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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 don't get it.
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean
Oh, cry me a river--like the Pacific Ocean is some big, important thing. I mean, you need to drive all the way to Sweden just to see it!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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!
That problem is not exclusive to Microsoft employees. It's not like MS specifically hires programmers who have no clue where the Pacific Ocean is. I mean, that's a pretty big ocean - it's kind of hard to miss it unless you've never ever in your life looked at a map. But I am digressing - let the Microsoft bashing begin!!
"Marge, anyone could miss Canada. All tucked away down there."
Perhaps the best known...was a colour-coded world map showing time zones, which showed the disputed Jammu-Kashmir region as not being in India...The mistake led to the whole of the Windows 95 operating system being banned in the country, losing large sales. For its replacement, Microsoft, Office 97, Microsoft removed the colour coding and sold 100,000 copies in India.
Office 97 replaced Windows 95? Yikes.
Cheers,
Ian
...they're failure to keep up with global geopolitical madness.
Most of the examples listed were problems that cropped up due to political reasons, not due to a lack of geography knowledge. No matter how you draw a map, where you place Kashmir is going to offend someone. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are going to be contenious no matter where you place them. Microsoft did the only reasonable thing, they drew the maps to the favor of the richer countries (the ones that buy their software). Sorry Pakistan, no disputed territories for you.
I read the internet for the articles.
From the article, it seems that Microsoft programmers have gotten in trouble because... wait for it... THEY READ A MAP. That's right, THEY READ A MAP. The results of their map reading have lead them into several political situations that there was little possibility of them being aware of. (Talk to the ***holes who make this stuff illegal and ARREST foreigners for READING A MAP.)
Americans may have a poor understanding of Geography, but I don't really see that being an issue in this case. All Microsoft could have done is more thoroughly research the area.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Pacific islanders objected to the label "Here be Dragons!".
Several Arab countries resented being called either "Oil" or "Just terrorists".
Several former Soviet Bloc and Warsaw Pact countries objected to the name of their countries being followed by "(or whatever they are calling themselves this week)."
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
As much as we'd all like to think that this is just a case of MS screwing up again, I'm pretty sure this isn't just an MS problem. Besides, the article talks not just about simple geography, but of mistakes made about highly disputed geographic regions. There are a few in there where microsoft could have gone either way and still offended someone. Granted, stuff like that should have been checked, but the mistakes really aren't as simple as the post makes them out to be.
...no two people are not on fire.
These are all good and well, when you are targeting a whole country/region for marketing, but there have to some instances in which Microsoft just laughs and continues business. I mean, I bet someone is mad that you can't set a time zone by his specific city. I can just see it now. "How come Los Angeles isn't on the city selection? It's a huge city. Tijuana? That's not even in the United States!" I'd be really curious to see how Microsoft would reply to a person like this.
The mistake led to the whole of the Windows 95 operating system being banned in the country, losing large sales. For its replacement, Microsoft, Office 97, Microsoft removed the colour coding and sold 100,000 copies in India.
I never knew you could install Office 97 as a replacement to Windows 95! Stupid me always thinking I had to install an OS before I could install any applications.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
> The Spanish version of Windows used the word Hembra - meaning "woman" in Spain
> - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably
> Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
So the Spanish version has to be in Nicaraguan? I thought software was internationalised according to territory, not language?
Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography
If you read the article, you'll see the computer programmer's problems have nothing to do with geography... and everything to do with understanding and respecting differences in the cultures that may purchase MSFT products. I think showing the programmers where the Pacific Ocean is isn't going to do very much to make the software more culturally acceptable.
in true slashdot bashing style. Haha!
i kinda wonder if linux offends accidentally or not tho.
Although something rings true in this about many USA citizens not having a 'global' view (World Series Baseball, World Wide Wrestling....erm, I don't think these are worldwide sports actually!), many of the points in this article would not be known without some pretty thorough investigation of political/geographical interests.
Too late, Hackers 2 has already been made: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159784/
See what happens when MS employees don't use Google to do their research.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I did partly RTFA, and unless I'm way off on my understanding, Microsoft is blaming their lost business on people who have little right to be blamed for what they are being blamed for. Do the programmers really need to know about the world affairs - I thought that would be the job of the marketing or PR people.
Anyone else have a problem with governments detaining software engineers for something as trivial as a mis-marked map?
hapless company employees
Talk about passing the buck. Some of the top problems in the article:
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
Isn't this like that time some city legislation out in California decided to ban the words "Master and Slave" when refering to Hard Drive configurations because it was not "Sensitive" to African Americans?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
...I'm going to rant. :P
Usually, I'm an american that makes every effort to be understanding of cultures different than my own, and to try to understand why it is that the US is frowned upon by other cultures. We have a foreign exchange intern here from Europe right now, and we've had long conversations about why and how americans take their relative wealth for granted (even our citizens on welfare tend to be wealthier than many in smaller european countries!)
But this...this isn't a lack of sensitivity on Microsoft's part. It's a lack of toleration on the part of other cultures. Knowing full-well that this software was written by programmers of another culture, there should be a degree of toleration and patience that goes along with the process. Make the developer aware of the issue and give them a chance to fix it.
Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Americans may be stuck up, take a WHOLE lot of freedoms for granted, have lots of money, and think too highly of themselves at times to bother learning about other cultures, but I'll give you one thing:
Even some of the most annoying pricks I know seem to be more tolerant than some other cultures are to the average Joe. How pathetic is that?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
.
[/sarcasm]
Re: the grandparent post, that quote from the article got me too. I was wondering if they were showing an upside down map or something...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
reading this:
They were all seen as deliberate policy and so the offence taken was far greater as a result.
makes me think this is just the fodder of conspiracy theories. The problem is really that the people who come to these conclusions do not know the following axiom of society:
Don't attribute to organized conspiracy that which can be explained be sheer ignorance.
It reminds me of when I was tossed onto the tail end of a faultering project to computerize the Jamacain election system. One of my coworkers told me there was a conspiracy theory abound suggesting that the CIA was trying to destabilize Jamaica because the prime contractor was also a contractor for the CIA and the government in general.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Personnally I like to snicker when I hear things like that from the US. But I think this article misses the point, or at least its introductions (the USers are lacking geographical education) does not match the rest (Microsoft insulted members of an ethnic group because of taboo informations).
Most of the problems mentionned are actually interesting ones because there is no "right" or "wrong" from a neutral perspective. Regarding Kurdistan, for example, it is not a country per se, but it does exist as a region. In my opinion, Microsoft was not "wrong" on that matter, at least not regarding geography.
Instead, it's more of a lack of knowledge about cultures, religions and what constitutes ethnic identity. The science that studies those aspects of humanity is called "anthropology" or "ethnology".
It's not the same as President Bush referring to Canada as a state of the US...
Probably just a slip - we're all MS' bitch :-)
I write oil-related software.
Oh, wait. We don't even have a non-english version.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I wish I have a nickel for everytime one of my friends calls with a computer problem, and when I ask what operating system they have its always one of the following:
1) Office 97
2) Office 98
3) Windows 97 (and they will refuse to be corrected)
23 in 56 can locate the Pacific Ocean? Seems a little high, to me.
It's just shows you what the non Western world is like, really, when they get all upset about minor cultural oversights. They'll get over it and enter the bland world of fast-food, TiVo, billboards, and corporate drudgery soon enough though.
If a program accidentally showed Alaska as still belonging to Russia, I'm sure the US government wouldn't be delighted, but I can't see the developer getting arrested for it or the software even getting banned.
The article is crap. Among their blunders are:
- Referring to Taiwan as a country
- Not showing disputed parts of India in India
- Japanese employees mistakenly use Koran chants in a video game
Most of the people who were offended are governments who "demand" respect. And those kind of governments are the least likely to deserve it.
In order to assist our beloved editors with coming up with more accurate titles, I have included a list of other titles that they can use for articles at thier discretion:
Light Speed Turns Out to be Really Fast
Windows Security Hole Discovered, Disavowed
Fall Elections May Descend into Chaos
Script Kiddies Demand More H@x, Fewer Firewalls, Higher Salaries
Microsoft PR Campaigns Foolish, Ineffective
Hot Grtis Proven to Make ANYONE More Attractive
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
If you read the article you realize that most of the mistakes made had nothing to do with geography.
"Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China"How is this a geography issue? Taiwan recognizes itself as an independent country.
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques"Again, how is this a geography issue?
I think this article is just bait for the daily MS bashing on /.
-chrisI mean, really, how is a programmer in the states supposed to know that a valid spanish word, used in the spanish version of the program, is an insult in central america?
This sounds much more like a "lets point out all the funny fuckups from M$" article, and much less a diatribe on the difficulties of writing international software. Yes, they've made a few mistakes, and the occasional horrid judgement call (I mean, really, insulting all of Islam? Well, at least now we know better...). But some things, like the evil spanish word, referring to breakaway states as countries in their own right, or other such silliness, are just an "oops", where you wouldn't expect them to rightfully know better.
On that note though, what's up with the rabid nations emasculating anyone who dares suggest that Kashmir or Taiwan are separate countries? I generally find foreign media less crazy than US, but try reading an article from a chinese newspaper on taiwan sometime... it's almost frighteningly evangelical in it's belief.
And, finally... come on, AoE2? I thought the muslims replacing the churches was a cute touch, not insulting... I mean, it's a game, you have to change the game elements to fit the theme of whoever is winning... and you wouldn't expect westerners to know the details of how the muslims handled conquered peoples and their religion during the crusades...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I'm by no means a car expert, but I could've sworn that Chevy was the company that made the Nova :-)
Join the TWIT army now!
Didn't Redhat suffer a similar problem a year or so ago by including the Taiwanese flag, implying that they were a separate country?
It's the cost of doing business internationally. You wouldn't build a manufacturing plant in another country without investigating applicable local laws for zoning, environmental impact, building codes, why would you release software internationally without doing similar checking?
Tell me again why it's a "BAD" thing that Linux has a billion and 1 distrobution varieties?
Let every country build it how they like it. Customize it to their own little idioms, and language.
Though, to be honest, I'm amazed that MS manages to keep up with the vast number of cultural details and translations that it does. And overall does fairly well.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
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
Our ancestors were trying to get the f*** out of Europe and come to a new land were they could start a new life and forget about all the crap they had to put up with in the old world. This mentality has permeated throughout our culture, and I don't see it ending anytime soon.
It sucks that we had to bring slaves with us, and that we had to decimate the Native population. It sucks that Americans are low-ranking in many other school subjects.
But dammit, don't deny us our right to be geographically ignorant!!!
-insert laugh here-
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
*cough*hagia sophia*cough*
UN Kashmir map is here (PDF format)o gip.pdf 6 8
http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/dpko/unm
More details
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=12
Claim: The Chevrolet Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish.
Status: False.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The problem is that only people from North Dakota and Montana care where they are. And neither one of them has access to the Internet. Or electricity.
Maybe it was just in my group, but a significant portion of the other developers weren't American by any stretch of the imagination. The group had plenty of Indians, Russians, Chinese, and British programmers. Thus making the story about an American company and Americans in general not knowing geography seems a bit specious.
Aside from that, most of the problems in the article were much less geographical and more geopolitical.
As a fellow American, I am ashamed and embarrassed for my countrymen, many of whom could not even tell where Canada and Mexico are. Such lack of fundamental and basic knowledge is not only humiliating in the international arena, but they also carry real-world penalty and implications as well. This idea of "We Americans Are Too Good To Care for Your Puny Details" attitude is sickening, and the financial penalty is only the beginning of troubles for us Americans. Many who think that fundamental knowledge is too trivial for them to care should understand that there is a reason that they are called "fundamental" or "foundational" - because they will carry the weight of everything else you do.
So at point will people finally start caring about real learning? When a global company had to withdraw one of its products because of stupid mistakes? And is monetary penalty a good motivation for learning? ("We should learn this stuff because we will lose millions if we don't.) Here is where the hacker mentality is a good role model for what we should think: We learn because we enjoy learning, not because we think we can make a million bucks out of it.
Without wanting to insult anyone, but the examples where cases of Political vs. Ethical vs. Geographical correctness. These "errors" will happen everywhere. Not even OpenSource can overcome them easyly. Take Wikipedia for an example. I am not sure if all content there would please the countries mentioned in the article...
Now, the Word 2000 I am forced to use at work (german version) asks me if I want to correct "Investvorhaben" to "Inzestvorhaben", literaly meaning changing "Investment" to "Insest"... good that I take it as a unintentional joke.
Here in Canada, we consider this color as "puke yellow", not "IT color". What a geographical mistake!
I will not stop until the color changes!
perception is reality
... this isn't the time to rename "Domestic" and "International" sales into "Freedom-Lovers" and "Harbingers of Terrorists". :P
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Google is your friend!
A little while ago, Honda introduced a car in scandinavia called Honda Fitta. Honda didn't do enough research as it turned out that "fitta" is a scandinavian slang for.. "cunt".
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Well if you ask me, MS is more than culturally offensive in the US. How about treating the information age like it demands the unrestricted flow of information rather than as a leverage tool for beating their licenses over peoples heads. And how about competing by free markets and merit rather than by artifical antique government granted monopolies called copyrights.
From the article:
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean.
The world according to America
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
Best banner ad ever appeared on that page.
Text (from what I remember):
"Smarter Bombs vs. Smarter Kids - Where do you stand?"
I stand with the bombs.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
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.
I've been thinking of banning all operating systems that don't give me some Texas city, for choosing my time zone.
Alas, if I did this, we'd be stuck with banning computers.
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
Censorship, tough laws, whatever, but if you're going to do business in a country then you'd damn well better get yourself familiar with the way that country works. As the oft-repeated phrase goes, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
Alas, the story of the renaming of the Chevy Nova for the Hispanic market is an urban legend.
Excuse me; I must now go bite a wax tadpole.
The problems had almost nothing to do with poor geography, and everything to do with some countries taking extreme exception to the representation of disputed territory.
C'mon Slashdot Editors - reject the submission if its as lame as this one - no doubt you accepted this one, but rejected 10 other submissions that were much more to the point.
I thought it was vauxhall, in the UK anyway.
His investigations showed the Japanese, who had developed the game for Microsoft, had added the chant to the tape because they liked the sound of it without checking its origins. "They were chastised and corrected," he said.
Mr. Edwards went on to become Mr. Grady in The Shining.
By only providing for the dumbest people, you can help reduce the intelligence of the masses and sell to everybody.
Everywhere corporate interests are putting profit ahead of ethics.
For instance the article says this regarding the obliteration of kurdistan from the windows timezone maps:
"Of course we offended Kurds by doing this but we had offended the Turks more and they were a much more important market for our products. It was a hard commercial decision, not political."
I work for a media company where this kind of stuff is policy. There's a good article about it at assnake magazine
Regarding the original article, lupa1420 didn't write that. The Guardian Unlimited wrote it, and lupa1420 just ripped off the entire first paragraph of the article without proper attribution.
Sorry, try again: http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
[repeats persistent myth about Chevy Nova in Mexico and Central America]
Not True.
Ah, the insight that can be offered by someone who knows a whole dozen spanish words, most of which can't be said in polite company. Sorry Charley, the Nova myth is just that - false.
Bad management trumps ideology - Show the world you want better leadership. http://www.timefornewmanagement.com
The world according to microsoft...
"Of course we offended Kurds by doing this but we had offended the Turks more and they were a much more important market for our products. It was a hard commercial decision, not political."
A commercial decision that has political ramifications. Does it not make more sense to mark disputed regions as disputed, rather than invent a world-order as dictated by the larger customer? If Microsoft is trying to combat ignorance from within, it should make some more enlightened decisions in handling political hot potatoes.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Really? A Spanish speaking individual is likely to interpret 'Nova' as 'no va'?
This seems unlikely to me, simply because I don't do it with English words.
For example, I don't expect my father to be a 'fat her', and I'm quite happy with the fact that my wardrobe doesn't literally ward my robes, and that my cupboards aren't actually boards supporting cups.
You should look closer at the issues.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Yes, India was the one example I used for emphasis, but there are plenty more examples in all countries including me own Benighted States.
Now it appears that we are all supposed to be bound by the immoral limits on thought and speech than anyone in power happens to promulgate. I don't think so. Cultural sensitivity is not wrong, blatantly offending any culture is at the very least rude, at the worst racist. But this article seems to imply that everything anyone puts out should be sensored by every special interest, religion, and government until it is what they consider politically and religiously and culturally correct.
No thanks.
-Then the fit hit the Shan. - R. Zelazney, Lord of Light
We, the Spaniards are not the only Europeans. You know?
Tell us something we don't already know :-)
Stick Men
Apparently freedom and democracy don't mean as much to us when a country is our "friend".
As far as not knowing geography, is any of this a surprise? We're probably one of, if not THE most elitist country in the world. That is the reason why our knowledge of geography and other cultures is so poor. It's certainly not due to lack of access to information. Who cares about those other backward cultures when you live in the greatest country in the world? It also makes it easy for our government to support guerilla armies that put baby's heads on sticks when people don't know, or even care to know, what is going on outside their country. Iran Contra, Abu Gharaib, what were those about? Oh, wait, nevermind, I'm supposed to remember that even though we may have made mistakes in the past due to our naivety, or our extreme generousity, that those events are in the past, and that we should forget them as quickly as possible so that we can move on to a new adventrue.
Rather than blame the "insensitive computer programmers", perhaps we could look the other direction and realize that some people/cultures/religions are incredibly OVERsensitive, and catering to their peculiarities is just enabling them.
/. counterpost wave: I know that the US has some of their own sacred cows, which I think are equally silly. But I'd also argue that the US has a long tradition of arguing but ultimately tolerating such things - crucifixes in urine, routine desecrations of our symbols like the flag, etc. - are practically part of the evening news.
I mean please. From the article:
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
The Korean government, objected because Microsoft software showed the national flag in reverse. The software had to be changed.
The Spanish version of Windows used the word Hembra - meaning "woman" in Spain - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China. Now Taiwan is not referred to as country and all software worldwide avoids the issue by referring to places as "regions or districts".
Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but in Microsoft's Outlook in Uruguay, the company offended the government by describing Tuesday April 30 as the queen's birthday.
Let's look at these.
1) For Muslims turning churches into Mosques, yeah, that's HORRIBLY unrealistic propaganda. I have two words for you: Hagia Sophia.
2) the Korean flag in reverse: so what?
3) hembra: hardly an 'insensitivity' issue; it sounds like a genuine difference in dialect.
4) China/Taiwan: boo hoo. If the Chinese want to dwell in their eternal house of reality-denial, that's fine. What's next, we should stop recognizing Philippines because Spain wants them back? (I don't see the US forcing MS to delete Cuba from the map...)
5) The Queen of Uruguay: that's just funny. If someone accidentally or on purpose started referring to the US as a monarchy, they'd probably be hired as a spokesperson for the DNC.
Maybe it's just a particularly American viewpoint, but this whole stuff about sacred cows (pun intended) is just silly historio/political dreck. If MS wants to bend over backwards to accomodate the Latvio-Armenian midget lesbian lobby for more sales, that's their call. But nobody should claim that failure to do so is anything but a business decision. The folks who get up in arms about the slightest little thing need to grow thicker skins and get the fsck over it.
And yes, to forestall the
-Styopa
The problem has damaged the company's reputation and the "trust rating,"
So not too much has changed, then.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
I mean its hard enough, isn't it?
All those pointers and 0 based arithmetic. I swear if I ever have to write another link-list routine, I'll go postal.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
So what? Microsoft isn't a political movement, it's a business.
Microsofts intent is nothing other than to sell as much software as possible. Do you think they give a damn about free speech?
The employee's weren't doing this as a political statement, they just didn't know better, and it cost their company money.
I can't see how that would not be a mistake from MS point of view.
For example, I don't expect my father to be a 'fat her', and I'm quite happy with the fact that my wardrobe doesn't literally ward my robes, and that my cupboards aren't actually boards supporting cups.
I loved the "Fat her" example. Your other two, however, seem a little odd - considering that a wardrobe does indeed keep your clothes protected from harm, and there are probably some horizontal boards supporting cups in your cupboards... Admittedly that's not all they do, but they're still a lot closer to their sources than your first example.
I'm just thankful that when I go out for happy hour, I'm not really chowing down on the rear end of a rooster...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Americans don't know geography, but British don't know simple editing. Ugh. Come on, now. Even Office 97, that great replacement of Windows 95 (???) has a spelling and grammar checker.
..." -- perhaps they mean bloopers?
..." -- don't you mean they may be?
From the article...
"The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further bloomers which have caused embarrassment
"It is therefore no surprise that some of our employees, however bright they may, have only a hazy idea
"Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but..." -- proud of it, right?
Typos and junk grammar really discredit any article.
The writer talks about how the average person has trouble with minor challenges in geography (true enough), but then goes on to talk about Microsoft programmers:
1, Not knowing where Jammu-Kashmir is, exactly, and not knowing that Indian law prohibits considering it part of anything but India. (Never mind that the law has its own counterpart in Pakistan; you can't avoid breaking the law on this one.)
2, In a similar vein, having to offend Kurds so as not to offend the Turks with regard to the depiction of Kurdistan.
3, Offending the Saudis by showing churches turned into mosques by invading Muslim armies...never mind that the exact opposite happens when a Christian army takes over a mosque in the game.
4, Didn't know that "woman" in one dialect of Spanish means "bitch" in another.
None of these things seem to me to be so hard to imagine. Do Nicaraguans know that the word "cracker" can be used as a racist term here? Do Indians know that the Argentines go completely apeshit when you refer to the Faulkand Islands as such, rather than by their preferred name for them? And his assertion that Microsoft leaves their employees facing arrest in other countries seems baseless; he didn't mention a single instance. The worst he came up with was "questioned," and that was for calling Taiwan by it's real name. It's not Microsoft's fault that China has a wild hair up their ass over that one, either.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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
Now, when I worked in the area of fraud detection, it was clear that there were organized gangs that were working inside banks to defraud them. It doesn't seem like a big stretch to me that someone might not work in corporatations for purely political, not monetary ends(i.e. slip a few thousand to someone in the right position is all it might take).
So what country are you from?
This guy is way out there
I forget the exact piece of software involved, but a few years ago an Irish friend of mine nearly went postal when the software he was using insisted on listing his Republic of Ireland address as being in the UK. That's a huge insult to anyone who lives in Ireland.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
My favorite stat is that %25 of US citizens think New Mexico is not a state.
Just imagine if someone invaded New Mexico and 25% of America were upset that we were sending troops there.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
And what exactly is the US culture? Unless I'm mistaken the US culture is one supposed to be based on anyone from anywhere. The old melting pot.
I guess if a muslim country produced a video game with christian chants or something similar and the religious fanatics in the US got in an uproar it's ok for the muslim country to scoff at them?
I know, a game should be produced showing the Pope saying it is ok to kill and rape unbelievers. Yeah, let's do that. That won't be a problem since Catholicism isn't part of a muslim country's culture.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I wrote a shareware timezone application (WorldClock) where I allow the user to click on a map of the world and get the local times in that area.
You would not believe the number of (abusive) emails I have received over Kashmir. You try to explain that the map highlights reflect timezone boundaries and not political boundaries but they just don't care. They are all blind to reason when it comes to anything to do with Kashmir.
Well that's not very useful is it. So your Windows doesn't come with IE and a calculator, or your distro didn't come with a couple application CDs? Didn't your Mac come with all the applications that are holy and rightous in the eyes of Apple?
I think you'll find a large chunk of us install our OS and a good set of applications as part of one process, even if technically the OS is a half a tick of a progress bar before the application install really begins.
Never confuse volume with power.
Two of the cases cited involve a person going to jail for how a map was drawn.
This article certainly illuminated what backward-thinkers Americans are.
Huh?
-Peter
which singlehandedly offended the entire planet.
- USA not knowing anything about !USA.
- Microsoft not being brought down by 100s of M$ in lost business.
- Governments overreacting by banning software. In stead of allowing a patch.
Also:Why not just change the chant?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Actions speak louder than words. The UK went to war to defend the Falkland Islands against an incursion by Argentina. This does not show the lack of caring you describe.
Also the recent military celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Gibraltar's capture did not arouse loving feelings between the UK and Spain.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
So many people have been quick to blame this phenomenon on the programmers (and particularly, American programmers) for not having sufficient knowledge of local laws and political and religious sensitive points. Many of these issues seem like problems that are really only obvious in retrospect--how many people, honestly, would think twice about their coloring or name of a little region on a map while they're doing it, the connotations of a word they choose in countries they haven't studied that speak the same language when they're translating, or the source of a chant they put in the background of a game? It seems to me that a lot of these issues, even, wouldn't even be noticed by or much less bother much of the population of the country that they purportedly offend. There are a lot of people eager to jump on your throat about issues so minor that you would never see them coming everywhere, and I doubt that any class given to programmers or management will be able to appreciably reduce the number of these situations. The only effective prevention I can see would be to either hire a lot of local testers in every region or to hire a lot of local programmers in every region. Even then, though, I wonder how many of the locals take it personally that a region disputed by their country goes by a different name or details about how members of their religion are portrayed in a game. In most cases, we're talking about one offended bureaucrat, not mobs of offended civilians.
~Ben
All your base are belong to us!
Dropped words and misused commas caused me so many mental double-takes that I would not have bothered reading further, had I not been interested in the reported issues.
Numerous of the points raised are valid; some are silly (though not to those offended, I'm sure.) Just as the Olympics has had to cave in to the demands of the PRC, and has dubbed Taiwan "Chinese Taipei" (surely an offense to the Taiwainese!), MS has had to cave in to the realities of political instabilities outside the U.S. and Western Europe.
--- Bill
So how is a company supposed to know that in a country a few thousand miles away a word that has a common meaning in all other parts of the world that speak the same language is seen as an insult? They can't. Not even MS has the means to keep up a massive network of people to stand around and baby a list of slang words.
Still, this is fucking stupid. Could you imagine the shit that would fly if the US GOVERNMENT started bitching about a foreign software company using a common English word that had a double meaning? "We are OFFENDED and OUTRAGED that they used the word 'screw' to refer to a conical piece of metal with an inclined plane wrapped around it. Seriously, screw also means FUCK! We can't have our children using that word!"
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
"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.)
Their knowledge of geography might be flawed, but their knowledge of history seems to be spot on. Mosques built over top of razed Christian churches is a very common thing in the middle east.
In the interests of furthering accuracy and geographic knowledge - several points.
1 Taiwan is the Republic of China and claims to be government of the whole of China. The Republic of Taiwan is just wrong - and reflects the US two China policy. It is as big a faux pas as calling the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Mainland China (or worse Communist China)
2 Only 26 countries recognize the ROC. It used to be the other way until the 70's when most countries did pursue a 2-China policy due to US influence. Google Taiwan recognition and you will see why this is the case and how it came about
Don't even want to go near Kashmir but Microsoft should have at the very least just made it a disputed region under control of India and I think people would have been satisfied (since that is in fact the reality of the situation...)
Ironically, the "fix" to the problem shows the source of the problem. Microsoft wants to do as little work as possible and rather than globalizing its software it wants to repackage the American form.
but did anyone notice that the game with the Koranic background chant was written by Japanese developers?
Say what you want. Type what you may. In the end everyone will still be buying Microsoft's products. But, how is this an insensitive programmers fault. They just do what they are told by the people that employ them. Sounds like the MS needs someone to do more research on their customers and get that to their programmers. I call bullshit on this article. Stop blaming the underlings and fix the problems. Hire someone cultural experts of some sort to edit their crap. I don't think it is the programmers requirement to be an expert in the worlds culture when they really need to be expert programmers and make working software.
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean.
Is it too much to ask that we get a link to the survey or article that spews this fact? This is the internet; we have the technology. I'd like to see that survey (which the author of the article obviously knew the location of, right?) first hand...
--RJ
First, the article's author should not mention illiteracy considering his numerous mistakes and abhorrent engrish. Next, where'd they poll these "56" americans, in a freakin bar? If you don't know where the pacific is you should be taken to it and thrown in. And it had nothing to do with geography knowledge, it was all namby-pamby political crap. Do you think $name the coder gives a sh*t over who claims ownership over some trees/rocks/sand/beach... in someplace he's not planning a vacation? it's gonna happen, unless you want to make a version for every possibility. just write quality code and if they are so sensitive, screw 'em, they don't have to buy it. F'n retards.
I thought Ohio was a Japanese greeting or something...
My mother in law in ND has a cable modem! She's 31337!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Yeah, America is pretty closed off to the outside world. A lot of Canadians who travel to the U.S. feel like they've entered some kind of sound chamber: nothing gets in. On an average day I'll get news from America, Canada, Britain, France, and Holland. In the States it can be hard to get even national news, and the 6:00 news in most cities is the most sensationalistic FUD I've ever heard. No wonder Americans are afraid to step outside their homes unarmed.
We get the same kind of crap up in Canada, but it doesn't have the monopoly position it has in the U.S. It's a shame, too; there is good journalism in America, but most Americans never get to see it. Media giants like Rupert Murdoch don't help the situation either. By the way, Murdoch is Australian--my advice is to send the bastard back home.
An insular press will result in an insular educational system, influencing public opinion concerning priorities. It also doesn't help that America sends a lot of troops abroad, and American troops tend to be the poorest and worst educated of the American population. This is not helped by a steady diet of sensationalistic media mixed with the us-vs-them mentality common to all armies. Probably not the best ambassadors--this might have something to do with America's image problem abroad.
It could be worse, though. They could be rude and arrogant, like the French. And insularity... the Japanese had a toy robot named 'God-o-Jesus'...
In other news, I wonder how many high school seniors can name all the states that border the one they live in. Is this (lack of) geographical knowledge exactly as described, or somewhat hyped, as I suspect, for the media?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
GM had this w/the Chevy Nova, which means 'No Go', and the Mexican market suffered.
Urban Legend, sport.
That said, other countries being offended by offerings in the USA (like the Koran chant in the video game) need to be scoffed at. Their culture is not the US culture and should not be considered.
Absolutely - provided you don't plan on doing business with them. Saudi Arabia (the country this example refers to) spends a lot of money on software, and I'd guess a fair percentage of that might go to Microsoft. Microsoft would be sensible to remember the maxim "the customer is always right" - even when the customer appears to be wrong according to Microsoft's cultural perspective. Note also that this only became an issue when (a) Microsoft ignored the advice of their own (Muslim) staffmember, and (b) shipped the offending product to the Middle East.
This is where the serious fun begins.
All interesting, however, they omitted a major flop in early versions of Windows XP where the 51st and 52nd states were labelled Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively...
I mean, how could you be so ignorant of US geography? It's your own country!
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
until Windows XP - we were put in +1 GMT, even we never moved our borders (and timezone) in the past 50 or so years. I don't know if someone protested, we just used "Helsinki, Riga, Talin GMT +2". I was surprised to see "Helsinki, Riga, Sofia, Talin GMT +2" in XP.
Takedown (2000)
Also Known As:
Hackers 2: Takedown (2000) (USA) (bootleg title)
Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick
America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw (1999) (USA) (working title)
I've gotta find a copy of this game!!!
:)
I never even heard of it before this article and now I'm intrigued. I've got a few Muslim friends who might shed a little insight into that chant thing. And who knows! They might react with rage!! Could be very entertaining!
Anyone got that? Contact me at xdesign at hotmail.com
That *was* a little muddy. I presume that the issue with the quote from the Koran is that it was being used out of context (probably way, WAY out of context). Like making a soap commercial showing John the Baptist handing Jesus a cake of Lever 2000 as they're standing in the river. The article didn't really say.
Its funny that M$ is in a big hurry to outsource everything possible to India, even though Windows 95 was banned in India. In simular stupidity GM has started outsourcing to India even though their cars are banned in India also. It seems these companies understand greed, and little else. M
Think about this for a second.
You are comparing ignorance of regional districts *within* a country (states) to ignorance of major world countries as a whole.
Europeans not knowing where Florida is is a totally different thing to Americans not knowing where Sweeden is. One os a district, the other is a country.
If you think Europeans should know where Florida is, then that means that Americans should know where South Wales is in the UK. Good luck on *that*.
It is pretty much accepted knowledge worldwide that the vast majority of the US population has little concern with anything beyond its own borders. Just watch your average american 6'oclock newscast and count the international references. Compared to other countries' newscasts it should be embarassing.
quote from TFA:
The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further bloomers which have caused embarrassment {snip}
Ummm...shouldn't the word be "bloopers"?
Isn't bloomers a word for dresses or ladies underwear (archaic word, granted)?
It just takes on new meaning when read like this:
The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further ladies underwear
which have caused embarrassment
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
> Hell, plenty of Americans dont even know that the State of Washington has nothing to do with Washington
> in the District of Columbia.
The fact that they were named after the same person doesn't count? (Who he was is left as an excercise for the reader.)
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Whoever wrote this needs to go back to writing class. The whole structure of the article was lousy. The first third of it kept talking about the mistakes without ever citing examples, or really setting up for the reader what he was writing about.
Crappy crappy crappy....
Geography is more than just topology and boundaries.
Note: I dispise Microsoft. But, really, I think these countries are too easily offended. Don't be so sensitive!
The article attempts to group together different mistakes made by Microsoft as a whole. and puts the blame on the lack of world awareness of the programmers. Many have pointed out that for the majority of the cases this is incorrect. In others, it is general bugs that exist in any kind of sodtware. For example, one of the Outlook version had Thanksgiving on the wrong week, becasue the program was caculating the fourth Thursday of November, instead of the last Thursday in November. In 1998, November had five Thursdays, and Outlook showed the wrong week.
Ohio is a province by european standards. As long as we can find the big cities in america that is pretty good. You can't expect everyone to know every tiny little piece in a country.
But not being able to tell the oceans is pathetic. A dutch person should be able to tell where the north-sea is. It is the bloody sea at our west coast and the waddenzee is to the north. If you don't know that you should be locked up for being too stupid..
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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
I've been to some mosques that were converted from churches after wars. I even have pictures. This happened. I could understand how some Christians could get a little miffed. Could someone explain how it is offensive to Muslims?
Also, the geography "mistakes" in the article appear to be more policitical in nature than some developer not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is. Would I expect some developer in China to know about the controverial border between Michigan and Ohio that led to the Toldeo (Ohio) War?
Speak truth to power.
If MS employees have little cultural sensitivity then that's probably because they are mostly from the US. Why should MS employees be greatly different from other Americans?
Or am I risking a flame war here....
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)
Take the Nova, we in the states know it as a crappy automobile, in spanish it means "doesn't move" The famous soda mis-translation in south east asia that turned a common slogan into a guarantee that drinking the product would make you see your dead ancestors. There's a couple more I can't remember.
This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.
So if what you are saying is true, it still doesn't quite invalidate Snopes...
the big story, the one that appears on middle-manager Powerpoint slides all across this English-speaking country, is a lot more intricate than that. it's been spun into a tale of corporate missteps, much bigger than the reality.
When I was a kid we twisted names around too, but there's more to this urban legend than that.
Now with cable you get it all plus CNN for the american. I also recently seen the BBC rebroadcast a news program from ABC if I remember correctly.
Anyway. Over the last 2 decades I seen a gradual dumbing down of the TV news. Every more eleborate intro's, more "coming up next/previews" that only was time and more and more "human interest stories". The dutch NOS took a nosedive when the bitch from the childerens news went to the main news but didn't bother to change her tone of voice.
The belgian news is "boring" but doesn't give you the idea that you are a stupid 11yr old kid being talked down too. Just 30 minutes of news. But even they are slipping.
The BBC has long lost all credibilty. Dutch news is a complete joke and CNN never had credibilty.
You know the really bad thing? The old 8 o'clock tv news was often the most watched program loosing only to soccer matches in viewing ratings. So exactly why did they change? To get more viewers? They failed. They lost viewers. So they change it more and more to loose more viewers.
I think that for some sick reason they want to make the program to reach everyone and in doing so alienate everyone. Perhaps tv viewing audiences ain't the stupid ones. Perhaps it is tv makers that don't get "grown-up" news.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...George W Bush ever looks one of those ancient maps with much of Africa marked as terra incognita...
"Launch the missiles, Dick! We'll get those terrarist hideouts now!"
Don't beleive it! At home i have a comp running on Office 97 and it's really buggy. I tried do download a patch, but the program called BIOS wont connect to the internet. Maybe i need to upgrade AOL.
done
hire ken jennings...
However I think you're trying to insult me, but I'm not following the logic.
I'm a christian, a geek, a husband, not neccessarily in that order.
Listen, as an above poster corrected me, I should have said smaller eastern european countries.
Sheesh.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
(and me) are indicative of the "problem". We all view this as craziness of the local goverment, just like the programmers at microsoft. It's probably just our attitude, I personally wouldn't give a damn if microsoft had included texas in with mexico, but I'm sure it would enrage some people. I think we focus on more pertinent issues, which is why we should all unite and overthrow all goverments to rule as the giant slashdot collective.
And before we start talking about insensitive PMs, the only example from the article that seemed in any way insensitive was the Arabic chanting from the Koran. And even that didn't sound too terrible, but I'm not religious so I have a hard time really understanding what's important and what isn't regarding that subject
If you're Muslim then I think you are pretty much required to take offense at everything you can related to the Koran. Sounds like the original developers made an honest mistake, but of course people freak their shit when their holy works are used "inappropriately."
Whatever. It's a book. I'm sure that much like the Bible its pages make for excellent rolling papers.
I went to Paris (France, not Texas!!) in June of 1999 with a buddy of mine, whose hometown is Chicago. Several people asked him stuff like, "isn't Chicago dangerous with Al Capone and all those gangsters?"
He assured them it was not very dangerous.
True story.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
That is where I got the "Here be dragons" part - that map was doing the email rounds 3/4 years ago.
I am surprised the middle east isn't on there. The middle east has moved into the xenophobes consciousness. The map should have "All these people did 9/11 and are hiding nukes up their asses".
And then maybe a little blue dot "Izzrail - Original population unlike the Ayrab invaders. Hiding nukes up their asses too, but the nice kind".
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Before 1990, the weather maps on German TV would not show any national boundaries at all (just cities and rivers for orientation) because they couldn't figure out Germany's correct borders.
There were still people around claiming the territories lost after WWII should still be part of the country. Since it was state TV, some of these people had seats on the board...
Now everything is settled, and the only fun in the weather map is to see which places wrestled its way into the map. Ever heard about Frankfurt, the place with the airport and the stock exchange? Not on the map...
"Ye pays your money - ye picks yer frame of reference."
Fair enough your average programmer has no sense of geopolitics but if Microsoft wants to sell in every country in the world they're going to have to realise that they need to spend some money on proper research and QC, they're a huge company with lots of cash the last time I looked.
Point 1 is easily solved with localised versions for India and Pakistan.
Point 2 is strange, the article makes it sound that a microsoft office in turkey had a map of turkey where I assume the south-east was marked as a seperate "entity" with some kind of artifical border which is n't there in any world map. Maybe they had politically active turkish kurds working there or something, strange.
Point 3 the saudis are offended by everything, have a overblown sense of importance and can be ignored.
Point 4 a little QC applies here.
Someone expects programmers to be sensitive? Talk about lack of cultural understanding.
I agree that it is a problem.
But, put yourself in their shoes and see how it looks. As trivial as a map may look, there are political implications behind it. For example, in this case, an area inhabited by a ethno-linguistic minority asserts its independance, although the de facto situation is that this is within the bounds of a soverign state. What is worse, is that they see this as a conspiracy from more powerful countries to assert the reverse of the status quo.
Some issues appear really trivial, but are really sensitive/contentious in other countries/cultures. Here are some examples:
Every culture has those "hot button" issues.
There are many other cases I am sure, but you get the idea ...
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According to : http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma /03updates-on-iso-3166/nlv10-div.html
the ISO (an NGO) has decided that Afganistan's official name is no longer "The Islamic State of Afghanistan" but instead is "The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan".
Not keeping up with this s*** is not the same as not knowing basic geography.
One summer, I was moving my girlfriend from Delaware back to our hometown in New Mexico. We were closing her bank account and wanted to wire the money to her account in New Mexico. It took about 2 hours (and 3 people) to convince the bank idiots that it was inside the USA and they didn't need to charge us an international wire transfer fee.
Also, I did tech support calls for a few years in college and at least once a month some idiot would make a reference to us being "foreign". My favorite was "You speak very good English for living in a foreign country." "I try my best..." is all I could come up with.
I'm writing bilingual content in my company. Last year in order to "improve" [I still can't find any advantage, another story...] things they had us move all our documents to this new system. English documents were published smoothly, while French documents were not visible for many hours. Oh... I guess it was because you know, only France speaks french and someone didn't care to check in which timezone Montreal is. We are still experiencing problems with Text encoding not showing correctly, but whatever, I think it was just a bad idea to change from the previous application, to choose this one so problems over are just reinforcing my opinion.
Oh contrair mon frair:
Conspiracy. noun.
a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
There is nothing secret about capitalism and the tendency of it to benefit those who have the money to influence the demand.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
-- Bored? Check out my Portfolio
Seems to me that the real problem will not be solved by holding geography classes. Here the problem was clearly identified within the company before product release. The warning was ignored because someone thought that software released in the US would remain isolated within the target market. Americans understanding Arabic? or software released in the US ending up in the middle east? What were the odds of that, eh?
What it shows is that neither nations nor "markets" can adequately define people. Can you imagine how silly it would be for them to make a release of Football-game software specifically for each team's home region so as not to offend the local fans? Did you know that some radio stations are already playing songs tailored in just this way?!? To me, the fact that some corporate marketing goons think they can classify me and expect me to like it... that's offensive.
Refuse to be classified! Don't let something arbitrary isolate you from other people; not nation, not religion or customs, not even language. Cross a line. Overcome a barrier.
This is one of the main reasons I encourage people to learn Esperanto like I'm doing. What kind of difference do you think it might make, for example, if the people of Iraq and the US were able to freely communicate? Not just a few foreign-educated men but factory workers and dentists, grocery-clerks and stay-at-home moms... What if you had a pen-pal in Iraq? Do you think you might get a different story than what you're being fed by the news media?
It is not the programmer's responsibility to be aware of these things. Public relations people should be there to supply them with information as well as check products before they are done. Programmers are paid to program, not be familiar with customs of other countries.
At this bookstore I used to go to, they had all the Mac programming manuals...took up a whole shelf. One of the slimmest volumes was one devoted entirely to internationalizing an application.
What I remember more than anything was that they had a whole chapter, I believe, on symbols and their meanings throughout the world. They suggested that if your app was going to be sold in the Middle East, it would be a bad idea to use a pig as an icon (that's the one I explicitly remember).
All in all it made for facinating reading to a 15yo non-programmer (at the time). It was really slim and really seemed more interested in getting the app more culturally-aware, instead of just harping on dealing with Unicode (or whatever they used then) strings.
Your post reminds me of one day long ago when my mother wanted to send a package to my weird uncle in Alaska. We went to a FedEx/UPS/whatever location (I was very young & didn't care which it was at the time) and my mother was told that she couldn't send the package without paying international rates and indicated which providence Alaska was in. "I think you mean province, but I don't want to send it to Canada, I'm sending it to Alaska." replies my mother. Brain child behind the counter proceeds to explain to us that Alaska is up there (points to color-coded map with all 50 states labeled as such, shows us AK) in Canadia, and in Canadia they have these things called Providences that are like our states, only not. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, my mom loses it and finds a manager who is marginally more intelligent than the counter-drone, convinces everyone that Alaska has been a state for the past 20+ years, and we end up paying the shipping cost for "US Only (AK and HI may be extra)"
This, my friends, is why drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Also, if and when I ever travel internationally again, I'll tell anyone who asks that I'm Canadian. The only negative stereotypes you guys have to deal with involve hockey and saying "eh" far too often, whereas the stereotypical American apparently believes that Alaska is a "providence" in "Canadia". *sigh*
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
And I'm in Canada, where our literacy rate is almost as abyssmal, so don't say I'm slamming the US only.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Canada is located in the state of Toronto. Sheesh!
Plus lots of former mosques turned into churches in spain and portugul so I I guess it works both ways.
"North of Buffalo", I said, figuring that he's more likely to know small US cities in his own state than the largest city in Canada.
"Uhhh..." he said.
"North of Lake Ontario", I said helpfully.
"Where's that?"
I gave up and told him "a ninety minute flight west and a bit north of you".
...and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Modding down a statement of opinion (which is pretty much fact - but we could dispute it all day) because you disagree with it is not only petty but basically demonstrates the truth of the statement. If you want to remove the power you must refute it once and ignore it thereafter.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
down instead of converted. Would that make the Saudis any happier? Or MS could have just left them as churches, and the Muslim faithful could attend mosque under the cross. Still not acceptable? Any alternatives I've missed?
What the Saudis object to is the concept of the game. They object to a Muslim team grabbing land from a Christian team.
Get over it. It's a game.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
I can understand your point. Anyone that gets their impressions of how brilliant Americans (BTW, capitalize the word "Americans" - it is a proper noun) are by watching our TV shows -- particularly Jay Leno's Jaywalking segment of the Tonight Show -- must think we are a bunch of idiots. The wonderful thing about Stupidity is that it does not discriminate on national origin, race, political affliction, creed, gender, or any other segregating factors. There seems to be a great number of stupid people in every people group in the world.
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
Here in the US we've forgotten our history so we're not as geographically sensitive as other countries are these days (Kashmir, Israel/Palestine, Taiwan, N/SKorea).
We Americans got whupped for trying to extend revolutionary freedom too far to the North in the 18th century, and didn't get our way in the 19th century with that memorable slogan
Oh well, at least Polk's doctrine of Manifest Destiny got us California:) We'd love to to think now that we'd never do something so gauche and imperialistic for territorial expansion. I'm surprised we're not hated more by our neighbors."Provided by the management for your protection."
I guess the only thing to do is to hire more programmers from other countries!
Haha. Touche, no?
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Look this patch for Solaris from Sun:
ROC timezone should be avoided for political reasons
I interned at MS last year, and I can tell you that they do make a big deal out of it. The problem is not just people lack knowledge of geography, it's that they lack basic understanding of other cultures and histories.
For example, in the Korean version of Age of Empires, on the front cover, there is a picture of a Samurai. Nothing wrong right? Well, except Koreans find that extremely offensive, because they were subjugated under Japanese rule for a long time and they hate Japanese Samurais and what they stands for.
Microsoft has this annual tech showcase for their employees, and there is a booth in their conference center dedicated to this issue. They have a department that reviews all the cover art, maps, and other culturally specific content before they're released.
"Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever" - Napoleon Bonapart.
Prepare to see this more often than the old "does it run linux" or "imagine a beowulf cluster ..." posts. /.-history the moment it was posted and is even more generic. It will get posted again and again whether its on or offtopic ...8 344&cid=10000000
This one already made
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11
"Pakistan is threatening my border!"
You must think in Russian.
it turns out I was in Ohio.
Or something like that. Blatantly stolen from 'Heathers'
...was placed at the top of the globe so that the globe's spin would conform to the "right-hand rule" (the right hand being somehow mystically superior to the left hand -- or at least the "right" being superior to the "left"; our word "sinister" comes from the latin word meaning "on the left"...)
;-)
If you orient (there's that word again...) the globe so that it's spin is in the same direction as the fingers on your right hand, "up" has to be "North"; the direction your thumb points (although, "thumbs-up" hasn't always had a positive connotation...)
Now, where else have I heard of this "right-hand rule"...? Hmmm... maybe "the ancients" weren't so backwards and unenlightened with their right-handedness superstitions after all.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
"It is therefore no surprise that some of our employees, however bright they may, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world"
Yet another reason why Open Source is the only sensible way for technology to grow. Foreign countries can tailor software any way they want to truly meet the needs of a geographical area.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I wonder how offended the Saudi's where when I was over there defending their asses and didn't plug my ears when they blared these prayers over loudspeakers nationwide twice a day. -- This is just a stupid an nonsensical statement. Read it again mods. Really, what is redeeming or interesting about it?
we have to be sensitive to those that consider us the devil, and will be rewarded in heaven for killing us infidels. I repeat, parent is an idiot.
It wouldn't bother me at all. Here is the flag of the country I live in...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
You are comparing ignorance of regional districts *within* a country (states) to ignorance of major world countries as a whole.
I 'll give you Sweden as a major country (HUGE economy), but I am sure that *many* of the regional districts (states) in US are FAR bigger in economy AND population (and thus more "major" by my definition) than *many* of the countries in Europe.
*Googling statistics left as an exercise to the reader
They already are. Haven't you noticed the political persuasion of those who refer to the Kennedys as "America's Royalty", JFK jr as the former "crown prince" and Kennedy's administration as "camelot"?
Interviewer:So, what can you tell us about Mexico?
Common US citizen: Oh, New Mexico? Well it's too hot there, but...
Interviewer: No, I mean Mexico, THE COUNTRY.
Common US citizen: ???
Interviewer: Think about it, Mexico, las pinyatas, sombreros...
Common US citizen: Oh, like Speedy Gonzalez!
Interviewer: *rolls eyes*
Common US citizen: No, I haven't been there. Do they know Britney there?
Interviewer: (smacks forehead) Oh Lord... *ahem* Ok, here's a Map of the world. Can you pinpoint Mexico?
Common US citizen: Hey look, you're wasting my time, I don't have the time for little subcountry details...
Yeah, this interview was ficticious. But I've seen similar things! Frankly, what do they teach their children on schools?
You've managed to demonstrate that what's presented in the article is not a fluke. As you said, let's look at these:
1) For Muslims turning churches into Mosques, yeah, that's HORRIBLY unrealistic propaganda. I have two words for you: Hagia Sophia. Personally, I agree with you on this one, but blame our willingness to bend over backwards not to offend Saudi Arabia on Bush and his cronies and their active efforts to continually increase our already excessive dependence on oil.
2) the Korean flag in reverse: so what? You're right, no insensitivity here. Hey, if we want to display your flag upside down or in rainbow colors, just lighten up and accept it! I mean, really, it's just a (non-US) flag!
3) hembra: hardly an 'insensitivity' issue; it sounds like a genuine difference in dialect. Yeah, you might be right on this one. I don't know and won't act like I do.
4) China/Taiwan: boo hoo. If the Chinese want to dwell in their eternal house of reality-denial, that's fine... This is a more interesting quandary than you seem to realize. The US has managed to get caught between a friend we have promised to protect (Taiwan) and a country we don't want to piss off because they are world's next huge market (and maybe the world's next superpower?). I work for a localization company (translation and related tasks), and we have had to change the label "country" to "country/region" for our clients whenever presenting a list that includes Taiwan to keep them from losing business in China. Anyway, this will get even more interesting if China should ever decide to make good on their talk about bringing Taiwan "back into the fold." That's when we find out what our priorities are between money and principles. Hmm, I wonder which way that's gonna go...
5) The Queen of Uruguay: that's just funny... See, that's funny to you and me as Americans, but it's easy for us to shrug off the idea of America being referred to by another country as a monarchy because it is of no consequence. When the de facto worldwide standard software refers to Uruguay as a monarchy, I think I would be at least a little disappointed or annoyed as an Uruguayan.
I'd also argue that the US has a long tradition of arguing but ultimately tolerating such things - crucifixes in urine, routine desecrations of our symbols like the flag, etc. Intentional desecration of the flag is quite different than displaying it incorrectly as though it were correct. Would you like it if the US flag were reversed on the Olympics web site, even if it were an oversight?
Main points:
sig != null
Depends on when their "junior high" was... the USSR was still one country back when i was in jr high. There was still more than 13 then, but that would account for some of them.
I would be offended too (and I'm not Christian) if Christian religious chanting were used as background music for such a game.
What a sweet idea! Hymns being chanted as you battle cyberdeamons! I'm going to start on the mod right now!
Don't worry though, I'll mention you in the credits. I wouldn't want people to play the mod an not know how to thank for the idea...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further bloomers which have caused embarrassment and cost money on a grand scale.
Shouldn't this be bloopers? I thought bloomers were something you wear... er... that women wear...yeah...
Bloomer
1. A costume formerly worn by women and girls that was composed of loose trousers gathered about the ankles and worn under a short skirt.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
The best way to say this is to say you live below the "N" in C A N A D A.
-- PhilipOfOregon, who lives above the "R" in Oregon
Ummm, if you dig into the archives and look around at news discussion in early 2002, you'll find that it was widely known that the Iraqis no longer had "WMDs", whatever those might have been. Yes, they had used deadly gas in the slaughter of the Kurds, but only the steadfast Republican core in the US still believed that they still had such weapons or the ability to produce them without discovery. The common question among those Americans who followed more than Fox News was "So how will George and Dick justify an invasion now?"
;-)
The answer soon became clear. Rather that "Iraq has WMDs", the story became "Iraq is building WMDs", or even more ominously, "Iraq has the capability of building WMDs." This couldn't be debunked, because we hadn't yet developed mind-reading technology. And this sure sounded like a justification for attacking anyone anywhere.
(We still don't seem to have mind-reading technology. And where are those flying cars that we were promised?)
Anyway, well before the Iraq war actually started, we were already hearing humorists talking about "the possibility that Iraqis are considering the prospect of looking into a project to investigate the future development of WMDs" and other such parodies of the Bush line.
Then there was our horror when we realized that 2/3 of the American population had actually fallen for the attempt to associate Saddam Hussein with 9/11. We've had to face the shame of realizing that the American population really is that gullible.
OTOH, by then a lot of us had learned to associate the phrase "linked to" with the headline that the Onion printed back in Octobeer 2001:
Kevin Bacon Linked to Al Qaeda
This has gotta be the best comment so far on this line of propaganda. I've come to react to the phrase "linked to" by automatically wondering what lie the speaker is trying to make me believe.
(And there was the followup information that George W and Osama both have a Bacon number 3. It seems that they've been in at least two movies together, and one movie is 3 links from Kevin.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
canon
\Can"on\, n. [OE. canon, canoun, AS. canon rule (cf. F. canon, LL. canon, and, for sense 7, F. chanoine, LL. canonicus), fr. L. canon a measuring line, rule, model, fr. Gr. ? rule, rod, fr. ?, ?, red. See Cane, and cf. Canonical.] 1. A law or rule.
SW of East Wales?
FTA: His investigations showed the Japanese, who had developed the game for Microsoft, had added the chant to the tape because they liked the sound of it without checking its origins. "They were chastised and corrected," he said.
So the Japanese screwed up the racial sluring, MS just published it.
I'm not saying out sh*t don't stink, but no one's is roses
Microsoft mission is to serve customers first, and from my experience, they do it quite well. Whatever customers want, they incorporate that into their products. However, the errors in language and geography such as china/taiwan and india/kurdistan are not part of that. It is almost impossible to look at all details and confirm that with customers.
Microsoft needs to take advantage of this situation and create a MapWizard. Whe world could be created in whatever world view you or you nation feels it should be. Ab_iron
When some of my family was visiting from Italy, I took them to see the Grand Canyon. When we stopped at an Italian restaurant on the way, they started laughing. It turned out the name of the restaurant meant "the slut" in their dialect. They all insisted on having their picture taken next to the big sign with the place's name on it.
Mistakes happen. Unless you *know* that it's intentional then getting upset about it is just a sign of immaturity.
Incidentally, if the Bush administration has done anything right, it's massively decreasing the effectiveness of the words "capability" and "potential"
I mean, thing about it: I have the potential to fuck a super model -- I have a penis and am not dead. All I'd have to do is meet a super model and convince her than overweight computer programmers with rhetoric degrees and modest debt portfolios are the sexiest segment of the population, and that I am an exemplary member of that group.
This does not mean that super models should start a "dasmegabyte" alert system based on chatter found on EfNet IRC channels.
Going to war over "potential" crimes is ridiculous, because you can invent potential whereever you like. The rest of the world has every right to be disgusted that America went to war in Iraq with no provocation. I would actually rather live in fear of potential threats then to become a real one. But I'm not a murderer and I don't like to associate with them.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Whap!
This is a good trick for you females. (There ARE some on /., dammit!)
A very attractive, accomplished, intelligent woman played a prank on me. As a party game, she had me close my eyes and trace the outline of "the ideal woman". I figured the game was to get the guy to lose track and laugh at the deformed outline. Something along the lines of "Her breasts are 2 feet above her neck!"
So I concentraited very hard.
"Ok, show where her eyes are."
"Show where her nose is."
"Show where her hair comes down to."
"Show where her breasts are and their approximate size"
"Show where her navel is."
"Show where her waist is."
"Show where her hips are."
I was focussing really hard as the bits got closer together, sure I was creating a monster.
"Show where her vagina is."
I put my finger out and felt a warm, moist cavity.
I fell over laughing - she'd knelt and put her mouth on my finger. I was pretty surprised. And a bit embarrassed.
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean. Well my 2 year old is a young American and he has no clue where the Pacific Ocean is. I'm thinkin' its time for some extra tutoring.
They should tick off both, by listing it as a disputed territory.
Doom 3isn't an apt comparison, but you'd be offended if Christian religious chanting were used as background music in a fighting game? Are you saying Doom 3 doesn't have disembowled crucified people on upside-down crosses (it does)?
I think calling it "Peurto Rico" might offend some Puerto Ricans as well..
Hello to all, I'm from Spain, and here we can see a few of this 'Pajeros'. (I have seen some of them). ...
:D
As you says, 'Pajero' is a word that here in Spain evokes some (un?)pleasant images
After a time, they renamed to 'Montero', a word without such connotations...
Not to mention the Mitsubitshi GRAND Pajero...
...supporting and financing terrorism is. Not to mention violating UN resolutions. You know, remember that? The thing that got violated which gives right to invasion and disabling of Saddam? What's the point of having resolutions if nobody enforces them for a decade?
"He said that as a geographer himself it was depressing that Americans had a reputation for being particularly unaware of the rest of the world. The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean."
Wow.
Actually, I'm not saying any of these things. I'd find it offensive if an actual religious chant were being used (not just a made up one) in a context that was inappropriate. Regarding Doom: I've never played it, and no virtually nothing about it. shrug. But in any case, I'm not arguing for absolutes- I don't believe that a general level description, such as a these moral statements are, can adequately state what is most moral in any particular situation- even Christians cannot hold that "Thou Shall Not Kill", for there are numerous situations in which killing seems justified. This is not some moral relativism either. One can believe in there being an absolute right and wrong for every situation, without calling for an 'always'.
Logic, macros, and more
Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth.
People born in Puerto Rico are American Citizens.
So why, oh why, is Puerto Rico representing itself as a separate country in the Olympics?
We Americans are confused and stoopid enough already.
Did they get independence when I wasn't looking?
I live the greatest adventure anyone could wish for. - Tosk the Hunted
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
They insist of giving people a Software License rather than a Licence. On the other hand, given the amount of porn on the internet, maybe they got it right!
Of course, this is by no means only a Microsoft problem. Most Americans don't even understand there is a problem here.
Squirrel!
Nova wasn't selling in South America, until they realized that in some of the local languages the name means "won't go".
:)
As another posted pointed out (and gave a link), that's all urban legend.
Say you go to buy a dining room furniture set (table, chairs, etc). You notice the company's name is "Notable".
Do you think to yourself, "No table? I aint buying that!" or do you just see the word "Notable" and not notice anything and buy the set. Anyone who would do the former would be a moron in my eyes. It may be funny if oyu notice it later on, but if it influences your buying decision, that's just stupid.
Joseph?
We have read plenty of posts here how the average american's global knowledge only extends to their own boundary. This may be a generalization. But I'd like to share 2 examples from when I, a New Zealander, was living in Minneapolis, some time ago.
They are no more than an amusing tale.
Local news reader on TV: "And now International news....In Montana, heavy snow has damaged infrastructure..."
And...
Masterate student at UMN: "So, where are you from?"
Me: "New Zealand." Student: "Ah, Its lovely up there. I go there sometimes. My parents live in New York"
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
The funny thing about the coffee is that Turkish coffee and Greek coffee are pretty much the same (or seemed so to me at least) and I couldn't stand either one. Something about drinking the grounds with the coffee almost made me gag. I'm sure they're acquired tastes though. To each his own.
The 4 wheel drive truck known as Mitsubishi "Pajero" is named "Montero" on some spanish speaking countries, because "Pajero" is the slang for "masturbator". :-)
MOD THE CHILD UP!
head -1 /etc/passwd
root:DvoBd4fTSs2t1:0:0:root:/root:/bin/emacs
So, well it could replace the "explorer" or whatever the "SHELL" is called.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I work for a company... (Berlitz)... whose sole business is teaching foreign languages. With 500 locations in 60 countries, every piece of software I write has to be
a) multilingual
b) EU/other compliant
We go through several hurdles and spend lots and lots of time making sure our tax codes are compliant, software respects foreign privacy laws, etc.
It sucks big time, but I have an appreciation for the difficulty in internationalization of software. I gotta get a job at a US only company...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Take a look at the actual survey. 10% of the Americans surveyed (all between 18 and 24 years old) DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE USA IS!!! My bet is that they chose Canada since the US *must* be the big one there ;)
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
BTW; you replied to my post, and put the copied material in quotes (as per normal Slashdot quoting).
Just one problem.... doing it that way made it look like I said it (I didn't); in fact, it had already been quoted from the grandparent.
It would have been more appropriate to reply to the post where the comment was originally made.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Reading the actual NG survey stats, it's clear that the guy they interviewed was unable to read properly (or whoever wrote his comments couldn't, either way). The proper numbers from the survey are that American youths (18-24), which is the age range of the survey group from all the countried polled, only got 23 of 56 questions right on average. In actuality (or at least as far as you can trust a survey), only 30% of Americans don't know where the Pacific Ocean.
But guess what. Only 29% of the Mexican youths surveyed DID know what direction West is. Only 90% of Americans can identify their own country on a map. And only 44% of the Americans surveyed know what a Euro is.
Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
found some blog on it that explains it well.4 /05/05/310.aspx
http://blogs.galaxycow.com//vermyndax/archive/200
No Va = It Won't Go is a reasonable spanish translation.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
What do you know?
think the nations capital > nation's
is in the far northwest. > Use ? instead of . at the end of a question.
Americans dont even know > don't
Washington in the District of Columbia. > There is no Washington in D.C. "Washington, D.C." is the capital city's name.
D.C. isn't a state, it's a special district with it's own government? > run-on sentence
it's own government? > its
know that Peurto Rico > You misspelled Puerto Rico three times. How's that for offending "Peurto Ricans"?
belongs to the US, but is > unneeded comma
it's own nation? > its
referring to Peurto Rico > Puerto Rico
Peurto Ricans > Puerto Ricans
China or India, is > unneeded comma
refer to Peurto Rico > Puerto Rico
as a "state", > unneeded comma; comma would be within quotes
it's not a criminal offense [...] neither in the USA or > "neither" causes a double negative; use either
in Peurto Rico. > Puerto Rico
It is a criminal offense to refer to Taiwan as a country in China. > clumsy placement of prepositional phrase makes sentence ambiguous -- Is it okay to refer to Taiwan as a country [that exists] in[side] Brazil? ;-) It is a criminal offense in China to refer to Taiwan as a country.
>>> flamebait, dubious insinuations, and sweeping generalizations throughout
How about Taiwan, Kurdistan, and Gaza? ...and be sure your answers don't offend anyone!
Or am I risking a flame war here....
Yes, but only because you didn't RTFA...
0 1 - just my two bits
The only instances I saw in the article that were legimate complaints were the Spanish word that means "bitch" in Nicaragua, and Korea's flag being backwards. If I ran a company I wouldn't bow to the whims of countries like Saudia Arabia or China. I also wouldn't take into consideration laws in backwards countries about what could be printed on a map. Making a map that doesn't accurately reflect the real world is ridiculous. Countries that cruely subjugate their people (women in particular) should not be given special consideration ever. I have less respect now for Microsoft than I ever did since they conformed.
I'm surprised no one's picked up on this, but most of the examples that the article points out are very old (Windows 95?).
Microsoft has grown up a lot since then, and clearly realizes that in order to maintain growth they have to be increasingly aware of international norms/customs.
I know that all MSFT software has to go through several international reviews before they can be released to catch issues like these ahead of time.
I don't think this article is really that relevant to today.
Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...
Since I haven't seen it, and I think it's a nice summary about differences between the two:
Americans think that 100 years is a long time.
Europeans think that 100 kilometers is a long distance.
...when our history book depicted our beloved Upper Peninsula of Michigan as part of Canada.
"It isn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it is sufficient to delay the news until it no longer matters." - N
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean.
In other news, 377 out of 453 were unable to select an useful and appropriate survey sample size.
... Americans not knowing how to spell "Canada."
;)
Yeah: C-eh-N-eh-D-eh.
The bigger question should be:
"Is it pronounced 'CAN-a-da' or 'ca-NAY-da'?"
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Well then, Mr. Right Wing Wacko, guess who violates the most U.N. resolutions? That's right. The good 'ol U.S. of fuckin' A. But of course, since that doesn't support your stupid assertion, you ignore it. That and the fact that it's the fucking Saudis who are supporting and financing terrorism, not the Iraqis under Saddam.
BTW, Saddam Hussein was supported by the U.S. not too long ago, and by a Republican president. Again, since it doesn't support your loony theories, you all but conveniently ignore that too.
Why don't you stick that in your crack pipe and smoke it? The mods are certainly smoking lots of crack to moderate up such an uninformed and stupid post such as yours.
And with Windows 95 banned, they ran Office 97 how?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I wonder if the Microsoft maps have "Peking" or "Beijing"? That alone would put a lot of Chinese in an offended state.
Perhaps not. These are simply two romanisations of the chinese capital using different systems. "Peking" is the Wades-Giles romanisation, "Beijing" is the pinyin romanisation. If you know how the systems work and don't try to pronounce the letters with their english values then they both give the same pronunciation of the name of the chinese capital. For example the very first sound in the name is an unaspirated voiceless bilabial stop which is sort of half-way between English "B" and "P".
"Beijing" is the preferable romanisation simply because it uses the now official romanisation system. I think it was made official sometime in the 80's. But because in the west we tend to pronounce the name using our English sound representations many people have the misapprehension that the actual name was changed in China. It was not and has remained the same for the last however many hundreds of years.
"Of course we offended Kurds by doing this but we had offended the Turks more and they were a much more important market for our products. It was a hard commercial decision, not political."
Bolded by me.
If you think politics isn't the major cause of this uproar, you are scary ignorant.
I find it hard that most game players would care. It's just a game, most gamer know this. If I bought a game that confused Alaske with Texas, I would laugh and continue on. If the game was marketing as 'educational' or 'edutainment' I would write a letter to the CEO of the company.
Of course, maybe I'm a lot more thick skinned then most.
This also goes to emphesis how stupid it is to have a government based* on religeon.
Of course, that Jack Ass pins it as the programmers fault. It' is the fault of the person who gathered specification data. It is the fault of the QA group. Not the programmers.
OTOH, if it was written in a manner so it was more adpatible, you could just patch the offending piece, and toss a disclaimer on the box stating to download the patch.
*As opposed to strongly influenced.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're not supposed to drink the grounds at the bottom.
I'm curious when those two became related. I thought geography wasn't based on political boundries. I know political boundries certainly aren't based on geography. Otherwise the US would be restricted to the eastern seaboard still.
Yes, I said it.
Apparently I'm not the only one who read this on Fark yesterday.
Just send them a link to a friggin' map, that's what I'd do. Maybe you could pinpoint your exact location on the map with a little star labled "I'm right here, dummy".
Furry cows moo and decompress.
No no no, you have to have equivalent comparisons. How many Iraqis can point to America on the map? or how many Americans can point to Baghdad on the map? Don't make one side have to answer a tougher question than the other.
I suppose European students studying American history would probably go to the US. The US does have a very large portion of foreign college students. Look at it another way, how much history of the UK does Germany offer as a curriculum? (Not a very apt comparison, I expect more than US history)
What front page did Moore allegedly fabricate?
So I checked with a friend whose wife is Colombian on the meaning and connotations of hembra in Spanish:
"She says its use conveys its meaning, like most words in Spanish. If said cordially, she believes most women (even those from Central America) would consider it a compliment. If said with an insulting or condescending tone, it would be kind of like calling them a whore. Not as bad as using 'puta' but close enough."
I'm thinking this entire article was written mostly because the autho wanted to bash Microsoft for a problem that frankly has nothing to do with them specifically. At worst, it's a problem that any international corporation might face.
For example, if this post had been aimed exclusively at a US audience the spelling of a few words would be different - try to say all english is the same and then gauge the response. If you buy the Outbackostan version of MSWindows you expect them to get the spelling right for the region.
See Raymond Chen's blog. He has some entries that shed light on why some decisions were made vs. others in Windows - the reason being internationalization of the software.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
is the fact that MS has made soft errors in their operating system as the article seems to indicate?
I thought it might have been the cost of the effort to polishing their releases (I seem to remember heaps of language releases on MSDN) so I guess it's not for lack of unicode support for language.
But cost of checking might not be worth it. Something 80%-90% accurate (chew me out if you can show examples to disprove this ratio) seems to be ok for MS.
here's an obilgatory JOS article on unicode that lots of MS developers would be aware of ...Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Countries like Sweden, Norway or Belgium have far more greater international influence than any of the US states ever will. Just for starters the goverments of the Nordic countries very often are involved in arranging peace agreements between warrying factions all around the world. Why? Because they nations that can act as independent entities internationally. US states can't fro obvious reasons.
Which is why is completely undefensible that US people are so ignorant about geography, history and international current affairs.
Heck, your President, when inteviewed during the election campaign, did not know who Pervez Musharraf was. Ironic that he would become eo important to US foreign policy....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Mexican scholarity is around 6 or 7 years lower than in the US.
Canada and the UK have similar level of development.
Look, there are many international competitions out there between students of different countries, the US never does that well, normally the winners are Singaporeans, Chinese and Germans...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Microsoft may stumble on localization attempts in some places. In the German language area of Europe they certainly overdo it: it is not easily possible to obtain a PC with an English OS version installed. It is almost impossible to get a Windows Pocket device with an English interface.
I know, it is MS, it is difficult for them to sick to the law.
But the occupied territories, are exactly that, and should appear as such in any decent map, no matter where it is sold (central Jerusalem or any of the US Bible belt towns where they believe Israel are the chosen people, etc.).
Ditto for Kashmir, part of which is clearly under Indian sovereignity but is disputed by Pakistan.
And as for Taiwan, it is a no brainer, Taiwan is not a recognized country by most nations on Earth, neither by the UN.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Taiwan is not a recognized country (save by 2 or 3 countries), and pretty much everybody that knows anything about international politics agrees that one day Taiwan will reintegrate with mainland China.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have no idea who those people are. *shrug*
I would only have lost if I play the game that says liars should be ignored. I don't play that game. Many people think that's the right response to trollers. They are wrong. False statements told (in a context other than where they are meant to be recognized as false, like satire), should be countered. Period. I didn't lose a damn thing.
Ignoring trolls is never the right answer. It doesn't matter whether someone is spreading falsehoods deliberately as a joke or because they enjoy lying or because they really believe them - they need to be countered in any case.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Hey, I like Overly Critical Guy!
± 29 dB
Agreed I want some examples here,
Also its very obvious that you have not seen European News channels such as Euronews (euronews.net) I on the other hand have seen US news channels.
Oh and most people don't count Sky News in the UK as a European view as its basically Fox News UK and is generally anti-eu in many respects
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
Keeping trolls from laughing isn't my goal. Keeping bullshit from spreading is. Thats' why lies must be opposed, regardless of the motivation of the liar
Stop telling me I'm failing at something I already told you I'm not even trying to do in the first place.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Chang Kai-Shek's old KuoMinTang gang haven't been in power in Taiwan for a few years. The attitude I've seen from the last few governments has mostly been "look, those old foreign guys who ran our country for decades are dead, we're not claiming to be the rulers of all China like they did, we're trying to be the Taiwan we were without them, so leave us alone." And of course the Chinese government doesn't want to hear this, because it spent all those decades insisting that it was the real ruler of All China and that the rebel ex-government in Taiwan had better submit to it, so owning Taiwan is an ego thing for them, and the US old Cold Warriors don't really want to hear it, because they like having Taiwan tweaking the Chinese Commies, and because they really like puppet governments much better than independent governments also. And then of course there's money, which Taiwan makes lots of, and China wants, and there does seem to be a lot of trade building up between Taiwan and nearby Shanghai.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's already here and it's called Neon Genesis Evangelion and it's years old.
Bugger.
The problem is, the only things I know about computer games is what my children and younger colleagues tell me.
What a long, strange trip it's been.