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[Michael]

Google Maps now displays ‘Gulf of America’ for US users after Trump’s executive order

I'm logged into Google as OW, and I see this. I haven't tried looking at the map when I'm not logged into Google.

Google Maps has changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ for users in the US, following an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump last month aimed at honoring “American Greatness.”

On January 20, his first day in office, Trump officially ordered that the gulf be renamed, citing its significance to the US, and also ordered that Denali, North America’s tallest peak, be given its former name, Mount McKinley – in honor of the 25th president, William McKinley.

Google previously explained that it has a “longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

In a blog post on Monday, the tech giant announced that after the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) officially changed ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’, it will follow suit and update Google Maps to reflect this change.

While users in the US will now see ‘Gulf of America’, in Mexico, Google will continue to refer to it as ‘Gulf of Mexico’. Users in other countries will see both names: ‘Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’. The company explained that it determines the name based on user location settings.

[jil]

Yes over in the UK its shown as 'Gulf of Mexico(Gulf of America)'

[pommystuart]

Same downunder

Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)

I see Canada has still not had it's name changed to USada.

[ggordon]

I'm guessing that as this proceeds, the Canadian provinces will actually become individual states rather than the entire country being just one state. When that happens British Columbia will be renamed to North Washington, Alberta will be renamed to North Montana, and so on. And for the sake of being consistent, Saskatchewan will be renamed to North North Dakota.

[Michael]

As far as I can tell, Canada will be just one state. Of course, that one state will be larger than the rest of the country.

[Michael]

I found a very neat website for finding lighthouses. Here's the link for the historic lighthouse on Cape Carthage.

As well as having the details of the lighthouse, there was a wonderful photo, too.

[Maikel]

Meanwhile, in Mexico (and the rest of the world) ...



As found at Mastodon: https://syzito.xyz/@selzero/113996105543403049

[jil]

[Caro]

[Whereas, this is a joke. ]

[Maikel]

I fail to see the link.
Why name a body of water between North Holland and South Holland to the east and West Holland to the west Gulf of East Anglia?

[studentforever]

Quirky humour goes something like 'Well there is a coastline to the west of this stretch of water in East Anglia so let's annexe the name. After all it's the 'English Channel' even if the ignorant French name it 'La Manche'. It's as logical as the 'Gulf of America' anyway.

[studentforever]

I've just read on the good old Beeb that now Google are permitting advertisers to get more data from my computer and, unlike cookies, I can't do anything about it. I get fed up of getting rid of cookies which have slipped through my 'decline' under the guise of 'legitimate interest' so this will get worse as my computer will start to rule me instead of the other way round. Has anyone advice on a decent search engine which allows me to keep my privacy? It would be even more useful if the recommendation came with guidance on how to change Firefox to use that one and not go to good old Google which is now less good as a search engine and invading my privacy to a greater and greater extent.

[Maikel]

Install the uBlock Origin extension.
It will stop a lot of advertising, tracking and malicious Javascript modules from loading.
If such modules aren't loaded, no unwanted cookies will be stored, and no malicious or data grabbing code will run.

There are more privacy friendly search engines out there.
One of them is DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing search results.
There are more, you can Google them.

[studentforever]

45 minutes later it hadn't finished. I aborted so what state my computer is in I know not. Of course I couldn't remember my mozilla passport either - I probably haven't used it since I bought this computer in 2022!! See if this one goes through. So far so good

[arboggs]

If you go to "Settings" in Firefox and then go to "Search" there is an option at the top called "Default Search Engine" with a drop down menu. You can select "DuckDuckGo" on that menu to make it your default search. And definitely download uBlock Origin like Maikel suggested. It makes a huge difference.

[Michael]

Scientists at U.S. weather forecasting agency ordered to get clearance before talking to Canadian counterparts

Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, did the same thing with Environment Canada years ago. One of the people I had worked with was at a Zoom meeting between the Prime Minister's Office, (PMO) and the people in the Arctic and Alberta Weather Centres. They were told they had to limit their discussions with the media just to the immediate weather and the weather forecasts. The mention of anything related to climate change or global warming was not allowed. Even answers to such questions as, "Isn't this unseasonably cold?" were not allowed. Discussion on any other topics had to be cleared first with the PMO. The media had to submit questions to the PMO and the PMO would contact the appropriate person to respond. The answers had to be given to the PMO and checked to see if they were appropriate. Then, the PMO would listen in to the phone call, and they would have a kill switch that would be used if the questions and/or answers veered off topic. At the end of the Zoom meeting, my friend walked into her boss's office and said, "I'm not putting up with this *** and I'm resigning effective immediately," and walked out.

Another person I worked with was in charge of climate research to be used to update Canada's building codes. A reporter from the Toronto Star wanted to ask about her work and how it affected building codes. They had to go through with the process outlined by the PMO. It took my friend and the reporter SIX MONTHS of going back and forth until they finally got an approved list of questions and answers. The interview was set up with the PMO and the kill switch. There was also a 15 second delay built in between what one person said and the other person heard. My friend said the reporter was so angry about the process that she was determined to see it through just to spite them. I'm not sure if the reporter even published the story.

Once Stephen Harper was no longer Prime Minister, things went back they way they used to be. I was forced to retire in the massive cuts to Environment Canada's budget in the years 1995-98, so I wasn't around when Mr. Harper was PM.