Alaska: is it really part of France? You be the judge.

I had to explain to Indian software developers recently that Western Australia is not in Greece, and Alaska is not in France.

We had asked them to put some headings in on the pages of a new web site, so that users could tell where they were in the site. The headings were generated automatically, and this was fine, except there were some anomalies in the data.

Here are some examples of the type of headings generated: “Top Attractions – Greece – Western Australia” and “Accommodation – France – Alaska”.

Naturally I raised this with the developers: “The headings look good, but this one says ‘Greece – Western Australia’ …” and so on.

They responded as follows: “Can you please explain what the problem is?”

Apparently it wasn’t obvious to them, so I helpfully explained:

“Western Australia is not in Greece, Alaska is not in France, etc”

Priceless.

Of course, given that there is a Paris in Texas, perhaps there is an Alaska in France. Who knows?

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Netscape

Given that there are several Eiffel Towers all over the place (including one in Paris, Texas - albeit a bit smaller than the original, mind you) it’s a wonder anyone can keep ‘em straight!

This is hilarious! But anyways, sometimes we need things like this to spice up our everyday-getting-boring work. So good luck with your geography lessons with your software developer. Lol!

There’s also a London and Frankfurt in Kentucky. weird.

When you say Indian software developers, I’m assuming you are referring to developers from the country of India. We’ve had our fare share of interesting work compiled by Indians ourselves! Ever hired an Indian firm to write articles for you? We did, and they did a really good job on the content; however, their use of proper English was far from perfect.

lol that is funny. oh the power of human editing. Im glad you caught these or else there would have been some great confusion.

Alaska is a place where you can lose yourself in the vastness of nature, like in some parts of France.

@RickNHS

“We’ve had our fare share of interesting work compiled by Indians ourselves! Ever hired an Indian firm to write articles for you? We did, and they did a really good job on the content; however, their use of proper English was far from perfect.”

Before you trash people of other nationalities, first check if you are any good at it..Your first sentence should read

“We’ve had our FAIR share of interesting work…”

Perhaps it was your poor English that made you outsource content writing in the first place..

I’m in Burlingame, California, and you’d be surprise how many people think Burlingame is in the U.K. I guess it just sounds British?

That would be hilarious if someone like Lou Dobbs of CNN here in America got wind of this… He’d be bitching and moaning about cheap overseas labor markets for weeks… Oh wait, he already does.

That’s funny but frequently happens I guess. I once used a developer from Ukraine to do some web research of Tasmania Island in Australia. All i asked for were some good quality pictures. What I got after a full weeks surprised me. He sent me a butt load of pictures alright, but all of them were of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character!! I first thought it was a joke but soon realized that this dude had no idea Tasmania Island existed. I laugh when I look back at it.

We have a tv show here called “The Chaser”. They recently interviewed a bunch of Americans about world famous landmarks and monuments. Most knew that the Eifel Tower was in Paris, but when the interviewer told them that this was just a ‘replica’ and that the original was in Brisbane Australia, several of them were very suprised and said things like “Wow! I never knew that”. Very amusing :)

Given that there’s an Eiffel tower, pyramid, New York skyline, canals of Venice and much more in Vegas, I’d say that just including everything in Nevada is a safe bet. :)

I’ve always wanted to visit France, but I had no idea I had to go through Alaska to get there!

OMG, if Western Australia is in Greece and Alaska is in France, Beijing will be in Scotland! Hahaha… I can’t stop laughing!

The solution: Don’t outsource your important projects. Or give them a test before. Funny stuff. :D

I didn’t know that there was a country that was less informed about geography then us Americans. Most of us can’t even find Iraq on a map. Oh well, It’s good to see that we aren’t alone when it comes to geographical stupidity.

Yes out sorcing is cheaper but you get what you pay for.

Alaska it is not part of France, not even part of Canada or USA. Alaska- it is Russia, our queen made couple mistakes in one time but I supposed that someday Alaska will be part of Russia again.

Hah! Just stumbled on this and this is too funny!