Earlier quoted context omitted.
That may be, but it's still what many people want.
[flagged]
Weird, one could say that about the person who insisted on this useless change in the first place...
Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
41–50 of 90 posts
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#42They'll get their 15 minutes, but there's no _there_ there. They're owned by System1, a bottom-of-the-barrel advertising company where 1990s web brands go to die (Metacrawler? Startpage.com?? Dogpile?!?!). Their maps are OpenStreetMaps maps. People think they have their back (because OSM is showing Lake Ontario), but it's just marketing.
Dogpile?!? There's a name I haven't heard in what feels like 20 years. The concept of searching a bunch of search engines made sense to me.
> The concept of searching a bunch of search engines made sense to me.
It made sense to somebody else[0], too.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the executive order reads as someone throwing a tantrum? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/hono...
I don’t understand why the phrasing of the order matters. It’s very obviously a petulant and childish move made in response to trade negotiation failures with Canada. That’s literally what Trump himself has said: > The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attentio…
Problem with the "childish" take is it waves off the admins statements they intentionally engage in this shit to rile up the terminally online lizard brains
This is intentional manipulation
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#44I get why people want Apple and Google to push back but ultimately there isn’t any logical approach for them to operate that isn’t “name things as the relevant governmental bodies name them”. Otherwise what source of truth is there? The responsibility here is with a spineless government. An executive order is not a law and a congress that did its job would quickly contract these kind of mad king declarations.
What about researchers at universities? Maintain a list of experts and conduct a poll whenever an event like this happens or enough of the experts request. Or require an act of Congress. Obviously, we can no longer rely on Executive Orders being careful, thought-out, or lasting changes. Does any mapping organization want to change names back and forth? Does any user want to see these changes?
Right but who maintains that list of experts? Google? Aren’t we just giving the tech giants more power in that scenario?
Yes, in this specific instance it would give us an outcome we want. But in the long term we’re replacing democratic government with corporate control. Which doesn’t seem good.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#45I enjoy how Bing Maps (and Bing in general) are so unloved that it's not even part of the debate. (Bing Maps hasn't changed - yet - but probably will eventually, since they caved on the Gulf of Mexico)
Not only did I have no idea that Bing or Bing Maps still existed, but the very fact that they ever existed at all had slipped from my consciousness.
I guess Bing has an 8% market share, if you don't count services that use the Bing index (like DuckDuckGo does).
I wonder if Bing is worth it for them to still operate because of the people paying to use the index.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dogpile?!? There's a name I haven't heard in what feels like 20 years. The concept of searching a bunch of search engines made sense to me.
Ironicly this is what my agent does today on my behalf because regular search has become so bad
Unfortunately at the other end of that websearch is a bunch of slop, your agent can't save you from it.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government has no right to name geographic features. The names are established by popular usage, not the feds. As such Google and Apple should not listen to the demands of a body which has no right to make them in the first place.
“Popular usage” is all very well and good until you have to quantify it in some way. No way it wouldn’t be a complete mess. For example: the body of water between the UK and France. The UK calls it “the English Channel”. The French call it “la Manche”. It has no official international name. In Google Maps both names are used depending on what country/language you are using. Choosing one via popular usage would not be…
> Choosing one via popular usage would not be a good solution.
Huh? Isn't that exactly what you've described? In the UK they show the popular usage in the UK, and the same in France.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#48I've dumped Google Maps for OSM over three years ago and have not looked back. Did this as one of my de-Google steps by choosing a Fairphone. Looking at a FuriLabs FLX1S to start the next phase by switching to a Linux phone. I've become a sunk cost to Google by not spending anything on their products or services and always use Ad-Block solution in a private session if I must.
What do you use on Android instead of Google Maps, OsmAnd or something else?
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Weird, one could say that about the person who insisted on this useless change in the first place...
Yea like naming Army street to Chavez and all the other hundreds of renamings of American place names over the last couple of decades… like we should be up in arms by now we just can’t contend with so much overwhelming change!
Or reaming stadiums (which get updated on maps) for sponsorships, renaming towns for sponsorships… we have a never ending stream of renamings to be mad at and wave our ineffectual fists at.
Re: Thanks to Lake Ontario, MapQuest is popular all over again
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Popular usage” is all very well and good until you have to quantify it in some way. No way it wouldn’t be a complete mess. For example: the body of water between the UK and France. The UK calls it “the English Channel”. The French call it “la Manche”. It has no official international name. In Google Maps both names are used depending on what country/language you are using. Choosing one via popular usage would not be…
> Choosing one via popular usage would not be a good solution. Huh? Isn't that exactly what you've described? In the UK they show the popular usage in the UK, and the same in France.
No, they show what the respective governments describe them as in official datasets etc.