Just goes to show how on board those corporations are with this sort of narcissistic authoritarianismm
Some people, for some inexplicable reason, believe that companies like Google who often voice support for left wing politics do that for any other reason than that it's profitable.
Google relies on (corrupt) collaboration with the US government so they will never disobey their orders to parrot your political beliefs.
This wasn’t a case of Google updating based on a mere suggestion or guessing at what our mad king wants. It’s still silly, it’s still petty, but this article reads (and is titled) like clickbait to me. Instead we should focus on the absurdity of the EO.
MapQuest has chosen to stick with "Lake Ontario", just as they did with "Gulf of Mexico", and are seeing app downloads surge as a result.
Google still defaults to miles for some reason.
I get that these cases have their differences, but I think it’s reasonably thought provoking and worth at least a single moment of attention if we’re already on the topic.
The EO you referenced is about what units the federal government uses, not setting an official system of measurement for the entire US.
It's a decision to comply that quickly and cravenly, presumably because Trump is vindictive, why die on this hill.
Because when the orange one is gone, people will remember what a supremely supine bastard you were, and now you're no longer protected, will punish you hard.
If you express something, it should have a constructive purpose. Sheerly reactive curses rarely fit in that.
Edit:
Again, repeating what already written here: The disagreeing part better formulate an argument. This post is consistent with the message: because again, silent disagreement is very much not constructive.
I feel like trying to make any expression constructive is one of those 'nice in theory' but also 'not a thing that has ever or will ever be done by any human being, because it's an insane inhumane thing to practice' ideals.
You cannot make every expression of opinion constructive. Take the case of this post. There is no need for constructive criticism or expression here, because the people doing this are not doing it out of good will. It then follows that any use of energy to provide that constructive expression is an unnecessary waste of goodwill.
For example, in The Netherlands the official name for The Hague is 's-Gravenhage - but in practice virtually everyone calls it Den Haag, including the government itself. But it won't be on any official document like a passport. Similarly 's-Hertogenbosch is also very often abbreviated to Den Bosch, and calling it by its full name in casual conversation would sound quite pompous.
So what to do? Use the official name everywhere? Use the name people use in practice everywhere? Google Maps went with the colloquial name for Den Haag and the official name for 's-Hertogenbosch, so clearly there is no one-size-fits-all policy being applied.
The same applies to the current renaming. Sure, Trump and a handful of diehard cultists will call it "Lake America", but the US population as a whole is undoubtedly going to stick with the Lake Ontario they know and love for the foreseeable future.
So does Google Maps follow what the country calls it, or what the president calls it?
And if it's showing up as "Lake America" inside of the US on Kagi Maps, it's most likely because of Mapbox, and not Kagi.
https://kagifeedback.org/d/11381-lake-ontario-showing-up-wit...
As of this morning I started seeing new results. Now, a search for "Lake Ontario" returns both names.
As a Kagi customer, I find this was just about the worst way to handle it. I pay for a search engine because I want searches to cater to MY need for accurate and unbiased information. If a search engine can decide that someone else' political expedience is more important, there's a fundamental problem.
In case it was remotely in doubt, Kagi just demonstrated that they have the ability to change the labels that Mapbox gives them. It's fine if there was some implementation glitch if it comes with an explanation.
Currently I'm watching Kagi silently change results. If they're doing it for Lake Ontario, how can I be confident they aren't doing it with other search results?
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=42.09007...
The one with the modified executive seal on it?
It's unfathomable to me that there are no videos on YouTube that show their modified seal for private profit on b ibles and b eer pong sets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politically_motivated_...
Going through those, it looks as if only about 50% stuck, mostly from World War II, so here's hoping. I'm not sure if using the name is in any way enforced?
The disagreeing part better formulate an argument.
What do you think this very writer is, a demiGod?
> any use of energy to provide that constructive expression is
A duty.
> not doing it out of good will
That subset is just noise, we go on with the debate.
And your point does not exempt anyone from constructiveness.
Well, actually, no.
The EO changes the official name of the geographical feature as recognized by the US government.
All the large map providers ingest a data feed from the USG (and other governments for other localizations) which names various geographical and place entities. That data goes through a pipeline (basically a CI pipeline) to build the map artifact and tiles served to users.
Google just has a particularly good and low latency pipeline. Google got there in a couple days. Apple will get there in a week or two. The USGS will get there in god-knows-when. Mapquest has said they’re not going to update the name, which presumably means their pipeline is old and creaky.
The article itself even acknowledges that the USGS GNIS database has already been updated to reflect the change. Unless someone at Google manually edits the entity, it will be automatically renamed with no human input (although, for very large, highly visible entities the validation stage may block the build and flag it for manual review)
> The USGS will get there in god-knows-when.
> The article itself even acknowledges that the USGS GNIS database has already been updated to reflect the change.
Yes, both USGS and the Department of the Interior's executive leadership have been replaced by this Administration with Trump lackeys who fell over themselves to boast in a memo just how quickly they'd made the change.
> Mapquest has said they’re not going to update the name, which presumably means their pipeline is old and creaky.
No, it means no such thing.
And there are also companies that aren't quite so eager to comply.
Take a step out of the cave and look around, it's all people. There is no such thing as a soulless automaton, it may just be a machine but there is a person pushing its buttons, there is a man behind the curtain, and you should pay attention to him or whatever the equivalent psychological parable is that works for you.
This is absolutely 100% an action (one among many over the years) that guarantees I (for one) will never give Google another thin dime of my money for any reason if there's any way I can avoid it. Permanently lost profit from at least this one user (who was at one time in the past a huge Google fanboi)...
That "straw" for me was when they decided that "Don't be Evil" actually meant "be as evil as we can every chance we get"... Every evil action they've taken since then just makes me just that much more certain that I want to actively avoid Google products as much as I possibly can for the rest of my life.
Maps which rename things for political causes are not useful to the users of the maps. In the same way, newspapers which report what governments tell them to report, rather than reporting what is true, are not useful to their readers. Readers don't want propaganda rags, especially if they know they're wrong.
Don't get me wrong, most countries have a way that involves their own citizens in naming processes, and a renaming can happen if enough people in the area think the name has to change. That then feeds into gazetteers, GIS and so on. But don't confuse "government facilitates agreement among citizens to change their place names", which it does, with "government has the authority to tell people what something's called", which it doesn't.
You sound like a bootlicker, so tell me, what would happen if the orange one dictated that the state of New York is now "Shitty McShitland"? Will you be calling it that? Should people who live there call it that? If the orange one dictates your name is now "Shitty McShitface", will you call yourself that?
If we don't want idiots to do idiotic things we probably shouldn't make it possible/legal in the first place. But the corruption and malfeasance goes way beyond Trump so here we are.
And SCOTUS is compromised. They're letting them redistrict based on political party to dilute opposition. They're allowing Trump to politicize the post office to potentially delay mail in ballots so they won't be counted. They're allowing Republicans to mass revoke voter registrations and sell that data.
And now ICE, Trump's personal, unaccountable Gestapo in training, is getting access to voter roles. What will they possibly use that for if not to influence the voting process?
It's a good thing SCOTUS ruled that POTUS is entirely immune to all consequences and can pardon himself. I'm sure that won't empower a coup.