Sunday, June 14, 2015
Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all,
it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy,
and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy,
or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
This is easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in every country.
--Hermann Goering--
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I've been getting to bed very late the past few nights because I've been playing with GeoGuessr (https://geoguessr.com/). It uses Google maps street view to drop you somewhere in the world, and then you have to figure out where you are using things like the terrain, soil type, crops, which side of the road people drive on, architectural styles, appearance of populace, and so on. You can travel around (slowly! until you figure out the secret for moving faster) and if you are lucky you'll find a sign that might give you a hint as to the language, and if you are very lucky, you might find a highway sign pointing to a town name, and if you are very very lucky you might stumble upon a hotel, resort, or restaurant with a unique name you can find on the internet.
Purists discourage looking up names on the internet, they consider that cheating, but sheesh, even if you have honestly determined you are definitely in France, France is a pretty big country. You have to narrow it down somehow!
In a set, you get five different locations. A perfect score is 5,000 points, so a perfect total for the five is 25,000 points.
I usually come very close on four of them. I've frequently been within mere feet of the target point. I'm usually within 30 miles. (Of course, I'm not above cheating, according to the purists....) But I always completely, utterly, embarrassingly blow one, sometimes by whole continents! South Africa looks a lot like Australia, for Pete's sake! Or the American mid-west. And those central European countries, and south Asian countries, all look alike, and with weird alphabets even if I do find a non-blurred sign, I can't search the internet for it. It's usual I'll get only a few hundred points on those, and a couple times it's been a big fat 0 (you have to be on the wrong side of the globe to get that, DAMN! South Africa is NOT in Kansas!). So my total for five maps usually runs around 18,800 points.
Play with it when you have some time. Don't get discouraged too soon, it does take a little time to figure out how to, uh, cheat. But it's fun, and it's amazing how much of the world looks like Kansas.
And if you do try it, please leave a comment.
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I'm working on one right now --- see my comment attached -------------
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