Posted on 08/19/2004 9:07:53 AM PDT by Moose4
Oh, nooooo. Can't possibly have a game showing what Islam really wants to do to Christianity.
}:-)4
Heaven forfend that a game actually tell the truth and show what Islamists have in store for all other faiths!
You know we are not supposed to post articles from 'The Onion'.
Hmmmm, Guardian, OOPs never mind.
So I'm just imagining those minarets in front of Hagia Sophia in Istambul?
Ping!
This is a economic/political landmine no matter what Microsoft does. Borders are disputed in about one third of the world. They're going to offend one country or the other.
I have Encarta Atlas. It shows a dotted outline where borders are disputed. I think that's the best you can hope for.
Reminds me of a story that circulated a few years ago. A group of Arab investors approached the sales manager of an outboard motor company with the idea of setting up a dealer network in Saudi Arabia. The manager dismissed the idea on the grounds that Saudi Arabia is nothing but desert and there would be no market for his products. The deal went to a competitor instead, and resulted in a flourishing new market for outboard motors.
The sales manager who thought outboards were useless in the desert was fired when the story reached the company's board of directors, one of whom had seen a map at some point and knew, therefore, that Saudi Arabia is a peninsula and is surrounded by water.
More proof of Gen X stupidity. They know all about technology and nothing about anything else. I work with dumb f(&%$ like this. All Head Up A%$ types who think they know it all. It goes without saying that their people skills are equally abysmal. Can't make a sentence with a subject and predicate, work with a woefully limited vocabulary and express themselves with the most common and intellectually ehausted language, dress like happy Halloween, cannot comprehend personal hygiene, defer to no one and observe or respect no authority above themselves, etc. But they know it all....
How about incompetent program developers with little knowledge of software security issues?
How's that been for the companies reputation and "trust rating"?
Well, Political Corectness DOES have its own cost! LOL! Couldn't happen to a better company!
Well whats even worse is that they have people who review this stuff before they test market anything and sometimes when you just distribute something under your label you don't completely know everything about the product. Unfortunately it happens ALL THE TIME. Not only to Micro$oft.
A Transworld Airlines employee once told me he nearly got TWA kicked out of Egypt because he innocently routed a message to Israel thru the TWA Egyptian office. Back then, even acknowledging the existence of Israel was a major offense.
RE: showed the disputed Jammu-Kashmir region as not being in India
Actually, I've seen similar things on many "PC" maps, which were intended to appease Pakistani and Chinese sensibilities. Both Pakistan and the PRC want to promote the idea that Kashmir is *wholly* not part of India. Hmmm ... I wonder if the person who embedded that map was the PRC national on an H1B, or maybe even one in the PRC at MS's Red Chinese development center?
This is why MS must be allowed to hire more and more H1-B and other kinds of itinerant workers.
Americans are woefully ignorant of geography since the subject was subsumed into the gooey mess of social studies.
That said, the TV networks have gone back and forth on their depiction of Kashmir on their maps.
Now they do show the Paki part, the Indian part, and the part that Pakistan gave to China.
IMO, it should be shown as part of India - after all, Pakis attacked India in Kashmir in 1948 - the terms of accession were clear to all before Partition and it's typical islami BS that they changed their minds after agreeing to the terms.
FWIW, in Age of Empires the Christians can also convert mosques to churches. Winner takes all.
It doesn't sound like many, if any, of those gaffes are Microsoft's fault. It seems to me that those offended countries are either in denial, way too sensitive, or are the ones being pricks. If China wants to continue to deny reality and continue to think Taiwan is theirs, how is that the fault of MS? How many Nicaraguans know that 'cracker' is an offensive term to some whites? (Hell, the article even notes that MS made the changes.) And the fact is that churches were converted to mosques.
None of the problems stem from a lack of basic geography. They stem from the geopolitical unstability of those complaining nations. No MS employee would be arrested here or in Puerto Rico for referring to Puerto Rico as a state like they would be in India or Pakistan for going one way or the other with Kashmir. (Ain't MS's fault that those countries want to stifle free speech.) In the one instance where Muslims were offended by Koranic chants being included in a game, that was the fault of Japanese developers.
This article is yet another anti-American hit piece by the Guardian. There are a lot of cultures in the world. You're going to know your culture better than an outsider. The US is the most prominent culture and is akin to a celebrity. More people are going to know about us than we do about them. So in reality, it's other countries who are being culturally insensitive when they won't allow for some leeway in these mistakes in cultural interaction. The fact is that Americans are way more tolerant (often too tolerant) of other cultures than they are of us. They should STFU. If Microsoft wants to bend over in the name of cultural sensitivity, that's their business.
>>Ain't MS's fault that those countries want to stifle free speech.
You ever read the Indian or Paki press?
Stop shilling for MS; if their stupidity and ignorance leads to them making mistakes, then it's their fault. Simple.
If they put out a product, it's incumbent upon them to be accurate.
As opposed to the writer of this article, who is woefully ignorant of technology. To wit: "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".
The bozo doesn't even know the difference between an operating system and productivity software.
Right! Americans are bad and stupid, remember that.
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