A jack is a flag flown from a jackstaff, wot is found at the back of a ship or boat.

The UK flag is called the Union Flag (it's a flag and it is a union of various flags and possibly nations too!) but let's face it, given how many people think its called the Union Jack, it doesn't really matter.

If your flag pole at home is somewhat canted then I think you can call it a jackstaff, with a similar justification to the Royal Navy managing to designate their shore bases as ships. For example just up the road is HMS Heron (His Majesty's Ship: Heron).

The Union Flag/Jack is only the flag of the UK by convention and not law. It's a bit wooley, just like our Constitution but it still all works.

My point is that whilst I do enjoy this encoding scheme and it is jolly clever, reality is way more complicated. The UK's flag is pretty complicated but not alone. I'm pretty sure several flags have tassels, which I suppose strays into the coat of arms territory.

How hard do you want to squint!

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xp84 an hour ago | parent [-]

I enjoyed that the Union Flag just gets its own 'preset' - the fact that it's still presiding over a large handful of others makes it a very efficient decision compared to trying to tease out all the necessary shapes to reconstruct it.

I'll admit, I was hoping for some geometric approximations for countries like Brazil, though.

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gerdesj 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

This scheme is OK but not OK. You note the Brazil flag and that's a great example along with the likes of the UK and the US too.

The Brazilian flag is nominally "quite" simple: Green with a yellow/gold parallelogram/rhombus with a blue circle ... then there is the white band and stars. Absolute nightmare to classify.

I thought the UK flag was a bit of a challenge and I remember an art class 50 odd years ago, trying to paint the bloody thing. Little did I know at the time about how Aussies and Kiwi worriers and co would fare! Won't someone think of Hawaiians: their state flag is not something you depict for a quick laugh!

I suppose the US flag is arguably the hardest to depict: Those stars would take ages to draw/paint/dribble. I imagine kids get a box of stars to stick on their depictions in art classes in the US.

	▲	xp84 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What's really hard, together with the quantity of them is that they're white! I haven't actually seen many star stickers used, but agree that's a great idea. Often, when the Flag's depicted in kids' art, paints or paint pens are used, since 'negative space' stars would take forever to do with a blue marker or pencil but is quicker to paint on top of blue. And there's a great deal of artistic license used in terms of their size and color. Or on a small flag, just a lot of tiny white dots!