> > You can get joke upside-down world maps which show NZ at the centre top. Different views like that *do* look strange. It's interesting how deeply the "standard map view" of the world is ingrained in our minds.
>
> A fact a bit besides the thread subject: I skimmed through the book "Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It" in a bookstore once, and found the section on why women can't read maps. It seems women have a hard time turning the maps in their minds, so they have to turn the maps physically instead. (Women, of course, have other advantages men don't have, but men are generally better at thinking spatially.)
>
> A British publisher made upside-down maps of Great Britain, and advertised that hey would give away 20000 of them for free. Among the people who ordered a free map, only 500 were men.
>
> Trav"that kind of supports the theory, doesn't it?"holt

Ooh, I *hate* using a map that's upside down or sideways. No matter which direction I'm heading in, I *have* to have the map the right way up. It's the same with radar and GPS plotters. They have a choice of "north up", "course up" (your set destination at the top) or "head up" (the way the boat is currently pointing, so the rest of the chart swings around you). Head-up is so completely impossible for me.

Brunnen-"because YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S MOVING!!! Not the background scenery! How can people DO that? Gah!"G