First trials of the Deparochialiser

[fivemack]

Did you know that the US was more than 41 times the size of Portugal and Belarus combined? That Russia was more than 405 times the size of Denmark? That India was just under 78 times the size of Lower Saxony?

This kind of useful information is a side-effect of a proxy I've always wanted to write to remove the parochialisms in the CIA World Factbook - it's of little use to point out that some place is twice the size of Oregon. I haven't quite figured out how to set it up as a proxy yet (and also would rather avoid things that could be construed as imitating the CIA]

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Irritating though it can be, the Factbook is presumably funded by US citizens' taxation, so it's not too surprising that that's their intended audience :/ (And my taxes, come to that. You can thank me for a few digits of Kazakhstan's GDP on that website, or something)

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Make it a greasemonkey script, perhaps?

(S)

[(Anonymous)]

What's that in London buses?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

How about "localizer"? I don't see that knowing, or not knowing, the size of Belarus or Portugal is inherently more or less parochial than knowing, or not knowing, the size of Oregon. But people around Belarus are more likely to know about it than Oregon, and people around Oregon are more likely to know about it than Belarus.

And that publication is, after all, a US publication; relating things to stuff relatively around us is just good writing.