mercator
Original: mercator on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Presenter (a man at a podium): Ladies and gentlemen, we all grew up with the Mercator map projection.
Panel 2 (a screen showing a Mercator world map):
Presenter: All of us were mentally devastated when we found out that projecting a spherical surface onto a rectangle produces deformations.
Panel 3:
Presenter: To our great sorrow, we discovered the world is not mostly made of Canada, Russia, Greenland and Antarctica. They abruptly stand at 70 degrees south latitude.
Panel 4:
Presenter: It's time. Take destiny into our own hands.
Panel 5:
Presenter: With the controlled detonation of the world's nuclear bomb supply, we can eject the entire surface of the Earth into space.
Panel 6 (a diagram of the Earth):
Presenter: The surface can then be shaped into a cylinder with all the land kept in the interior, and spun up to create artificial gravity.
Panel 7:
Presenter: The leftover center of the Earth is pre-molten, so it can be injected into the gaps created by the new projection. This will provide valuable heat until we can turn off a way to recreate the warmth of the sun.
Panel 8 (a dark sphere):
Presenter: Beyond the obvious psychological benefits, this will vastly improve geopolitics. Russia is an expansionist power, but this method will literally remove their territory based on exploration on the biggest size of conquest. They'll be unwise for 2000 years.
Panel 9 (a green landmass on a map):
Presenter: Canada's manifest aggressive tendencies will be countered by the now-intentionally larger Greenland and Iceland, much of which are again, kinds of thousand-degree hot iron.
Panel 10 (a green landmass on a map):
Presenter: Europe will become disproportionately subordinate. The decision to divide will be more than offset by the deformations of government.
Panel 11:
Presenter: Antarctica will be five times larger and if you walk too far over it, you fall off of Earth and into space. This is objectively desirable.
Panel 12:
Presenter: The objections are minimal.
Panel 13:
Presenter: The lack of an atmosphere problem could be solved either by becoming a race of mole-people, or sealing off the sides of the cylinder with molten metal.
Panel 14:
Presenter: The lack of a magneto-sphere would mean no more auroras borealis, but science says they're not the source of departed ancestors who came back.
Panel 15 (a textured cylinder/rock object):
Presenter: And yes, the sun will be blotted out for all time. However, we could brighten that light by injecting more heat into the center of the cylinder.
Panel 16 (a black hole/void):
Presenter: This would provide the added benefit of literal bottomless pits, the threat of which would cause children and criminals alike to behave better.
Panel 17:
Presenter: The only people who could conceivably be mad are those killed in the initial detonations, but they're already too dead to be around to be upset!
Panel 18 (audience member raising hand):
Audience member: What precisely would all this cost?
Panel 19:
Presenter: Luckily, once you mostly de-create money, all such numbers have meaning!
Final panel (logo banner): BAHFest Returns
CLICK FOR INFORMATION AND TICKETS!
BAHFest Houston — March 21 — Rice University. Featuring: Kelly Weinersmith, Phil Plait, Patrick Hahn (?), Douglas Wilson, Douglas Nelson, Tidal Mokadem.
BAHFest London — March 22, 7PM — Imperial College. Featuring: Helen Arney, Michael Anderson, Tom Crawford, Maria Lyons, Sarah Cosgriff (?), Lucy Stephens (?), [me].
Votey:
Speech bubble (the presenter, offscreen): Why are you laughing...? Elon Musk didn't laugh!
(Below the speech bubble: a hand-drawn cat looking up.)
Presenter (a man at a podium): Ladies and gentlemen, we all grew up with the Mercator map projection.
Panel 2 (a screen showing a Mercator world map):
Presenter: All of us were mentally devastated when we found out that projecting a spherical surface onto a rectangle produces deformations.
Panel 3:
Presenter: To our great sorrow, we discovered the world is not mostly made of Canada, Russia, Greenland and Antarctica. They abruptly stand at 70 degrees south latitude.
Panel 4:
Presenter: It's time. Take destiny into our own hands.
Panel 5:
Presenter: With the controlled detonation of the world's nuclear bomb supply, we can eject the entire surface of the Earth into space.
Panel 6 (a diagram of the Earth):
Presenter: The surface can then be shaped into a cylinder with all the land kept in the interior, and spun up to create artificial gravity.
Panel 7:
Presenter: The leftover center of the Earth is pre-molten, so it can be injected into the gaps created by the new projection. This will provide valuable heat until we can turn off a way to recreate the warmth of the sun.
Panel 8 (a dark sphere):
Presenter: Beyond the obvious psychological benefits, this will vastly improve geopolitics. Russia is an expansionist power, but this method will literally remove their territory based on exploration on the biggest size of conquest. They'll be unwise for 2000 years.
Panel 9 (a green landmass on a map):
Presenter: Canada's manifest aggressive tendencies will be countered by the now-intentionally larger Greenland and Iceland, much of which are again, kinds of thousand-degree hot iron.
Panel 10 (a green landmass on a map):
Presenter: Europe will become disproportionately subordinate. The decision to divide will be more than offset by the deformations of government.
Panel 11:
Presenter: Antarctica will be five times larger and if you walk too far over it, you fall off of Earth and into space. This is objectively desirable.
Panel 12:
Presenter: The objections are minimal.
Panel 13:
Presenter: The lack of an atmosphere problem could be solved either by becoming a race of mole-people, or sealing off the sides of the cylinder with molten metal.
Panel 14:
Presenter: The lack of a magneto-sphere would mean no more auroras borealis, but science says they're not the source of departed ancestors who came back.
Panel 15 (a textured cylinder/rock object):
Presenter: And yes, the sun will be blotted out for all time. However, we could brighten that light by injecting more heat into the center of the cylinder.
Panel 16 (a black hole/void):
Presenter: This would provide the added benefit of literal bottomless pits, the threat of which would cause children and criminals alike to behave better.
Panel 17:
Presenter: The only people who could conceivably be mad are those killed in the initial detonations, but they're already too dead to be around to be upset!
Panel 18 (audience member raising hand):
Audience member: What precisely would all this cost?
Panel 19:
Presenter: Luckily, once you mostly de-create money, all such numbers have meaning!
Final panel (logo banner): BAHFest Returns
CLICK FOR INFORMATION AND TICKETS!
BAHFest Houston — March 21 — Rice University. Featuring: Kelly Weinersmith, Phil Plait, Patrick Hahn (?), Douglas Wilson, Douglas Nelson, Tidal Mokadem.
BAHFest London — March 22, 7PM — Imperial College. Featuring: Helen Arney, Michael Anderson, Tom Crawford, Maria Lyons, Sarah Cosgriff (?), Lucy Stephens (?), [me].
Votey:
Speech bubble (the presenter, offscreen): Why are you laughing...? Elon Musk didn't laugh!
(Below the speech bubble: a hand-drawn cat looking up.)
Alt text
A many-paneled SMBC comic presenting a deranged scientific lecture. A man stands at a podium delivering a mock-serious proposal: because the Mercator map projection distorts the spherical Earth into a rectangle, he argues we should detonate the world's entire nuclear arsenal to blast the Earth's surface into space, reshape it into a spinning cylinder with all the land on the inside for artificial gravity, and inject the leftover molten core into the gaps. Successive panels show a Mercator world map on a screen, schematic diagrams of the cylindrical Earth, dark spheres, and green landmasses. He claims absurd geopolitical benefits (Russia loses territory, Greenland and Iceland grow, Europe becomes subordinate, Antarctica becomes five times larger so people fall off into space), waves away the loss of atmosphere, magnetosphere, and sunlight as minor, and notes the only people who'd be upset are those killed in the initial detonation, who are conveniently too dead to complain. An audience member asks what it would cost; he replies that once you mostly de-create money, all such numbers stop having meaning. A banner at the bottom advertises 'BAHFest Returns' (Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses festival) with dates and lineups for Houston and London shows. The votey at the end shows a speech bubble reading 'Why are you laughing...? Elon Musk didn't laugh!' above a small hand-drawn cat, implying the ludicrous proposal was pitched in earnest to Elon Musk, who took it seriously.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.