Scissortail Park

[traxx]

Attachment 14208

Thanks. I'd honestly forgotten what it looked like. I just remember thinking that it looked like a giant had laid down a huge hypodermic needle in the middle of downtown.

[aDark]

I was enjoying Pete's most recent aerial pics of Myriad garden when I began thinking about the lawn and stage at Myriad and how useful that area is. It made me even more excited for the lawn and stage area at Scissortail park. Does anyone have any idea how much larger the lawn/stage area will be at Scissortail? Can someone with better computer skills than me take an image of the Myriad lawn and overlay the image onto the lawn for Scissortail? If this can be done it would be really helpful to conceptualize what a benefit that lawn will provide.

[Bullbear]

I am not that guy to put that together.. but pulling it up on maps and comparing I'd say the Myriad gardens area is less than a 1/4 the size of Scissortails lawn and stage area.

[Pete]

[Pete]

I was enjoying Pete's most recent aerial pics of Myriad garden when I began thinking about the lawn and stage at Myriad and how useful that area is. It made me even more excited for the lawn and stage area at Scissortail park. Does anyone have any idea how much larger the lawn/stage area will be at Scissortail? Can someone with better computer skills than me take an image of the Myriad lawn and overlay the image onto the lawn for Scissortail? If this can be done it would be really helpful to conceptualize what a benefit that lawn will provide.

Here is a close approximation with the Myriad Gardens lawn outlined in red:

[hoya]

Holy crap, that's gonna be huge.

[aDark]

Wow!! Thanks Pete - you never fail. That is even bigger than I was imagining. This park is going to be amazing. I hope the folks in charge of programming are able to keep the stage in use or at least make it open to the public!

Thanks!!

[dankrutka]

Posting Myriad Gardens lawn over Scissortail reminds me of one of my favorite simple geography sites to use to use with students compare countries' sizes: https://thetruesize.com/.

[AP]

^^^I love that site! I've shown it to so many people and it always blows their minds.

[Ross MacLochness]

Posting Myriad Gardens lawn over Scissortail reminds me of one of my favorite simple geography sites to use to use with students compare countries' sizes: https://thetruesize.com/.

TIL Oklahoma is bigger than Iceland!

[David]

Oh wow. I went into that assuming I already had a good grasp on comparative country sizes, and then was blown away when I typed in Russia and Canada started dragging them around.

[jccouger]

Its weird how the poles skew the size on maps. Not really sure why that happens, but when you drag Greenland around it becomes tiny.

[KayneMo]

Its weird how the poles skew the size on maps. Not really sure why that happens, but when you drag Greenland around it becomes tiny.

It's because in reality, the circumference of the latitudes get smaller as you go away from the equator, yet the Mercator projection distorts the latitudes to all be the same size, as if the globe were a cylinder.

[jccouger]

It's because in reality, the circumference of the latitudes get smaller as you go away from the equator, yet the Mercator projection distorts the latitudes to all be the same size, as if the globe were a cylinder.

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.

[dankrutka]

Its weird how the poles skew the size on maps. Not really sure why that happens, but when you drag Greenland around it becomes tiny.

All flat maps are projections because putting a round globe on a flat surface requires distortion in some form. So, all mapmakers have to make a decision about what they want to be accurate and what can be less accurate. The Mercator Projection of political boundaries is the most common map in schools and elsewhere and, as the video shows, it emphasized getting country shape correct at the expense of country size. That Greenland, an island 1/14th the size of the African continent, is the same size as Africa is the most dramatic example. Here's the explanation. It's a great video I use when teaching teachers to teach geography:

[Zuplar]

I find this map stuff fairly interesting. I did a little reading a few months back and saw where a lot of schools are transitioning to a map that does a better job of showing correct size. Can't remember what it's called but seems like the Mercator is slowly being phased out, or at the very least supplemented.

[zefferoni]

iirc Mercator gained prevalence over other projections as a navigational map. The size of countries is wrong, but direction/bearing is maintained. Other projections are better for reference maps, but don't do as good a job for navigation.

[Timshel]

My favorite video/clip on this subject comes from the West Wing.

https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY

Edit: I'm not smart enough to embed a video. Hopefully a link will suffice.

[dankrutka]

As that video points out, Google Maps still uses the Mercator Projection because it still works for accurate directions. The Mercator is useful, it's just important to use others maps too and understand its limitations.

[Pete]

[dcsooner]

looks really desolate now. that parking lot is terrible

[HangryHippo]

looks really desolate now. that parking lot is terrible

Well, yeah. It's under construction.

[dcsooner]

the parking lot?

[HangryHippo]

the parking lot?

I thought you meant the scene as a whole, but I was just pointing out the foreground is all under construction. The parking lot will surely be developed at some point. It's prime property.

[dankrutka]

I don't understand why this parking lot isn't getting developed. It's arguably the most valuable land in OKC. The developers already know what's going in around it... why the wait?