And the part of the algorithm that allows suburb-names to outpower city-names is clearly nonsensical.
Just because something was hard to make doesn't mean it should be immune to criticism. Cars, movies, skyscrapers, Windows Vista, etc. are all hard to make, but they are also criticized, and legitimately so. (examples: Ebert, Walt Mossberg, etc.)
How dare a user criticize a product!
Google Maps was released over five years ago now. If it were still in beta, I'd understand, but…
Rather than dismissing Google and Yahoo in favour of Bing, I'd be interested to see if there's any actual user testing in favour one way or the other. Otherwise, it's just uninformed opinion on what 'should' be the best way to use a map.
Then why are London, Paris, Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on the same map that New York isn't on?
I wasn't implying a simplistic 'everyone knows where X is, don't show it' system - just that being well known could counter-intuitively reduce the need to show a label at some zoom levels.
I wonder if Justin O'Beirne lives in NYC?
You're seriously going to argue that NYC isn't immensely important?
From Wikipedia: "New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the United Nations Headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs."
When the aliens came to Earth in "Independence Day", they didn't blow up Philadelphia... they blew up New York.
That's because they were scared of Philadelphians. We threw snowballs at Santa after all.
The small town (population: 120,000) that I grew up appears on Google Maps before NYC or Washington are visible.
(EDIT: Context: the town in which I grew up would be around number 90 on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Aus... )
//sarcasm
"To 'thwart' 'terrorists'."
