Re:Initial Confusion (Score 1)

Etak is a reference to one of three things, and I'm not sure what the poll creator intended. It is a Polynesian navigation concept, whereby a pilot of a small ship envisions himself to be on the bow of the ship, with the ship always pointed "north" and the world rotating around him. It could be a reference to this.

A Menlo Park company (that I used to work for) named itself Etak after this. That company developed hardware, software, and data for navigation. The company was eventually purchased by NewsCorp, then sold to Sony, then sold to Tele Atlas. It primarily developed North America digital map data, and for quite a while, any digital U.S. source had either NAVTEQ or Etak data in it. So it could be a reference to the company.

Etak also sold one of the first in-car navigation systems, called the Navigator. They patented the digital map display method of placing the car at the center of the map and rotating the map regardless of NSEW so that the car was always going "up". The Navigator used this. So it could be a reference to the Etak Navigator.