Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[adventurernumber1]

Whoa, dude. I mean, I'm annoyed about this, but if it's causing a reaction this bad you probably need to see a mental health professional. That's beyond the healthy range of reactions to something like this.

I had the same reaction to a public policy that was enacted several years ago. It caused a pulmonary embolism, life-threatening heart damage, and a possible heart attack. And that's why I had to have heart surgery recently.

I nearly died of a broken heart - literally.

I need to be careful. I have off-and-on had an irregular heartbeat since early 2018 (I think it somewhat runs in my family). I need to get a hold on my stress management sooner rather than later, or else I might be in for a heap of health trouble. The effects of stress are real, but then again the effectiveness of my stress management could definitely be improved, and it is indeed something in dire need of improvement.

Apparently today was the day that my sigh of relief had to be replaced with heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and tremors (which I am currently experiencing as I type this, since I only found out about this 10 or 20 minutes ago).

Whoa, dude. I mean, I'm annoyed about this, but if it's causing a reaction this bad you probably need to see a mental health professional. That's beyond the healthy range of reactions to something like this.

In the meantime, https://www.aaroads.com/aamaps/ uses the OSM dataset and thus will say Gulf of Mexico so long as OSM does.

I agree, I think it would probably do me well to get some professional help at this point. I've struggled with my mental health for a long time, but it's definitely been getting worse again lately, and the current national situation at large is certainly not helping. Therapy has always been very beneficial for me in the past when I've utilized it, and it's probably time for me to utilize it some more again.

So I can actually say something on a positive note again (I think I've vomited out enough negativity for one day), I do very much like the AARoads maps. It's always a pleasure seeing it utilized in the map boxes on the pages of the AARoads Wiki, which itself is looking great as well.

[Bobby5280]

Sure.  But I'm not one of them.  So I hadn't been calling it that.

The point is "Mount McKinley" is not the name that mountain has "always" had, as your earlier comment implied. The real, original name was "Denali" and was set that way long before you, I or even William McKinley were ever born.

The Alaska state government had been officially calling that mountain "Denali" decades before the Obama administration made an official federal change. I wonder if the current President is spiteful enough to force the Alaska state government to go back to calling it "Mount McKinley.

[LilianaUwU]

It will always be the Gulf of Mexico, it will always be Denali, and it will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge.

[kphoger]

It was Mount McKinley my whole life, so to me it just feels like going back to what it always was.

The point is "Mount McKinley" is not the name that mountain has "always" had, as your earlier comment implied.

Key phrase highlighted in bold.

The real, original name was "Denali" and was set that way long before you, I or even William McKinley were ever born.

Before I was born, I never called it anything.  Denali was not its name on any map I ever looked at growing up.  Denali was not its name as I was taught in school.  It was only ever Mount McKinley to me, for ¾ of my life.  This matters, as to what name seems right in my mind.

The Alaska state government had been officially calling that mountain "Denali" decades before the Obama administration made an official federal change.

I'm not in the Alaska state government, nor do I live in Alaska, nor do I use maps published by the Alaska state government, so that has had no bearing on me.


Look, I'm not saying Mount McKinley is the morally acceptable name for the mountain.  It's just a big hunk of rock in a state I've never been to, so I really don't care one way or the other.  But 'someone else called it such-and-such first' isn't really a persuasive argument to get me to call something by a name I didn't grow up using.

Similarly, if the Canadian government were to officially change the name of Hudson Bay to Wînipekw, I'd still call it Hudson Bay.

[freebrickproductions]

Unless you work for the Executive Branch of the US government, there's nothing requiring you to call them by the names the president prefers.

Not to get too political here, but Trump is certainly trying to force it on other people/organizations:
https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-statement-on-oval-office-access/

[kphoger]

Trump is certainly trying to force it on other people/organizations:
https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-statement-on-oval-office-access/

ugh 

[1995hoo]

Unless you work for the Executive Branch of the US government, there's nothing requiring you to call them by the names the president prefers.

Not to get too political here, but Trump is certainly trying to force it on other people/organizations:
https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-statement-on-oval-office-access/

Yeah, I saw that this morning. It doesn't change my overall point as to any random individual, though, and if the AP takes it to court, they'll probably win.

I do find it amusing that some of the people who are dead-set against these name changes (and I agree that they're stupid and that I will ignore them) are the same people who demand that you use the current corporate name for any sports venue or the like versus continuing to use whatever the old name was.

[LilianaUwU]

I do find it amusing that some of the people who are dead-set against these name changes (and I agree that they're stupid and that I will ignore them) are the same people who demand that you use the current corporate name for any sports venue or the like versus continuing to use whatever the old name was.

Hell nah. It's still the Staples Center, it's still the Sears Tower...

[Max Rockatansky]

I do find it amusing that some of the people who are dead-set against these name changes (and I agree that they're stupid and that I will ignore them) are the same people who demand that you use the current corporate name for any sports venue or the like versus continuing to use whatever the old name was.

Hell nah. It's still the Staples Center, it's still the Sears Tower...

So you're saying that you don't care for "What you talkin about Willis Tower?"

[bandit957]

Radio and TV stations referring to sports venues by their corporate names is the sort of thing that would have gotten them in trouble with the FCC of 50 years ago, under rules on sponsorships and commercial announcements. It should really be like that still with stations that have a noncommercial license.

[SEWIGuy]

I despise Google for this. For all the lousy updates over the years, now this thread title is truly 100.00% true. Google Maps fucking sucks now.

I honestly didn't think they were actually going to do this. I was actually proud of Google (before today) because I (ignorantly and mistakenly, apparently) thought they were not going to participate in this bullshit. That they were going to continue putting out objective mapping that does not bow to the whims of political nonsense, especially that of the most unhinged kind. I naively thought they wouldn't do this, simply because they hadn't yet done it for the past couple of weeks. However deep down I did worry, that there was the slimmest of chances (apparently not so slim) that they would cave in to this bullshit (for whatever godforsaken reason). As such, for the past couple of weeks, each day I would go on Google Maps and start to zoom out (while feeling like someone in a horror movie about to turn the corner of a hallway), then breathe a sigh of relief when I saw it still (correctly) said 'Gulf of Mexico.' Apparently today was the day that my sigh of relief had to be replaced with heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and tremors (which I am currently experiencing as I type this, since I only found out about this 10 or 20 minutes ago). For most Americans, this is probably deemed a comparatively trivial matter, but for me, as a roadgeek and mapgeek, this is a huge deal. And of course it just adds to the dozens of even worse things all happening at the same time right now (and showing no signs of getting better).

I thought Google Maps was one of the few places I could go to escape the political bullshit, and to pretend like I was in a better time and a better place. To just enjoy the roads and see the beauty of an America that had not been swallowed into a nightmare. To see the whole world, anything, provided by this objective mapping service that had integrity. Google Maps has been such a huge part of my immersion in roadgeekery for so many years ever since I first found it back in 2009 or so. And now, it too, has been contaminated by the toxic and repulsive current political abyss. If something like Google Maps Street View didn't have such irreplaceable utility (and if there was another site that actually had an equally reliable and comprehensive alternative), I think I would be inclined to boycott Google Maps after this. But unfortunately, given that, it is simply unrealistic, and with that I am in for quite some cognitive dissonance to somehow try to stomach continuing to use a "mapping" service that has so quickly thrown away all its integrity. It just pisses me off so much that in these tumultuous times, Google Maps has always been such a reliable "escape," but now it has been infected too. I apologize for how frenzied this post is, but I am very caught up in the emotions right now. Once again, the severity of this still pales in comparison to the severity of the dozens of other horrible things that are happening right now, but this hits a unique nerve, because this is somewhere that I (and other roadgeeks) were supposed to be able to go to escape these problems, escape these worries (if only very temporarily), to be able to look at roads and maps and street view and satellite and not have to worry about seeing even a shred of political filth. But now there's going to be a constant reminder (when zoomed out sufficiently) that Google, too, has now thrown away its soul, and thrown away any shred of integrity it still had, and been sucked into the current political abyss that just has to try to ruin everything imaginable.

I will be calling it the Gulf of Mexico for the rest of my life. Any map that says otherwise is not a legitimate map. Unfortunately Google Maps now falls into that category. Fuck Google.

Jeez. I'm no fan of the guy or the name change, but of all the things to rant about...

[SEWIGuy]

Radio and TV stations referring to sports venues by their corporate names is the sort of thing that would have gotten them in trouble with the FCC of 50 years ago, under rules on sponsorships and commercial announcements. It should really be like that still with stations that have a noncommercial license.

Corporate names of stadiums are fine.

[JayhawkCO]

Radio and TV stations referring to sports venues by their corporate names is the sort of thing that would have gotten them in trouble with the FCC of 50 years ago, under rules on sponsorships and commercial announcements. It should really be like that still with stations that have a noncommercial license.

Corporate names of stadiums are fine.

If not completely forgettable.

[kphoger]

I honestly didn't think they were actually going to do this. I was actually proud of Google (before today) because I (ignorantly and mistakenly, apparently) thought they were not going to participate in this bullshit. That they were going to continue putting out objective mapping that does not bow to the whims of political nonsense, especially that of the most unhinged kind. I naively thought they wouldn't do this, simply because they hadn't yet done it for the past couple of weeks. However deep down I did worry, that there was the slimmest of chances (apparently not so slim) that they would cave in to this bullshit (for whatever godforsaken reason). As such, for the past couple of weeks, each day I would go on Google Maps and start to zoom out (while feeling like someone in a horror movie about to turn the corner of a hallway), then breathe a sigh of relief when I saw it still (correctly) said 'Gulf of Mexico.' ... I thought Google Maps was one of the few places I could go to escape the political bullshit, and to pretend like I was in a better time and a better place.

I mean, I appreciate Scott showing us that the change does indeed violate Google's own stated policy, but otherwise I can hardly fault a mapping service for showing the official name of something on their map.  It doesn't immediately strike me as 'political' to do so.

[SEWIGuy]

Radio and TV stations referring to sports venues by their corporate names is the sort of thing that would have gotten them in trouble with the FCC of 50 years ago, under rules on sponsorships and commercial announcements. It should really be like that still with stations that have a noncommercial license.

Corporate names of stadiums are fine.

If not completely forgettable.

No doubt.

[Bobby5280]

I'm not a big fan of stadiums bearing corporate names. The naming implies the corporation paid for the stadium when all it did was pay for naming rights. The local taxpayers are often the ones footing most of the cost.

[Max Rockatansky]

I honestly didn't think they were actually going to do this. I was actually proud of Google (before today) because I (ignorantly and mistakenly, apparently) thought they were not going to participate in this bullshit. That they were going to continue putting out objective mapping that does not bow to the whims of political nonsense, especially that of the most unhinged kind. I naively thought they wouldn't do this, simply because they hadn't yet done it for the past couple of weeks. However deep down I did worry, that there was the slimmest of chances (apparently not so slim) that they would cave in to this bullshit (for whatever godforsaken reason). As such, for the past couple of weeks, each day I would go on Google Maps and start to zoom out (while feeling like someone in a horror movie about to turn the corner of a hallway), then breathe a sigh of relief when I saw it still (correctly) said 'Gulf of Mexico.' ... I thought Google Maps was one of the few places I could go to escape the political bullshit, and to pretend like I was in a better time and a better place.

I mean, I appreciate Scott showing us that the change does indeed violate Google's own stated policy, but otherwise I can hardly fault a mapping service for showing the official name of something on their map.  It doesn't immediately strike me as 'political' to do so.

Likewise around me they display Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Yokuts Valley. Both were renamed fairly recently by Fresno and Fresno County despite not being well received publicly.  Why would Google give fuck all aside from what governing agencies are telling them are road and place names?

[WillWeaverRVA]

It will always be the Gulf of Mexico, it will always be Denali, and it will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge.

It was Mount McKinley my whole life, so to me it just feels like going back to what it always was.

The wild thing is that the [...] executive order itself only assigns that stupid name to the continental shelf waters off the U.S. Gulf Coast and continues to recognize the remainder of the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. Google and now Apple are actually in the wrong by applying the stupid name to the whole thing.

The name Denali goes back thousands of years. Even the Russian name of the mountain when Alaska was a Russian territory was "Bolshaya Gora", which was a literal translation of Denali. It doesn't matter whether people call it Mount McKinley or not, the mountain's name simply is Denali.

The Tappan Zee Bridge will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge[...].

[rm gratuitous politics -S.]

[kphoger]

It doesn't matter whether people call it Mount McKinley or not, the mountain's name simply is Denali.

Has anybody asked the mountain?

[WillWeaverRVA]

It doesn't matter whether people call it Mount McKinley or not, the mountain's name simply is Denali.

Has anybody asked the mountain?

While I know you're kind of being sarcastic, realistically the indigenous peoples who originally lived there probably did ask the mountain.

[Max Rockatansky]

I've used both names in conversation (Denali and Mount McKinley).  That is one of the few mountains where the usage of both names tends to be pretty common.

[kphoger]

The name Denali goes back thousands of years.

Couldn't we say the same thing about all sorts of placenames?  Do you call Mount Whitney "Tumanguya"?

[Rothman]

It will always be the Gulf of Mexico, it will always be Denali, and it will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge.

It was Mount McKinley my whole life, so to me it just feels like going back to what it always was.

The wild thing is that the rotten orange's own executive order itself only assigns that stupid name to the continental shelf waters off the U.S. Gulf Coast and continues to recognize the remainder of the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. Google and now Apple are actually in the wrong by applying the stupid name to the whole thing.

The name Denali goes back thousands of years. Even the Russian name of the mountain when Alaska was a Russian territory was "Bolshaya Gora", which was a literal translation of Denali. It doesn't matter whether people call it Mount McKinley or not, the mountain's name simply is Denali.

The Tappan Zee Bridge will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge because the Cuomo family is scum.

Bolshaya Gora just means Big Mountain.

[kphoger]

Even the Russian name of the mountain when Alaska was a Russian territory was "Bolshaya Gora", which was a literal translation of Denali.

Bolshaya Gora just means Big Mountain.

Isn't that basically what Denali means, though?  So yeah, that would be a literal translation.

[kernals12]

Mount McKinley was named by a McKinley supporting gold prospector at a time when Alaskans had no say on the matter. It's a completely arbitrary name, unlike Denali which has a history going back many centuries.