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Comment by jblz | Hacker News Reader

One can only hope that if this was intentionally done by an employee, they would be punished and possibly let go. This sort of thing is childish, unnecessary, and has no place in a professional organization.

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What's wrong with a little bit of fun? Who's getting harmed here? How could this possibly have offended you enough that you'd hope someone would get fired over it?

It's not a matter of me being offended (I'm not), I would just hope the company I worked for wouldn't stand for something as vulgar, primitive, and blatantly aggressive toward a competitor as this in a public, flagship product.

It's just a doodle with an insulting theme that is as old as humanity. Vulgar, primitive and blatantly aggressive are words I would rather complain about in advertising or patent lawsuits.

childish? That is open for discussion.. unnecessary? Definitely.

funny? Again open for discussion, but I'm in the yes-camp for this one (even though I don't own Android nor Apple products - or maybe that just is the reason). There's enough sadness and evil in the world already, some harmless fun from time to time won't exactly make it a better place but hey, a smile is better than nothing.

The White House responded to comments and inquiries with funny gifs. Now some random google employee can't put one measly harmless little easter egg somewhere in their product that says "Hah, take that, Competitor!"? We need to fire _all_ the videogame designers then. All of them. Across the entire industry.

Apple has also taken a stab at Microsoft before:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2070/1806100984_b0bedbf10c.jp...

Yeah, world is a much better place if no one is allowed to make childish jokes.

I'm discouraged by the replies to this comment.

At best, this is a digital-urine covered Easter egg. At worst, it's a tasteless prank that will likely have repercussions for it's creator. And the level of effort required to complete this is unequal to it's hilariousness, so if nothing else, I find it likely whomever is responsible for this wastes a bunch of other time and resources in similar, unproductive, disrespectful avenues.

I harken this is paying homage to those tacky stickers of Calvin having a piss on Ford and Chevy emblems that we all knew someone with in high-school. Eventually, we are supposed to outgrow these immature micro-aggressions and graduate to being loving, compassionate, contributing members of our communities.

It's sad, really, when jokes like this are glorified instead of recognized for what they are – one person's only creative outlet for their inability to cope with being a misfit where they are.

Or maybe it's just a robot pissing on an apple.

Actually it serves a very useful purpose. It demonstrates that Google Map Maker quality is highly unknown, that there essentially is no review process.

At least OpenStreetMap is honest and upfront and doesn't pretend there is a quality assurance team.

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