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Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps
Garabito writes "An error on Google Maps has caused an international conflict in Central America. A Nicaraguan military commander, relying on Google Maps, moved troops into an area near San Juan Lake along the border between his country and Costa Rica (Google translation of Spanish original). The troops are accused of setting up camp there, taking down a Costa Rican flag and raising the Nicaraguan flag, doing work to clean up a nearby river, and dumping the sediment in Costa Rican territory."
This is how google takes over the world! Soon there will be a very small dot somewhere in google maps called "googleland", and then over time the borders will expand. But nobody will question it, because it must be right.
Indeed. I almost rode my bike to a seemingly nearby park I had never explored. Then I double-checked it on the park authority's site and found it was over 100 miles away from where the Google map showed it.
So I 100% feel what this Nicaraguan commander felt. I mean; out situations were basically identical.
we can't have nice things.
We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag ? "What? We don't need a flag, this is our home, you bastards" "No flag, No Country, You can't have one! Those are the rules... that I just made up!...and I'm backing it up with this gun, that was lent to me from the National Rifle Association." --Eddie Izzard
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
"(Google translation of Spanish original)."
How can I trust it now?
Yesterday at noon, a disgruntled google employee disbanded the unit states of america, the territory was renamed to the pants of canada in google maps, rising widespread global confusion.
The white house reacted quickly to solve the problem and re-inaugured obama as the president of the pants of canada.
So that's why the Google EULA says "Not responsible for inadvertent war." I never understood that before...
See, it's stuff like this that's going to give South American military juntas a bad name.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Imagine the resources of a nation like Nicaragua, then imagine the quality of their IT infrastructure... does it really surprise you that much that Google has a better and usually more accurate mapping service than they can get from their government?
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
There's a map for that.
How could they not know something was wrong when they find the wrong flag on the flagpole?
The original article says that they raised the Nicaraguan flag, but not that they took down a Costa Rican flag. I'm not sure where that "information" came from.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Today I used Google maps (instead of the official ones, with hopes no one would notice), to justify raiding neighboring land. If General finds out he's gonna be sooo pissed! FML.
- Nicaraguan commander, Eden Pastora
Since I found the "must not be used for running nuclear facillities" in the WinNT Eula, I'm definitly not sure if you're joking or not....
bickerdyke
Didn't even bother to check the absolute source of truth, Wikipedia. Newbies.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
“turn left”... off an overpass. (It’s fixed now.)
The map, or the side of the bridge?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.