The pins got me thinking are they the most visited places in the world by tourists?
― Dan Worsley, Friday, 12 April 2024 16:35 (five months ago) link
I think thats right, and would explain why the coastal strips are yellow in some places, much more so than adjacent interiors
― anvil, Friday, 12 April 2024 16:43 (five months ago) link
the thing that sticks out to me is yellow in the southwestern us, some of those places are podunkville
Canyons?
― anvil, Friday, 12 April 2024 16:44 (five months ago) link
getting close Dan
― Ste, Friday, 12 April 2024 16:45 (five months ago) link
Well, I mean you almost nailed it but the specific is different
I found it by googling but I won't spoil
― StanM, Friday, 12 April 2024 17:15 (five months ago) link
cool you can help with the replies, when i aint' here but dan almost got it so might not be long before a result.
― Ste, Friday, 12 April 2024 18:37 (five months ago) link
Something to do with transport? Highest concentration of cars, busiest roads, something like that?
― Zelda Zonk, Saturday, 13 April 2024 01:28 (five months ago) link
Airbnb density?
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 13 April 2024 01:37 (five months ago) link
Immigrant proportion of population?
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 13 April 2024 01:38 (five months ago) link
it's related to/a consequence of what Dan guessed
― StanM, Saturday, 13 April 2024 02:38 (five months ago) link
extensive underground cave networks?
canon cameras are sold
elevation above or below sea level since all the mountains have been levelled recently.
― Stevo, Saturday, 13 April 2024 07:33 (five months ago) link
your second one is very close, combine with Dan's guess :-)
― StanM, Saturday, 13 April 2024 08:06 (five months ago) link
Something to do with where tourist photos have been geotagged?
― salsa shark, Saturday, 13 April 2024 08:32 (five months ago) link
I would call that 99% correct - I hope Ste agrees but I'll reveal...
it's a "touristiness" heatmap of the most photographed places based on photographs submitted to Panoramio. -> https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2012/01/world-tourism-heatmaps.html
― StanM, Saturday, 13 April 2024 08:51 (five months ago) link
That explains some of the more remote pins. Niagara Falls, Pyramids etc
― Dan Worsley, Saturday, 13 April 2024 08:55 (five months ago) link
Looks like it, explains the canyons and the coastal strips too
― anvil, Saturday, 13 April 2024 09:56 (five months ago) link
yeah i'll take that
― Ste, Saturday, 13 April 2024 13:07 (five months ago) link
that was great! thanks :-)
― StanM, Saturday, 13 April 2024 15:19 (five months ago) link
https://i.ibb.co/yR7Rn5b/map.png
― StanM, Saturday, 4 May 2024 16:35 (four months ago) link
why is that so small? hmm
― StanM, Saturday, 4 May 2024 16:37 (four months ago) link
PAL regions
― adam t. (abanana), Saturday, 4 May 2024 16:38 (four months ago) link
i'm wrong, japan wasn't PAL.
― adam t. (abanana), Saturday, 4 May 2024 16:42 (four months ago) link
let's try another site then, this shouldn't be shrunk like the first attempt:
https://i.postimg.cc/hGKjB3gf/map.gif
― StanM, Saturday, 4 May 2024 16:48 (four months ago) link
My first guess (daylight saving time) was wrong but I'm also thinking it's tech relatedExcludes some EU+EFTA members like Poland, Hungary etcInclusion of all those oversea territories is probably key
― Nabozo, Saturday, 4 May 2024 19:47 (four months ago) link
western europe, australia and new zealand, antarctica, japan, hong kong, a bunch of island nations.
japan and hong kong seem significant, but why antarctica?
― adam t. (abanana), Saturday, 4 May 2024 23:01 (four months ago) link
the exclusion of the US and Canada seems important
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 5 May 2024 00:09 (four months ago) link
that one green dot just north of venezuela appears to be bonaire (dutch). the other caribbean green dots are too crowded for me to make out, but they're *not* dutch
also curious that hong kong and macau are included
― mookieproof, Sunday, 5 May 2024 00:38 (four months ago) link
I was thinking signatories to an Antarctic treaty or something but that doesn't check out. Must be something regulatory though, given how the overseas territories of a country all line up.
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 5 May 2024 01:17 (four months ago) link
I'm guessing some sort of environmental regulation.
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 5 May 2024 01:30 (four months ago) link
Or banking regulations? It seems neither Isle of Man or the Channel Islands are green. Another oddity: Estonia and Latvia are green but Lithuania isn't.
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 5 May 2024 02:28 (four months ago) link
None of the guesses are even close so far.a clue: green means not
― StanM, Sunday, 5 May 2024 04:52 (four months ago) link
side of the road people drive on?
― Stevo, Sunday, 5 May 2024 12:50 (four months ago) link
Do they have a side of the road in Antarctica?
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 5 May 2024 13:02 (four months ago) link
Given Stan's hint, I'm guessing the green countries do not have a law discriminating against something that the other countries do. A bit flummoxed by Antarctica though.
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 5 May 2024 13:05 (four months ago) link
Antarctica, remote Island Nations, Western Europe, Australia/NZ, that don't have something.
Most of these places are either isolated, tiny, or likely to have controls of some sort. So its some kind of bad flora/fauna/disease that they don't have
― Tow Law City (cherry blossom), Sunday, 5 May 2024 14:39 (four months ago) link
Lithuania and Poland the counter to that, if there are no border checks?
― Tow Law City (cherry blossom), Sunday, 5 May 2024 14:41 (four months ago) link
one of those guesses is right, cherry blossom!
― StanM, Sunday, 5 May 2024 15:13 (four months ago) link
No rabies?
― emil.y, Sunday, 5 May 2024 18:57 (four months ago) link
CORRECT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies#Rabies-free_jurisdictions
― StanM, Sunday, 5 May 2024 19:16 (four months ago) link
:( sigh
(I got dogbit this past week and have to get the rabies shots starting tomorrow)
― your dog is fed and no one cares (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, 5 May 2024 19:31 (four months ago) link
oh no! just do it though, if you get symptoms it's too late :(
― StanM, Sunday, 5 May 2024 19:35 (four months ago) link
Yeah I know. I thought we found the dog but it was the wrong dog. Bleahhhhh
― your dog is fed and no one cares (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, 5 May 2024 20:08 (four months ago) link
maybe I was a little bit too fast with my hint, I'm too eager to help sometimes :-)
― StanM, Sunday, 5 May 2024 20:18 (four months ago) link
Ha, nice one, Lithuania.
― pplains, Sunday, 5 May 2024 20:28 (four months ago) link
Woooooo! Thank you cherry blossom & StanM, wouldn't have got there without those prompts but it totally clicked into place and I was reasonably confident in the rabies guess.
― emil.y, Sunday, 5 May 2024 20:55 (four months ago) link
Our bats would like a word with the author of this map
― Nabozo, Monday, 6 May 2024 08:20 (four months ago) link
Part of the reason I was confident is because a few years ago I had to look up whether British bats had rabies (injured bat in the house). The emergency vet just called it rabies, but it's a different strain of rabies virus ("European Bat Lyssavirus") and so the UK can maintain its rabies-free claim (based on what the site I'm looking at right now calls "classical rabies", nice nice).
― emil.y, Monday, 6 May 2024 13:03 (four months ago) link
I remember being told as a kid that France had rabies, but googling it, it seems it's been free since 2001
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 6 May 2024 13:12 (four months ago) link
I think pet passports were introduced at about that time? That would make sense as part of an international push to eradicate it.
― emil.y, Monday, 6 May 2024 13:21 (four months ago) link