I actually thought the questioner was a bit too verbose for the SO format. It read more like a blog post. Too much irrelevant setup. (Does it matter if he's using JS and HTML here? Or how big his tiles are in pixels?)
It's an interesting problem and a good read though. The pictures demonstrate the problem and accepted solution well.
I respectfully disagree. I thought the questioner showed exceptional initiative in properly explaining their question.
When someone's asking for help, not enough information means gurus waste valuable time in the following ways:
(1) Explaining things the questioner already knows
(2) Answering the wrong question because it wasn't phrased clearly enough
(3) Jumping to the wrong conclusion because key details were omitted
(4) Being unable to reach a conclusion and having to ask for more information because key details were omitted
OTOH if you're too verbose, the worst that can happen is that the guru answering your question has to use his/her scroll wheel to skim to the most important parts.
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