WTF with this Google Map?

Melbourne Zoo

Hoping that the wierdness is seen by other people and isn’t just something cached on my computer…

I get a map of all of Australia. Does that mean the whole country is the Melbourne Zoo. That would be strange.

Apparently the Melbourne Zoo has been invaded by Rooskies.

I suspect you mean the Greek alphabet.

Oh, you’re right, it is Russian.

I get a bit of Melbourne, and a question about alternative points of origin as “I’m” apparently trying to get directions from Melbourne Zoo to Melbourne Zoo. Weirdness not so much.

ETA: My bad, I also get Melbourne Zoo in cyrillic.

It’s all greek to me.

Ooooooh. Got it. I can barely see the text, as every time I zoom in on it, it goes back to the same size. It’s the size of the smallfonts on here, but with weird text decorations.

It’s probably my tiny monitor and its 800x600 resolution

Yeah, the “melbourne zoo to melbourne zoo” thing was me trying to make sure that the bit I was interested in was in the picture. It’s the Russian invasion I was wondering about.

Is this maybe an anti-plagiarism “deliberate mistake” thing? It’s in a bit of an obvious place if so…

It took me a minute to see it, but yea i see right next to the A droplet it’s in Cyrillic.

Melbyrinskij Zoopark… Seriously weird…

So, you guys got Russian animals in your zoo?

Cool.

Tris

Obviously, they were invaded and forgot to tell anyone.

Copyright trap, maybe?

That’s from the Ur where the Soviets won the cold war.

Copyright traps are pretty much an urban legend. Something has just gotten into the wrong field of a database, and the map tiles were rendered with the wrong label.

Cecil seems to disagree with you about copyright traps.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies

I do, however, agree with you that this instance is unlikely to be one.

State Netball and Hockey Centre? Seriously? :smiley:

Cecil’s column about copyright traps was written before the 1991 Feist decision made them pointless in the US. I am one of the persons quoted in the column.

Why not? That’s field hockey, by the way. And you may not know what netball is.

It’s where they’re hiding the Тасманский волк from the other thread! :smiley: