Slashdot Mirror
Just Where Is The Lincoln Memorial, Anyhow?
John3 writes "Searching Google Maps for the Lincoln Memorial is returning the location of the FDR Memorial instead. Conservative bloggers smell a conspiracy since Glenn Beck is holding his 'Restoring Honor' gathering at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow (August 28). Notes for the map listing on Google state 'This place has unverified edits'; so, did someone claim the listing and edit the location?"
Why the hell DOES it redirect to FDR memorial? http://www.google.com/search?q=lincoln+memorial
Looking at specific searches, searching for the Lincoln Memorial gets you the FDR Memorial, but searching for the Lincoln Monument gets you the Lincoln Memorial.
I would imagine that it's simply a matter of the word memorial being attributed to FDR more than Lincoln, for some reason.
Hah, that was actually a very sucessfull scam in the UK, IIRC in the 50's the scammer adverstised a copper medalion of the Queen mounted on walnut to commerorate her corrination, the mail order price was 10 pounds. What you got was a penny glued to a small piece of walnut. He sold thousands of them and was eventually taken to court where he won the case.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Is that MOST people suck at it. Europeans like to laugh at Americans because they generally know the correct locations of more countries... Forgetting that America is bigger than Europe and knowing the correct locations of some states would be the same relative amount of knowledge. Their geography outside of that area is usually fairly limited. Most know where the US is since it is large and in the news a lot, but often little more.
For example I guy I chat with online from the UK had visited Brazil and was thinking of visiting the US. He wanted to know where various people he knew lived so he could decide if he was going to try and visit. I knew there was a good chance he didn't know where Arizona was since it doesn't make the news a lot (the new anti-immigration bill non-withstanding). So I told him it was "Just east of California, and just north of Mexico." He said that didn't help. I though he meant he didn't know where California was so I clarified. No, he didn't know where MEXICO was. He thought it was in Central America, near Brazil.
Thing is, geography is just kinda boring. It is route memorization, and not all that necessary to most people. This is even more true now, what with maps online and so easily accessible. If you need to know where something is, from a countries down to a street, it is easy to locate.
I also get a little tired of geography snobs because it is exceedingly rare that someone can properly locate all the countries in the world. Never mind the amount of time spent, most people lack a memory that accurate. So when people get snobby about parts of geography but can't do other parts, to me that is just saying "What I know is important, what everyone else knows isn't."