Comment by j16sdiz
> I've had a staff SWE also claim to me that they generated colliding UUIDv4s,
UUIDv4 is random. Could be a bad PRNG, or just very very very bad luck.
> and a separate staff SWE who worked in GIS claim that circles only exist in map projections and they're always distorted, and that you cannot have a circle IRL, nor project it onto a projection.
It is insanely difficult to project circles. Most of time we just pretend it never exist.
> or just very very very bad luck.
You're underestimating the odds. The odds aren't "bad luck", the odds are "statistical impossibility". Literally any other explanation holds with orders of magnitude higher certainty.
> It is insanely difficult to project circles. Most of time we just pretend it never exist.
Open Google maps, find the equator. That's a circle, rendered on a projection. (But far from the only example possible.)
(And lest I get more objections, a perfectly spherical earth was also an assumption of this assertion that circles don't exist. My coworker attempted to draw/show a circle onto an actual sphere we fortuitously had handy, and no dice.)
(Note the other way exists too: a projection can have a circle rendered on it, though it wouldn't be a circle on an actual sphere.)