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Google: Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps
- rtrann 1mo agoThe enablement of this man by america is unreal.
- hopojp 1mo ago[dead]
- anigbrowl 1mo agoCraven.
- westurner 1mo agoHow do we charge the people that caused all of these expenses for the US?
- fuzzfactor 1mo agoCharging and convicting of felonies didn't seem to fix it.
- Sabinus 1mo agoThe Trump charging and convicting didn't happen fast enough during Biden and now Trump's immune and has pardoned his co-conspirators.
- westurner 1mo agoWas Obama allowed to prosecute foreign influence operations or was he prevented from interfering in elections? Remember when Mitch filibustered Obama's SC nomination because presidents are lame ducks in their final year in office? Great work continuing to deny rights unequally according to medical status!
- Sabinus 1mo ago>Was Obama allowed to prosecute foreign influence operations or was he prevented from interfering in elections? He launched https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves..., "but the evidence available to investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign had 'conspired or coordinated' with the Russian government". >Remember when Mitch filibustered Obama's SC nomination because presidents are lame ducks in their final year in office? It wasn't a filibuster, McConnell didn't bring it to a vote at all. But I do remember the episode, and I'm mad about it. The Democrats must propose and relentlessly campaign on supreme court reform. Have the longest-serving justice replaced every Presidential term, and change the rules so if the President proposes a candidate, they MUST be voted on. >Great work continuing to deny rights unequally according to medical status! I don't know what you mean by this. I'm also not quite sure how your comment in general is responsive to the assertion that Trump felonies should have been investigated and prosecuted faster, before he was reelected. They had 4 years under Biden, it should have been possible.
- westurner 1mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_and_Intentions_in_Recent_US_Elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_a... mentions their federally-funded IRA: Internet Research Agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency did Russians troll for Trump? https://www.google.com/search?q=did+Russians+troll+for+Trump%3F https://www.google.com/search?q=did+Russians+troll+for+Trump... : Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... Biden is also from PA? Harris is a former prosecutor (and was a cosponsor of the MORE Act). Trump hired Prosecutor Acosta, who prosecuted Epstein. Trump's hotel in a South American county is now a Marriott. Trump sold the post office hotel in DC after Trump's first term in office. Trump recently had 300 accounts closed at Capital One following an AML (Anti-Money Laundering) review? I guess he's right that he can get away with whatever he wants at taxpayer expense. Trump on getting away with murder on fifth avenue https://www.google.com/search?q=Trump+on+getting+away+with+murder+on+fifth+avenue& https://www.google.com/search?q=Trump+on+getting+away+with+m... Some 75-100 people were killed to take Mr. Maduro into custody in Brooklyn. How many people has the US government killed in the Caribbean? https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+people+has+the+US+government+killed+in+the+Caribbean https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+people+has+the+US+g... : > 227 In a Zone of Peace. Outside of US Territorial waters. That justifies at-fault divorce in every state with at-fault divorce. Meanwhile, these Kishner kids are just killing it. They already sold Madden and FIFA and EA to foreign interests, and almost sold FIFA and WB to foreign interests too. All US presidents are immune before the ICC, but most other NATO member states do not operate with immunity before ICC.
- hopojp 1mo ago[dead]
- westurner 1mo agoYou had a trade spat and just totally rocked each other up on the boards and so now everyone else must waste money on new maps with a new name for an old geological feature that will now be another symbol of you weakly sabotaging my f country? Remember how this guy couldn't get a loan in 2016? How he was hundreds of RICO millions in debt to foreign banks and couldn't get a loan? Now we all need to waste money for their gold-plated vanity needs.
- c0nducktr 1mo agoI had been waiting to see when Google and Apple maps will make this change. I believe both now do this "Gulf of Mexico -> America" rename, however I found that Comaps (which I learned about from someone on HN, shoutout to whoever that was) never did. I'm not sure how they decide on names, but it seems better than leaving it up to whatever the POTUS feels like at the moment. If Trump renamed the state of NY to New Trumpland, would Google and Apple go along with it? Seems like they would. It's just embarrassing.
- cosmicgadget 1mo agoHe might be limited to geological features under federal or split jurisdiction. So maybe the Cascades will become the Mountains of America and DC will become DT.
- sixtyj 1mo agoIn Google Maps app (non-American version) it is already visible as “Lake Ontario (Lake America)”. Also Mapy.com has dual names. Canadian-American border cuts the lake so dual name is obvious as Canada doesn’t have any intention to rename it. Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) is the same situation. USA is the only country who changed the name so… The other situation could be with cities or counties that are inside US territory. Or take an example with Dept of War. Nobody abroad isn’t using Dept of Defense in their texts of anymore… (Btw Dept of War was since 1789 til 1949 then renamed to Dept of Defense.) Different situation is with X. As the X is confusing for a lot of people, Twitter is added after slash to explain the situation (X/Twitter).
- petre 1mo agoThere's a similar issue with the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The problem is that Trump is creating these new issues by renaming bodies of water.
- roosterIllusi0n 1mo agoThat is not the same thing at all. That is an actual historical debate. Yes, the sea of japan is technically wrong, but the ones asking for east sea are the ones who also said they would compromise if both names were used. We can prove east sea predates sea of japan. Don't equate real things with fake issues trump pretends are real. Lake of america is political propaganda. It's not real.
- petre 1mo agoI agree. it's also totally dumb to have serveral bodies of water named of 'merica.
- sidibe 1mo agoThis is pathetic and embarrassing by Google. They're going to hide behind some corporate policy if criticized, but it's so cowardly, there wouldn't have been any consequences for ignoring it
- ChrisArchitect 1mo agoTitle is: How the GNIS Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps
- sans_souse 1mo agoHey Google. Don't you read these comments? Let's have a serious discussion.
- cosmicgadget 1mo agoHey it's me, ur Google. If you didn't want geography to be politicized, why the hell did you elect the guy who politicizes canned fucking beans? Thank you for your attention to this matter.
- UncleMeat 1mo agoIn 2017 Sergey was seen protesting Trump’s signature Muslim Ban policy. A highly visible act of resistance against one of the things that Trump cared about the most. Does anybody believe that this would happen today?
- johnnyanmac 1mo agoHappens constantly. it's just that tech decided to kiss the ring this round instead, so it lies in other institutions (and the people) to protest.
- SmirkingRevenge 1mo agoTrump winning the popular vote really scrambled things All these big tech capitulations are their bets that the rule of law will not protect them, but kissing the ring will It's a bad bet, ultimately - b/c the benefits and protections of kissing the ring are a mirage - their weakness is an invitation
- sans_souse 1mo agoExcept neither of those things happened (me voting him in or them responding to a normy on HN)
- cosmicgadget 1mo agoYou (pl.)
- JumpCrisscross 1mo agoIt should be Lake America (Lake Ontario) in America and Lake Ontario elsewhere. Blindly relying on GNIS is silly, particularly when that dependency is forced on users. (Also, what fucking law exempts GNIS edits from the APA? Can a Democrat President just rename everything in every red state to random strings?)
- roosterIllusi0n 1mo agoGoogle doesn't think anyone is going to break them up. The only solution is to break them up when republicans lose power.
- tomjakubowski 1mo agoFor others who didn't know, the APA is the Administrative Procedure Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act
- Sabinus 1mo ago>Can a Democrat President just rename everything in every red state to random strings? A Democrat president must do this to teach the Republican strategists, representatives and voters consequences of actions. Then they will be ready for 'sensible compromise, reform and limits on executive power'.
- s1artibartfast 1mo agoIn what sense are these renamings attacks on Democrats specifically?
- JumpCrisscross 1mo agoThe entire Trump Presidency has been a uniquely partisan fiasco. I live in Wyoming—we have almost zero ICE enforcement. The brown shirts are being deployed to cities run by Democrats in states run by Democrats. I’m not advocating for counterbattery partisanship per se. But if demonstration is literally what it takes to get this to stop (or escalate to a point where everyone agrees it’s a crisis), so be it. At the very least, someone should be promising this to primary voters to get the conversation going.
- rpeden 1mo agoThis gave me the shove I needed to cancel some longstanding Google subscriptions. So...thanks, Google, I guess?
- roosterIllusi0n 1mo agoGoogle needs to be broken up. The next democratic president will have to break them up into pieces. Future presidents will get to use trump's new powers of doing whatever he wants. With google, there is more than enough bad behavior to legally break them up that will survive the courts.
- nmeagent 1mo agoHey Google. Why would I ever choose to use a product administered by such abject cowards?
- kalleboo 1mo agoWhat else are you going to use? Apple Maps? They're going to do the same thing. OpenStreetMaps? They don't have navigation. Waze? Got bought up by Google.
- jsbisviewtiful 1mo agoOrganic Maps is an open sourced mapping service with turn by turn.
- cwillu 1mo agoI use mapbox for turn-by-turn for hours a day every day, and it's based on OSM. Bonus: when something is fucky, I can actually generally get it fixed, unlike google which continues to report an 80kph speed limit in various residential streets and school zones in my city.
- morkalork 1mo agoWeak and pathetic
- ModernMech 1mo ago2004: "Don't be evil" 2015: "Do the right thing" 2026: "Just press down a little harder on the neck there please, that'll do thank you."
- mikewarot 1mo agoSince politicians just randomly changing maps and borders is now a thing... I heard that the US is now the 14th Canadian Province, South and True. We need to practice our politeness, learn to have gravy on our fries, and get ready to give up our guns, for the good of the people, eh. On the plus side, Tim Hortons, here we come! ... ... seven second pause ... ... Now that's what I'm talking about
- cosmicgadget 1mo agoWe need a constitutional amendment codifying the existence independent agencies like the Federal Reserve, CFPB, social security administration, and USGS. I wish Google and others weren't telling the emperor how regal his clothes look but it seems reasonable to remain synced with the USGS.
- FireBeyond 1mo agoUSGS and the Department of the Interior (or their leaders) were falling over themselves to tell Dear Leader how quickly they'd made the change.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- Georgelemental 1mo agoIndependent from who? The voters?
- johnnyanmac 1mo agoindependent from the government, yes. Because government has its own perverse incentives that need to be checked (like redistricting).
- Georgelemental 1mo agoSo, who pays their salaries?
- johnnyanmac 1mo agoSame ways that other non-elected government staff is paid. Such funding tends to be mandated into the a law or constitution alongside the establishment itsrlf. That's the case for California's IDC. If you're suggesting a rogue government with the ability to deprive such independent organizations of funding as a means of control, you're not wrong. If the government and people united have enough of a majority (or enough lack of accountability), laws are as valuable as the paper it's printed on. Leaving the latter aside, it's also just models from the federal constitution that (nearly?) all state constitutions tend to be living documents. Nothing is truly set in stone and most mechanisms tend to have overridde mechanics with a majority or supermajority.
- simontlbt 1mo agoOntario is not simply the name of a Canadian province; the name has Indigenous roots. Replacing it with the name of an Italian explorer would be deeply disrespectful to First Nations communities. You should probably rename the Michigan state too along with its lake if you have such disrespect for First Nations.
- JuniperMesos 1mo agoThis specific argument will move some people who weren't in favor of the rename in the direction of supporting it.
- dataflow 1mo agoAnyone else worried that the next president (even Democrat, if they manage to get one) may well let some of the name changes be?
- cyanydeez 1mo agoLeast of the worries. Punishing and removing nazis in their deep state is a bit higher up
- wat10000 1mo agoI worry that the next president isn’t going to lead a charge to codify limits on the power of the presidency, that zero real lessons will be learned and we’ll continue to arrange vast swathes of the system to rely on the good faith of a single person. The name change isn’t the problem. The problem is that it was even possible in the first place by just the whim of one person.
- pupppet 1mo agoThey're not going to change a damn thing. I saw an interview with Newsom who was asked exactly that and he dodged answering.
- dataflow 1mo agoNote that that might just be because he doesn't want to say something that might lose supporters, not because he would actually do nothing. (I'm not saying he would definitely do something, just that what he does or doesn't say about it right now doesn't indicate much.)
- JohnFen 1mo agoMy friends and I are just going to refer to it as Lake Epstein until/unless the executive order is undone. I mean, Trump isn't the only one that can unilaterally change the names of things and in the end, what matters isn't what the government says the name should be but what people actually call it.
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- topclam 1mo agoSo now instead of using the acronym HOMES to remember the names of the Great Lakes, we will use SHAME?
- sigmarule 1mo agoThat is pretty great.
- jmclnx 1mo agoI hope this change cost Google lots of $ because we all know in 2 years all these insane things Trump did we be reverted. Also how will maps work in Canada and other parts of the world ? I doubt they will change it there,
- KellyCriterion 1mo agoI expect them to have a whatever complex global entity/object model, allowing them to deliver whatever they want on a ruleset matching some criteria like location etc., so the change shouldnt be that huge. Maybe someone from Google is around and can explain better.
- skeledrew 1mo agoThis is news to me. Did carrot top order up another name change because Canada didn't roll over for him? :D
- mcphage 1mo agoYes.
- brandon272 1mo agoCanadian companies and government websites that use embedded Google Maps are displaying “Lake America”. Not good.
- KellyCriterion 1mo agoAt least 10m websites are using GMaps to display some stuff: https://developers.google.com/maps https://developers.google.com/maps
- Pxtl 1mo agoI'm wondering, I haven't used the gmaps API. Is this because they're proxying maps requests through the US, or is there a specific header request to request the US version of the map, or is it just that they've a US-based GApps account? Many of these are telcos that use "Buy Canadian" patriotism to get governments to protect them from international competitors. It should be scandalous if they're getting all their web front-end services from US companies. I know Google is the big name in maps, so that may be unavoidable and hard to shift, but if it's also the middle web-hosting providers... that's a lot less excusable for companies that love to wrap themselves in the Maple Leaf.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 1mo agothankfully Apple Maps still has Lake Ontario
- nicbou 1mo agoI am Canadian. It is and it will stay Lake Ontario. I am mad at Google for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. A map should represent the current reality. Google Maps defaults to the user’s local reality, which seems reasonable to me. I worked at a mapping company and we had similar setups for contested borders. You would get the map that your government accepts. It was not the company’s prerogative to weigh in on those issues. Remember that if Google Maps has to weigh in on obvious nonsense, it will also need to weigh in on far trickier issues, and at their scale, it might affect the outcome. This sort of legal neutrality seems like a better line of conduct to me.
- KellyCriterion 1mo agoEU citizen here: For us it still says Lake Ontario :-) Not sure what Trump is looking forward to win with all these moves?
- testing22321 1mo ago> Not sure what Trump is looking forward to win with all these moves? He just floods the media and everyone’s minds with a constant stream of junk. Some is consequential, some is not. Either way, the stream is so continuous it is distracting from the actual important things he’s covering up (raping kids, creating his own extremely well funded gestapo, kidnapping presidents, murdering fishermen, fucking up a war he started, stealing the election, etc)
- esalman 1mo agoHe's done the math- this kind of moves is exactly what retains support from 30% of the US population - enough to sway elections.
- calgoo 1mo agoYes but the gulf of Mexico shows both names, which i don't understand... Why are we seeing the BS fake name in the EU at all?
- Pxtl 1mo agoOne kicker is how many sites leveraging Google Maps API in Canada are showing "Lake of America". I'm not sure if that's because they're proxying the Google Maps requests through a US server, or they're using an API call to specifically request the US version of the map. But either way, it's a pretty bad faux pas, especially for oligarchic telcos that wrap themselves in the flag when they're begging for protection from international competitors.
- ButlerianJihad 1mo agoThe Biden administration in 2022 set a USA record by renaming 643 geographic features nationwide, in an effort to excise a specific term which became offensive when Americans began using it. For the record, Google Maps, as well as Apple Maps, have complied with all of these renamings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_Names_Information_System#Name_changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_Names_Information_S... Though the US Gov renamed many places in 1962 (Kennedy), and again in 1974 (Nixon/Ford), they conspicuously left more than a few of them extant, as mentioned in the above article.
- 1718627440 1mo agoI don't see the point of this rename. Why don't you also rename every city to city of America, and every road to American road?
- seemaze 1mo agoMapQuest is not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need right now: https://gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario/Brawndo https://gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario/Brawndo
- pfannkuchen 1mo agoI don’t really care what the lake is called, but can we have some creativity, or at a bare minimum consistency? Gulf of America at least makes sense as a name swap, as it previously shared a name with a country and it still does after the change. Shouldn’t this at least be Lake New York?
- hyperlinerapp 1mo agoPresidents change names of things all the time. Why are people fretting over this change?
- diego_moita 1mo ago> Presidents change names of things all the time. Authoritarian presidents (e.g. Erdogan, Putin, Xi Jiping) do it. Democratic presidents follow institutional processes and diligence. Your argumentation is very much like: "If the Mafia kills people why shouldn't I also be allowed to kill people?" > Why are people fretting over this change? Because it is a diversion from the things that really matter: inflation, war, the loss of international standing of the US. You know when you admonish a little boy about something wrong he did and he replies: "Look over there!". Yep, your country is governed by an octogenarian with the brain of a 4 year old boy. And the people that venerate him are equally stupid.