Interesting Video about Opposites and Assumptions

[Rick TYler]

Two comments:

1. The map is "true" as long as you still accept the Mercator projection and northern hemispherical predominance. Take a look at this Website and watch the video: http://www.petermoor.nl/overig/worldmap/. I don't know about you, but it hurts my brain.

2. Just because it's different, doesn't mean all differences work equally well. The US Navy used to name aircraft like this: F6F, which meant the sixth fighter design (the first "F") from Grumman (manufacturer code "F"). If the same airplane was manufactured by a different company, it would have a different designator. The torpedo plan TBF (first torpedo bomber design from Grumman) was called a TBM if it was made by General Motors.

The Army Air Corps (now the US Air Force) was -- some Naval aviators say -- confused by this nomenclature and developed the simpler system of just numbering planes by type. The B-17 was the 17th bomber design considered by the Air Corps, and the P-38 was the 38th "pursuit" plane (fighter). To the Air Force, information about manufacturer did not need to be embedded in the type label.*

The Air Force and the Navy each had a system that made sense to them. It did not, however, make sense to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara who famously talked about the F4H and the Air Force F-110 as if they were different aircraft, not realizing that they were just the Navy and Air Force labels for the same airplane. After embarrassing himself, McNamara ordered all the services to use the same nomenclature. Faced with the insurmountable problem of teaching Air Force types something new, the Navy and Marines adopted the Air Force system.

As much as I like making fun of the Air Force, their system of using an arbitrary label to identify a physical object was simpler than using one that embedded information in the label itself. It also made it easier for a casual user of the information (to which category I would not normally assign the SecDef, but that's a different issue) to understand what is being discussed. This principal, of not embedding too much information directly in a label, is good practice in relational database design, too, but that's a different mini-essay.

* If you have noticed missing numbers in the series, such as there being no "B-16," there are always planes developed in very low numbers for evaluations and/or testing. The F-17, for example, was the competitor to the F-16 during evaluations and testing. When the Air Force went with the F-16 (Air Force fighter pilots not understanding how to turn on the second engine) the Navy took the design and it evolved into the F-18.