Dexter in Sisid.
Mercator Map Projection - News
1758): of, relating to, or drawn on the Mercator projection…Mercator projection, n, [Gerardus Mercator] (ca. 1881): a conformal map projection of which the meridians are usually drawn parallel to each other and the parallels of latitude are straight
It so happened that Fuller, whose architecture and whose quest for an alternative lifestyle helped inspire the hippie movement of the 1960s, also created an alternative to the conventional Mercator-projection map that he named the Dymaxion map.
The London Underground map is right up there with the Mercator projection in the cartographic pantheon. Designer Harry Beck replaced assumptions of geographic accuracy with principles of electrical wiring diagrams to create an entirely new way of
Painted into a corner detail of a map of the Arctic by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Photograph: Stapleton Collection/Corbis Knowing for centuries the world is round, why do we still search the four corners of the world?
Another transforms a gallery space of flat walls and right-angel corners via digital manipulation into an elliptical/spherical map, in a kind of reverse Mercator process and projection the observer can also get caught into, resulting in a TV instant
Introduction to Map Projections : GeoJunk.com
I remember back in middle school my geography teacher taking an intact orange peel (I still wonder how he was able to remove it in nearly one perfect piece) and slamming it up against the chalk board. Flattening the once round peel against the board caused it to tear apart in several places, and even then it wouldn’t lay completely flat against the board. The teacher’s point, of course, was that a 3-dimensional sphere like the Earth, or an orange, cannot be translated onto a 2-dimensional surface without completely ripping it apart or producing significant distortion. Such has been the dilemma of cartographers for centuries, who have tried in vain to create a 2d map free of distortion or error.
Map projections were developed as a way to represent the 3d earth on a 2d surface while (in most cases) minimizing some type of distortion at the expense of others. Which map projection is used (such as in a GIS ) really depends on what the map-maker intends to do with the map. For example, suppose you want to calculate the population density for all the counties in a particular state. Population density is the number of people per area, so it’s critical that the area of the counties are as accurate as possible. In this case you would want to use an equal-area map projection, which maximizes the accuracy of area at the expense of both shape and distance. We’ll start by looking at map projections classified by the type of distortion, either shape, area, distance or direction, they attempt to minimize.
Equal-Area ProjectionsExamples: Albers conic, Gall-Peters, Lambert equal-area, Mollweide
Equal-area projections, as mentioned above, preserve the accuracy of area at the expense of shape and distance. These types of projections are particularly useful in a variety of spatial analyses where area is an important variable – such as when calculating population density. The Albers projection is one of the most common projections used by cartographers and geoscientists. Although the Albers projection does not preserve shape or distance, the distortion between the maps two standard parallels (lines of latitude) is relatively minor, giving the map a more “realistic” appearance. It IS no surprise then that the Albers projection is used often by governments; it is a favorite among the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey, and is the standard projection of British Columbia.
Conformal projections, also known as orthomorphic projections, attempt to conserve shape. They are reasonably successful at accomplishing this at relatively small scales (such as an area the size of U.S. state or smaller). At the larger national or continental scale, however, shapes can become significantly distorted even when using a conformal projection.
Mercator Map Projection - Bookshelf
Rhumb lines and map wars, a social history of the Mercator projection
An account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy examines the limitations and uses of Mercator's clever method of ...Glossary of the mapping sciences
Mercator chart - A chart drawn on the Mercator map projection. ... Mercator map projection - A conformal map projection from the rotational ellipsoid to the ...Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008
The Hammer-Aitoff map projection Mercator Projection The Mercator map projection is an example of a conformal map projection. A conformal map projection is ...The genius of China, 3,000 years of science, discovery, and invention
The Mercator map-projection TENTH CENTURY AD The Mercator map-projection is the map of the world most commonly seen on the walls of schoolrooms, ...Elements of map projection, with applications to map and chart construction
These details have been fully described under the subject title, "Mercator projection," page 101. The two errors to one or both of which all map projections ...Day-to-day Walkthroughs Directory
Mercator projection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Belgian ... Mercator world map Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendata (1569) ...
Mercator projection: Definition from Answers.com
(Click to enlarge) Mercator projection (Jerry Malone) Mercator projection n. A cylindrical map projection in which the meridians and parallels of
Mercator's Projection
A modern Mercator projection map. The property of the Mercator projection map that made it useful to navigators is that it preserves angles. ...
Mercator Projection
A history and discussion of the Mercator projection and the uses and non-uses of the Mercator map, invented in 1569.
Mercator projection
Mercator world map Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigatium Emendate (1569) ... A star map with cylindrical projection similar to Mercator projection, from the ...