As a Canadian living in Canada, I see “Lake Ontario.” in Apple Maps. All good. No idea what Google shows because I don’t knowingly use Google products. But I do see the ridiculous “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)” I don’t care what Apple shows inside of U.S. borders but dragging the rest of the world into the clown show is unnecessary.

Although I haven’t much thought through the details, I wonder if these disputed names could be subject to user preference. Basically, a pre-MAGA and MAGA setting.

I’m in the US, near the Canadian boarder, I see both names show up. Lake Ontario shows up larger and when zoomed out. Lake America shows up smaller as I zoom in. I suppose some of this could be a cacheing issue, hard to say.

At the end of the day a map provider has the responsibility to show the official names of places on a map. If it’s one name to the US and another name for the rest of the world, the pragmatic solution is to show the “right” name based on a user’s location.

This seems like a silly hill to die on, when whoever is in office next will likely revert the names of the lake and the Gulf of Mexico, unless they are deep in the Trump camp.

Messing with maps as a negotiation tactic seems rather boneheaded. It’s extremely disruptive, but blaming Google or Apple for any of this is a bad move, imo. There are much bigger fights to be had and they need to pick their battles. This isn’t it, and it will likely resolve itself in time, and should only impact those in the US, if done right.

> At the end of the day a map provider has the responsibility to show the official names of places on a map.

Not really. They have the responsibility to show the useful names. They are also free to show whatever the local bully forces them to.

Neither of those is necessarily the official name.

And they do both. When I search for Lake Ontario in both Google and Apple Maps, I get to the right place.

I’m not sure what the problem is.

Google and Apple don’t name things. If the official name inside the US is Lake America, they are only hurting their users by delaying the change, as the map will no longer be in line with the reality the users are living in and things they need to look up.

When it’s only one thing, you might say everyone just knows, but that doesn’t scale.

And like I mentioned, they need to pick their battles. I’d rather them save their politics and favors for things like encryption and privacy, not piss it away on map data, when they can show both names and this will likely be a small footnote in history. In 20 years I can imagine, “What was the name of Lake Ontario for a brief period in the mid 2020s?” Being a question asked at bar trivia.

What about all the privacy laws that Google is bypassing in Europe? They don't rush to apply those

I would need more information to comment on that. While I am pretty anti-Google and like to assume they are dragging their feet to collect more data, if we don’t assume the worst… I’m betting the changes to comply with new privacy laws requires far more effort and adding a label to a map.

> Today classical music is filled with people who want to pretend to be superior to pop musicians because they keep their repertoire confined to academically acceptable areas.

What an incredibly cynical take. I’ve done several chamber music collaborations with a violist who also plays pop music gigs on keyboards.

There are arrogant pricks in classical music. And in software engineering and every other discipline. Personality is orthogonal to field of interest.

Anyway you complain that classical musicians look down on pop music while you yourself do the same about modern composers.

> while you yourself do the same about modern composers.

I literally gave several examples of modern genres in which classical composers still produce good work. I just said they're unlikely to be found in academia

> every major scale has a parallel minor scale with the same key signature.

Actually the parallel minor does not share the key signature with the major; it is simply the minor with the same tonic.

The _relative_ minor shares the key signature with its major; and its tonic pitch is a minor third lower.

Time for Apple to bring another 24K gold desk thingy to the Oval Office.

Is there a legal requirement that non-governmental entities source their mapping data from official U.S. government sources?

I don't think that matters with the current administration.

I think that's part of what is frustrating to so many people? Google isn't a small business, and has the legal resources to at least fight back if they were challenged by the administration. Any such challenge would likely fall apart in trial, but even if it didn't Google would have at least challenged the absurdity of it.

The person responsible for the GNIS corruption and the leadership of Google are in essence conjoined twins. The tech oligarchs are not going to make decisions based on interests that aren’t aligned directly with their personal enrichment; and the GNIS Corrupter-in-Chief wields such personal interests rather effectively.

Surely you would admit that this Administration’s approach to immigration has been both chaotic and cruel. The workers who were given status in the United States expected a predictable process, not one that changes weekly based on the unserious personal whims of a bored, ill-informed and vindictive man. In any case, the prioritization of citizens’ wellbeing writ large is demonstrably _not_ a feature of this Administration’s agenda.

The entire point of a temporary visa is for the country to benefit from your labor. How does canceling it on a “whim” benefit anybody?

The whim might be re-evaluating that benefit and the worker coming up short.

Immigrant visas are not temporary visas.

Really? My spouse and I lived in Canada on work permits and were not required to leave in order to achieve PR status; nor to achieve citizenship status.

Prior to Covid, my wife had to exit the country to get photos taken as part of the permanent resident process. We took a trip to Montana for that purpose.

This seems to have changed in the past 3-4 years, but as the GP said, the original process did involve leaving.

Thanks. And yea, my PR was in 2004. Citizen now but living in the US again.

I feel like I’m missing something here - a lot, actually. What is this?

It’s reasonably clear to anyone paying attention that Trump has been systematically engaging in various flavours of corruption. Prosecuting the man for illegal activities isn’t predicated on his party losing an election; it would be a matter of law. If you cannot support upholding the law because of some fear that MAGA would revolt, then the downfall you predict isn’t a remote event, it’s already here.