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Getting some perspective

2020-10-27

Before I begin — I decided to try this format of multiple unrelated "posts" in one file. I hope it's not too confusing.

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I like looking at maps. Not that I'm a huge map nerd but sometimes I look at a map and aerial photos of my city to get an idea what's where. I plan my longer bike rides this way and it improves my sense orientation when I'm out and about. Sometimes I venture further and choose a foreign country or city. It is a cheap and convenient way to get to know the world (though obviously not as real).

Yesterday was a little different. I'm not sure how I got there, but I ended up in the middle of Russia, looking at the Lena river[a]. I live in a small country that is not the most populated but it is positively crowded compared to what I saw — there is nothing but endless wilderness there. The river is free and untamed, it's meandering flow unrestricted unlike most rivers that I'm used to seeing. By the looks of it, this wilderness is mostly untouched except for some mining cities and a gas line. If you ended up in the middle of it and picked any direction, you would walk for thousands of kilometers before reaching the coast and chances of stumbling upon any humans are close to zero.

Just open your favourite on-line map at these coordinates, zoom in and scroll around:

67°59'46.757"N, 123°2'15.751"E

Then compare it to this place (there is no deeper meaning in why I choose this one, just that the contrast is quite stark):

39°28'49.679"N, 93°46'47.569"W

I was in awe as I am every time I'm shown that our world is huge. We are not close to filling it up, although that doesn't stop us from being close to seriously harming it.

But what probably amazed me even more is that people *do* live there! Not many, but they do. There are a couple larger cities (such as Norilsk or Yakutsk) that are well known and several small settlements. I can't even begin to imagine the isolation those people must feel! Or maybe they don't and I'm just projecting. How does it feel, living in a city which is farther from any other place than most countries are wide or long?

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[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_(river)

A lost day

Today has been a lost day. This is what I call a day that I've pretty much wasted. I went to bed very late yesterday (or should I say quite early today) after we had an on-line party with colleagues from my team. Since we are working from home there is less chance to hang out and we miss that. We are a close-knit team although we are getting quite large (16 people split in two sub-teams right now). We still had a lot of fun.

The price for that is me being useless today. I got very little sleep and pretty much just pretended to work while playing the Universal Paperclip (what a stupidly addictive game) and doing some minor things like small experiments, attending meetings and helping others with stuff. But mostly being useless.

Oh well, I brought that on myself. Tomorrow will be brighter (because it's a day off for everyone).