Althouse: "We envisage this space with community in mind – a surprint environment that is accessible to all..."

November 8, 2013

"We envisage this space with community in mind – a surprint environment that is accessible to all..."

"... and inspires conversation about how everything is connected – shore birds, me, you, the sea, fog and much more."

What is the Google barge project?

A surprint environment??

28 comments:

David said...: "and inspires conversation about how everything is connected – shore birds, me, you, the sea, fog and much more."

Oh so true. Especially the fog part.; 11/8/13, 12:13 PM
chuck said...: A surprint environment??

There's an Apple in there somewhere.; 11/8/13, 12:21 PM
Sigivald said...: They ... envisage?

Jesus, no.

(I suspect the baroque art-grad-student blather is from the contract artists doing the "design" work, rather than Google.

Google people know how to speak English like sane human beings, for one thing.); 11/8/13, 12:22 PM
YoungHegelian said...: I think Google corporate has moved into the "We've got so much money, we can afford to go apeshit" phase. Its primary founders went into that phase some time ago.

I look at those ships & think "When the next hurricane blows through, it's gone".; 11/8/13, 12:23 PM
Sean Gleeson said...: Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a surprint?; 11/8/13, 12:29 PM
Clyde said...: Darned autocomplete! That was probably supposed to be "serpent environment." Snakes on a barge! Cue the Samuel L. Jackson snippet...; 11/8/13, 12:55 PM
Mountain Maven said...: Do do business in No Cal you have to descend into that neo-hippie PC talk, look and feel. Even though Google is as rapacious as any Wall Street firm.; 11/8/13, 12:57 PM
Rockeye said...: When I see those prefab barge buildings, I see some pretty awesome Zombie Apocolypse Survival Pods.; 11/8/13, 1:38 PM
rhhardin said...: Bring back mainframe computers.; 11/8/13, 1:43 PM
rhhardin said...: If you don't like the magazine, just write "cancel" across the invoice and keep the Cray with our compliments.; 11/8/13, 1:44 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: I'm guessing the secretive plans have everything to do with marketing Google Glass.; 11/8/13, 2:00 PM
Ambrose said...: If you like your surprint environment, you can keep your surprint environment.; 11/8/13, 2:02 PM
Wince said...: We envisage this space with community in mind – a surprint environment that is accessible to all and inspires conversation about how everything is connected – shore birds, me, you, the sea, fog and much more.

The Luddite in me says torpedo the mutherfucker.; 11/8/13, 2:05 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "We were all sitting around drinking absinthe, smoking out, and watching I Heart Huckabees, and one of us sai, 'Dude, I totally can't tell where his nose ends,' and someone else was like, 'Dude, everyone needs to know this stuff,' but we realized most people weren't going to be willing to watch this movie cause it was pretty lame-o. That made us all sort of sads. So then I was like, 'Dude, if we built a castle that was like one with everything,' and someone else said, 'Not a castle, dude. That's totally separate,' and that was true, so we were effed right there, but then this chick was like, 'Dudes, a boat! That's like totally one with the water,' and we were like genius! So The money got on his phone and was all, 'Buy me some big freakin barges, dude.' We were all like a little surprised the next day when we woke up and were informed about all these barges, but it's cool because now we can consumate the dream, you know?"; 11/8/13, 2:52 PM
Alex said...: Enough is enough!

I have had it with these motherf***en snakes on this mothrf****en barge!

It's time to open up some windows...; 11/8/13, 2:54 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @freeman,

If your posting is original, you seem to speak the lingo so well that you have now been officially moved into the "downright scary" category.; 11/8/13, 3:06 PM
wildswan said...: Say if like pictures from the outside of gulls maybe get overprinted on the walls where you are drawing pictures or if the picture from five minutes ago gets overprinted by now. Yeah, but what if it is fog so it blanks you out? Even better, because then your art experiences nature and you record it all on Facetime.
I've seen street pictures from 1882 which took so long to record that all the people walking around disappeared leaving only very sharp pictures of buildings and a few shadows of people. Another effect for Google glass software filters to emulate in the "studios".; 11/8/13, 3:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Snooping stations in international waters not subjected to any govt.'s jurisdiction. They can sell their snooped data to NSA and whatnots with impunity.

Google is evil. They lie including "and", "or" and "envisage".; 11/8/13, 4:43 PM
Anonymous said...: The surprint tempted me, and I did geek.; 11/8/13, 4:52 PM
John henry said...: Ace, or someone, had a short piece on their blog a week or so back that Google had recently received (applied for?) a patent on ship based wi-fi.

From the patent abstract:

Water-based data center
US 7525207 B2
Abstract

"A system includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units."

About 2 days later Drudge, and others, started carrying stories about the mysterious barges.

The idea of a floating google store, especially made out of something as mundane as shipping containers makes no sense to me.

The idea of floating data centers, independent of the shore, does. Especially if they can have some sort of high powered wi-fi. We used to hear about wi-fi with a range of 25 miles. If Google can go that, this makes sense. They can put it anywhere in SF Bay (whoever gives them the best tax rate that week) and provide service for the whole area.

I've got a dollar that says that this is not a store or any consumer experience of any kind. At least not a consumer experience where the consumer goes to the barge.

Now I've got to go read the patent.

John Henry; 11/8/13, 4:57 PM
John henry said...: Correction, it was not Ace or someone. It was Ace.

Credit where credit is due.

John Henry; 11/8/13, 4:58 PM
Sigivald said...: elh said: Snooping stations in international waters not subjected to any govt.'s jurisdiction. They can sell their snooped data to NSA and whatnots with impunity.

Google is evil. They lie including "and", "or" and "envisage".

Except these are doing permitting for operating in bays, not "international waters". Barges generally aren't so great on the open sea, and the pictures do not suggest that they're in any way adapted to it.

The obvious - and I believe given by Google - explanation of "saving immense piles of money on cooling costs by using seawater" makes far more sense than nebulous "Sekrit Spying!!!" accusations.

(Plus, the way you spy on internet communications involves having access to the packets.

Who's going to route traffic through a GoogleBarge?

And how's it going to get there in "international waters"? Moving around makes either cables or microwave links really damned awkward - and you need serious fiber-optic cables or a big ol' microwave link to get that kind of data throughput.

Only traffic to Google and hosted services would go to them, because that's how the Internet works, unless Google could become part of the international backbone system - and that's never going to work with a floating platform 30+ miles out.

And that's why the NSA just got rooms and taps installed at major backbone interchanges on land, especially where they hook up to the international backbones.

Lastly, Google can't "sell your secrets to the NSA" - the NSA already has them for "free", if it's really interested and you weren't careful to keep them encrypted well.

* Oh, it cost them a lot, but it's not their money. That's vital national security spending; "buying secrets from Google" wouldn't be.); 11/8/13, 6:14 PM
rcommal said...: Althouse, what is your reaction to, and what do you think about, the notions embedded therein?

In your reactions, I would be interested.; 11/8/13, 9:59 PM
Carl said...: We used to hear about wi-fi with a range of 25 miles.

That seems ludicrous. Wi-Fi operates in the microwave, and microwaves are limited to line of sight. Unless you have a freaking huge tower with an amazing distance to the horizon -- the top of an 5,000 foot mountain will do -- this doesn't seem plausible.; 11/9/13, 12:03 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: What is the Google barge project?

Obviously it's where Google hopes to get gay-married to Apple.; 11/9/13, 12:18 AM
rcommal said...: Jaysus, Smilin' Jack, you are simple.

Of course, if smart, it's the juncture at which one divests, strategically.; 11/9/13, 12:23 AM
rcommal said...: Different drummer, and all of that.

Except:

What to do about folks who are **actually** different drummers?

And who support themselves, and always have, and are well on to the way to continuing to do so (modestly, but that's good enough)?

Smilin' Jack:

This, I ask you.

And it is a serious question.; 11/9/13, 12:40 AM
Aloha Johnny said...: I think it has to do with permitting and zoning. If they wanted to build this in any CA city, it would take 4 years of hearings, permits and lawsuits. On a barge, no problem. They had some meeting and their facility people said - 4 years and some whiz kid said "What if we put it on a boat?"; 11/9/13, 1:43 AM