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Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult
lupa1420 writes "Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments."
I've been to the States and seen some of the news and current affairs programs and seriously, it's like they're aimed at 12 year olds or something. This story doesn't suprise me at all!
Actually this needs yet another correction in a long successions of trying to shut down this myth.
the NoVa story isn't true, see Snopes for details http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
The article made it out to be very negative to Microsoft, when in fact most of the problems seemed to be government pissing matches. A few examples include refering to the "Republic of Tawain", which everyone but China recognizes, or making mention of the disputed Kashmir region, which 3 different countries seem to believe belongs to them.
Notice that the fix for these problems wasn't to fix the map in windows, but to remove it entirely. That shows that it wasn't an "error in geography" on MS's part but that you can't get 2 governments to agree on geography and Microsoft was stuck in the middle.
http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08 /22/54679.aspx
The time zone map met a similar fate. The Indian government threatened to ban all Microsoft software from the country because we assigned a disputed region to Pakistan in the time zone map. (Any map that depicts an unfavorable border must bear a government stamp warning the end-user that the borders are incorrect. You can't stamp software.) We had to make a special version of Windows 95 for them.
Geopolitics is a very sensitive subject.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
3 Oceans. Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
One of my wife's favorite stories is about Chevrolet being puzzled that their Nova wasn't selling in South America, until they realized that in some of the local languages the name means "won't go".
I'm going to be a git and spoil this one; click here to see an analysis of this urban legend.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom."
Just as a minor, semi-offtopic comment: Um, wasn't that precisely what happened to the Hagia Sofia? You can still see the faint traces of the crosses that were removed when the whole thing was turned into a Mosque. So even if turning churches into mosques wasn't normal practice, it did happen. To quote from a website about the Hagia Sophia:
"On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered the vanquished city late in the afternoon and rode to Hagia Sophia. He was amazed at its beauty and decided to convert the Cathedral into his imperial mosque."
(Disclaimer: No, I'm not trying to be inflammatory about religion, I'm just making a historical point.)
But understanding the differing scale of things is much harder for human brains wrap around. Yes, they can be described by measuring distance or travel time, but it's hard to really understand differences in scale until you've been there. E.G., I remember visiting in the UK, and some people described "far away" villages which were closer than my daily commute. This is just one of the many reasons that you need to visit a place to really understand it.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
bully?
It's their country, and their laws. If you want to do business in THEIR country, respect their values and their laws. Otherwise, just don't go there.
'Civilized world'? where the hell do you come from, the XVth century or something?
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Why do people keep bringing up this misleading survey? Actually the survey isn't misleading, Just NetGeo's doom and gloom donation-seeking summary. Let me do a tiny bit to set the record straight.
Yes, American school kids are largely ignorant of geography. But the survey also points out the gross ignorance of students in other nations. Reporters and pundits tend to forget this in their zeal to portray the US as a bunch of nincompoops. It is a good thing that this geographical ignorance in the US is highlighted, because it means that we can now move to correct the problem. But it does not imply that other nations are let off the hook!
This was a survey done by a US organization for a US audience. Then the US media reported about are dumb kids. Then the non-US media came along and quoted the US media, and suddenly the whole world is awed at the stupidity of US schoolchildren.
But if you look at the actual results, or merely read a bit further down in the summary, you'll find a slightly different story. That's what's not being reported: the US is not alone in its geographical ignorance!
Some choice quotes: "Others outside the U.S., most notably young adults in Mexico, also struggled with basic geography facts. Young people in Canada and Great Britain fared almost as poorly as those in the U.S.".
Or how about, "Young adults worldwide are not markedly more literate about geography than the Americans. On average, fewer than 25% of young people worldwide could locate Israel on the map. Only about 20% could identify hotspots like Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq", and "In France, 24% did not know that that their own country was a nuclear nation."
It doesn't bother me that the world is picking the US for getting a "D" in geography. What bothers me is that the world thinks getting a "C-" in the same class is a resounding success!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Just a quick correction. Although much of what you say is true, kurdish is not a forbidden language in turkey. There are kurdish concerts, tv shows (albeit currently limited to the state tv), music albums etc.. What the turkish government is trying to prevent by denying an existence of a kurdistani state (when in fact, currently there is no such country), is to avoid having a (perhaps understandably) hostile neighboring kurdish state bent on acquiring currently turkish soils.