Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
It's somewhat problematic when Google starts to become an arbitrator of real-world boundaries, as there is functionally no oversight or recourse for those affected. Google was not appointed by the residents, is not incentivized to avoid damaging changes, and is functionally impossible to hold responsible - they're an opaque monolith to anyone who tries to effect change or revert their decisions, and their black box-e…
As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
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Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#62> named his new publishing start-up Fishkorn this year after seeing the name on Google Maps. “It rolls off the tongue,” he said And there you have it, the exact same process that gave rise to all toponyms. It's debatable if Google has a fault for unwittingly altering a random walk. Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn, and in many ways worse. If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's…
> If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right. Seems a bit strange that you combined an absolute prescriptivist stance ('what's right') in support of an absolute descriptivist one. It's not logically self-consistent: what if a consensus forms that your view here is wrong?
For example, a bridge was constructed in central London named William Pitt bridge, named for the Prime Minister. But people didn't _call_ it "William Pitt Bridge", people called it "Blackfriars Bridge", because they'd always named that part of London "Blackfriars" and that's where the bridge was. Today the replacement bridge is just named "Blackfriars Bridge", nobody bothered writing "William Pitt" and being ignored.
It is still named Blackfriars Bridge to this day, even though the adjacent railway station, named Blackfriars, is actually in the form of a bridge, crossing the same river, if referring to _this_ bridge people call it "Blackfriars Railway Bridge".
But even though consensus is the appropriate tool for figuring out what these bridges are _called_ we certainly shouldn't use it to figure out when they were built - what they're made of - which country they're in and so on.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#63In San Diego, Google Maps uses the names of unremarkable apartment buildings and other multi-unit developments to label whole neighborhoods. Nobody uses those names but it's been like that for years. (Check out Hillcrest and University Heights by adjusting your zoom to the right level and those dumb names will pop up.)
I'm happy to see my old stomping grounds of Golden Hill are regulated to about 6 blocks now in Google Maps. It's all Golden Heights and South Park now. "Golden Hill" encompassed everything now known as South Park at one time afaik, but it had a reputation, so they started calling part of it South Park and selling properties for a lot more.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#64Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
https://www.google.com/maps/place/South+of+Market,+San+Franc...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/South+Beach,+San+Francisco...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rincon+Hill,+San+Francisco...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+East+Cut,+San+Francisc...
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#65There's an area in Kuala Lumpur that is called "Off Jalan Bangsar" in Google Maps (Jalan meaning street in Malay). It's obvious that Google's machine learning algorithm took what is name of the nearest major street for a district name. https://goo.gl/maps/hBk464FEZ8u
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#66Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…
> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietna…
Other nations may have map issues, but China, in addition to concentration camps, really has map issues.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2128124/marr...
> As for the Marriott employee who “liked” the Twitter post by Friends of Tibet, Smith said disciplinary proceedings had been started. “Due to the mistake of an individual employee, our official [Twitter] account wrongly ‘liked’ the tweet supporting Tibet independence and misled the public. [We] have now suspended this employee and dismissal proceedings are under way,” he was quoted as saying.
Well, except that's not what happened. I couldn't find the one that was originally posted on HN, that article was much better, but this one has the tweet in question:
http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/33151-marriott-employee-fi...
He didn't make an "error" even. He liked a positive tweet that thanked them for something he didn't understand and had no instructions about. Off with his head, and everybody do the pre-emptive obedience dance, go! When something like this walks the planet, when something like this feeds, then it's not the worst idea to mention it or things related in spirit to it at every occasion, especially whenever you meet new people or new crowds, as a litmus test.
Just like you might have a dinner party in the early 1930s and, then you mention Nazi violence, and a guest mentions that people have just different ideas about how to best go about internal politics. You smile, thank them for their comment, and never invite them again. You don't "leave politics out" when concerned with serious things, unless you're either putting all your stakes on the Nazis winning and erasing all records, like they would have done in Eastern Europe had they not lost the war, or simply aren't thinking that far. As I said, many historical archives are testament to that kinda being the norm, but culture of the present and last half century, uncountable movies and speeches, kind of seem to suggest it's not the norm we end up thinking fondly of in hindsight. They're not the people we wish we had the courage to be. They're the ones we're ashamed of and euphemize, instead of just mentioning their name and some kind of glow filling our hearts. Oh well.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#67Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
Put another way, you can call things whatever you want, but a marketing campaign does not obligate me to accept your silly branding nonsense.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#68Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
What's more, NYT seems to willfully ignore that place names change and evolve constantly through natural social processes just like these. That Google is indexing this makes them no more the arbiter of it than a library is the arbiter of all knowledge.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#69Google maps's districts in Dublin are all over the place. Looking around the city centre at a certain magnification I can see names nobody ever uses, or that refer to individual buildings or tiny areas, shown as if they describe entire areas of the city. Maryland, Hybreasal, Cathal Brugha Barracks - roughly where I'd expect to see signs for The Coombe, Kilmainham, and Harold's Cross. If I zoom out, labels for Kilmain…
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#70Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
It is not the East Cut. It will never be the East Cut. That is Rincon, and the real-estate marketeers can bite me. Put another way, you can call things whatever you want, but a marketing campaign does not obligate me to accept your silly branding nonsense.