Chas. Owens wrote:
Like a true Texan* (grin), he skewed the numbers to make Texas look
bigger than it is. It is between 2.4** and 2.5*** when you include
...
* I am resident of Virgina, so I have no axe to grind; I am just
looking for a definitive answer.
** random sites on the Internet
*** wikipedia: 663267/261797 = 2.5335
Ouch.
But, back to Perl.... I didn't get an answer to my follow-up question:
So, it's because <<this>> is so much bigger than «this», "this", or
'this'?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chas. Owens wrote:
*** wikipedia: 663267/261797 = 2.5335
As for skewing the numbers.... Actually, I just grabbed the land areas
from the text of the two Wikipedia articles (570,380 /261,797~=2.1787).
I didn't even notice that I was getting land area only. I didn't even
see the "total area" that was conveniently available in the summary
boxes. Really. I swear it.
As a matter of fact, I've always been sensitive to the perception that
Texans are braggarts. We had a family move to our area from California
when I was young. They irritated me so much by their continual claims of
California's superiority that I decided I never wanted to appear that
obnoxious to anyone else, even if I am proud of my home state. Too many
Texans are like a friend of mine who has a sign by his front door:
"Never ask a man where he's from: if he's from Texas, he'll tell you; if
he isn't, there's no point in embarrassing him."
Makes me cringe, even if it /is/ all in fun.
I told an Alaskan friend about that sign, and that's when he told me
that if we didn't shut up about it, Alaska would split itself in half
and make Texas the /third/ largest state. I suppose it's a measure of
Texas pride that I was in my forties before I knew that Alaska was
/that/ much bigger than Texas.
=thom
--
Numbers are like people; torture them enough and they'll tell you anything.
