Some kind of account of the origins of coneceptual models of geographic space

McNoleg conveys so much, and yet so little, in three pages. Further research reveals the Tessellati and Vectules either never existed, or have succeeded in erasing any trace of their existence from Google, Yahoo, Facebook Graph, etc. It is easy to draw parallels between the raster and vector data formats, though the pigcells of the Tessellati are a much better analogy. What McNoleg fails to mention is what sort of tessellation the Tessellati found to be most successful. A triangular model would simplify the construction of fencing with fewer angles required, but would produce areas in the pen wholly useless to the animal in that the nooks and crannies created by the acute angles would prevent the creature from accessing the area in the first place. Thus, maybe they found that rectangular, or even hexagonal pens worked better. Though, the 90 degrees required for the construction of a rectangular pen are much more common, considering it’s readily available in the hand of any child taunting a friend with the letter “L” on his or her forehead.

The “poly-gones” are a bit more of a stretch. Chances are the name Polly wasn’t even invented at the time, the name Wendy wasn’t around until the writing of Peter Pan. Furthermore, he does not include any differentiation between the single parrot cage, a line of parrot cages, and agglomeration of parrot cages. Whether or not this makes a difference is still up for debate, until then we’ll just have to scratch our heads and wonder what’s going on.

AMac

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