back to article Google barge erection hypegasm latest - What's in the box?

The two mysterious barges Google has parked on either side of the United States will be used as flashy product showrooms, a new report has claimed. Speculation about the function of the two barges has raged ever since they were stationed near San Francisco's Treasure Island and off the coast of Portland, Maine. Both barges …

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  1. AdamT

    If only all the other agencies of the US government were as well mannered and discreet as the Californian Coast Guard...

    1. mraak

      You mean like DoD who was paying fuel for private jets of Google's execs? I'd call it not just well mannered but very proper and gentleman-ish too.

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Better than the "monster.com party boat"

    ...which was just a tugboat IIRC.

  3. ratfox

    Wait a minute

    They started building barges in 2010. That's like two years before Glass was even known to the public. They would have started building them practically before they started working on Glass. This smells…

    …Fishy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wait a minute

      Agreed,

      I believe they are more likely to be used for off-shore work centers that Google had proposed years ago.

      The existing quotas on the number of work visas is hindering even my office (US Based). We have a chinese AD who has passed all requirements and is simply waiting for a PR card, but the current quota is preventing it. She is highly skilled and has been working for us over 5 years.

      She has been a model employee and exemplifies what a model citizen should be IMO. She's never been on social assistance and pays taxes. These ARE the kinds of immigrants we need in this country (US), not the ones who steal across our borders in the night and consume our resources without having contributed anything towards them. We need a sponsorship program in our country for those groups/individuals who are NOT able to be self-sufficient from the start, where US citizens can sponsor an individual and they will be responsible for the person and ensure they will not become a burden to our society.

      ~Best wishes keeping what you earned.

      1. Hud Dunlap

        Re: Wait a minute @ AC 17:43

        Why don't you just hire an American? I have worked with many H1-B visa engineers and I am not impressed at all.

        The thing about the H1-B engineers is they are model employees because they are afraid to speak up. 100 hour weeks on straight salary no problem. Overlook a safety issue. Sure. Environmental concerns, not their problem. If they lose their job they 30 days to find a new one or they have to leave the country.

        The reason people hire illegal immigrants is because they can treat them like dirt and pay them less. The H1-B Visa employees are only a small step up.

        1. asdf

          Re: Wait a minute @ AC 17:43

          Exactly right Hud. AC 17:43 like most others of his ilk is looking to have his cake and eat it too. Most of the too good to be true offshore opportunities are gone and the long term costs of doing so are finally come home to roost so they are looking for the next best thing. You can smell the Tea Bagger right wing crazy just below the surface of the post as well.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wait a minute

        ---------- She's never been on social assistance

        Because everyone who has is obviously a workshy parasite, right?

        The trouble with you teabaggers is that you don't want systems in place to support people until you need it yourselves.

        "No to Obamacare! But hands off our Medicare "

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wait a minute

        Being quiet, doing very long hours (because they're struggling) isn't model citizen.

        I'd prefer it if people were more sociable and team players. Better that someone comes to you and asks for help then they go ahead and do something wrong. We've had contractors who have not followed good practice, things weren't checked into source control and they were giving free assistance to a customer who is supposed to pay for it.

  4. Buzzword

    Showroom?

    Why would a company which sells mostly non-tangible products need a showroom? Their few tangible products include £199 tablets, £299 phones, the $1,500 Glass beta product, and maybe in future some self-driving cars. The first two don't have the added value to justify the cost of the boat; the Glass might at that price, but presumably the final price will be significantly lower; and the cars need an open road for test drives.

    In short, I don't believe it's a showroom.

    1. karlp

      Re: Showroom?

      Could be for Gapps.

      There are many business deals closed on some sort of junket or another of increasingly dubious utility. Having a "sales-floor" in two large cities with fancy hotels and good food too which they could bring medium to large contract negotiations into might be useful to them. The fact that it could accomplish that while publicly steering clear from the appearance of outright pandering would just serve to help them in their "do less-ish evil" quest.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Showroom?

      It might be to weaken the case that Google is selling in the UK. The 'sales' staff roll up in a barge moored in the Thames, host all their junkets, sell all their advertising, and then sail away,

      HMRC and the Parliamentary Select Committee will not be able to express incredulity at Google reporting so little UK business.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Showroom?

        (cough) territorial waters (cough)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Mushroom

          Re: Showroom?

          Google knows that the end is coming, and they are going to move Larry Page, Sergey Brin and all their Glass Explorers onto the arks to preserve the technologically superior part of the human race :)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Showroom?

            When it comes to that and mankind is rebuilding civilisation I can't see that having people who know about advertising will be the highest skill on the list?

    3. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Showroom?

      There has also been the aborted Nexus Q, the recent Chromecast dongle and the incoming Nexus watch.

      But yeah, its more than just a showroom... a venue for PR events, corporate hospitality, Google X Prize events etc.

    4. Captain DaFt

      Re: Showroom?

      "Why would a company which sells mostly non-tangible products need a showroom?"

      Think advertising.

      And what better way to showcase your latest techniques than a glitzy showroom full of large, high tech screens displaying all the latest glitz glamour, and eye candy, accompanied by all the Vegas style amenities?

      Such is the lifeblood of marketeers.

      Now coming to a city near you!

    5. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

      Re: Showroom?

      "Why would a company which sells mostly non-tangible products need a showroom?"

      Some people do like to see some of example of the tangible assets (i.e the actual racks of machines). Plus it's a party boat.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmm. Where have I seen this before...

    That's it! In Biloxi and Vicksburg, MS, all of the casino's are built on barges because the loophole in the law allows 'riverboat gambling'.

  6. sphery
    Pirate

    A showboat...

    Oh, so it's a showboat. Really, that's a perfect fit for Google.

  7. karlp

    Of course it could also be an offshore tidal powered datacenter with gimble-mounted active tracking microwave back hauls staffed completely by devs who banished by daring to bring an iDevice into work or install windows on their desktop.</sarcasm>

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New World Order prediction...

    That as we idly speculate, James Bond is trying to board the 'barge' after having an underwater scuba scrap with a bunch of google henchsharks armed with frickin lazers!

    1. Dave Bell

      Re: New World Order prediction...

      James Bond is doing chocolate delvery?

      1. M Gale

        Re: New World Order prediction...

        What, you mean you never saw those Milk Tray adverts years ago?

        Hey, I think I just found the name for Android's "M" incarnation.

  9. frank ly

    Just wondering

    "... where rich customers can carouse with Google staff."

    Why would rich people want to do that?

  10. Fink-Nottle

    Obviously ...

    these sea-going laboratories are part of the babelfish captive breeding programme.

    1. cynic 2

      Re: Obviously ...

      Newts, surely?

  11. Don Jefe

    Coast Guard Inspections

    It's funny, the value people build into a statement simply because it comes from an official body. A Coast Guard safety inspection of a barge is a check for PFD's, fire extinguishers and clearly marked no smoking areas around any stored fuels or oils, that's it. Barges fall under completely different rules than other vessels (and the inspections on those aren't intensive either.

    My point is that unless they thought Google might be smuggling, they spent the afternoon hanging out with Google staff and given tickets for their friends and family to come to a future event. If you aren't on their shit list they don't even bother to look at cargo manifests, just PFD's and fire extinguishers. You don't even have to have a radio or electricity on board. Google could very well have had nukes, real oompa-loompas or a fucking fleet of spacecraft (or all the above) and the Coast Guard would never have looked.

    None of that to knock the Coast Guard. Personally I believe they are the most badass of all uniformed US staff. When everybody else is looking for land the Coast Guard is heading out to sea in terrify a shark bad seas. They've got drug dealers, human traffickers, drunk dentists and very real, very bad types to deal with. Safety of a moored barge isn't, and shouldn't be, super high on their priority list.

  12. Petrea Mitchell
    Devil

    Party venue?

    Four floors full of drunk people, surrounded in all directions by water... gosh, I can't think of any liability concerns there, especially at US levels of litigiousness.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    May i please come work for you, Google? I'm good on computers, pretty smart...I like oceanography and love marine mammals (err...not literally).I live just north of your HQ...pretty pretty please?

    Steve Gill

    cleanupyeract@yahoo.com

    1. Dave in the States
      Facepalm

      Pssst, Steve! You might consider using a gmail account if you desire a reply.

  14. mraak

    Party?

    I'm sure they don't mean 90's style party right? Booze, weed, loud music, snogging,.... It's 2013, so it'll be organic hummus, kombucha and Japanese tea.

  15. Euripides Pants
    Facepalm

    Even San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee didn't know what was aboard.

    Well, DUH! Why would the mayor of any city waste his/her/its time on knowing the contents of barges?

    1. Don Jefe
      Thumb Up

      Re: Even San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee didn't know what was aboard.

      Right? It's easy for some people to lose sight of the fact that there's a big wide world out there that, in reality, couldn't give a toss about Google or anything IT related.

  16. Dave Bell

    If it were a showroom, I rather think the construction process would be different. Welding shipping containers together doesn't sound quite right.

    1. Don Jefe

      That's just Google being honest. Nearly all non-office commercial buildings built in the US since the early 90's are just shipping containers (basically) with bricks or stucco glued on the side. If it's a real expensive building they'll use cinder blocks. Google is just stripping away all the bullishit places use to lure in the proles. Few real buildings are built anymore. Sadly.

      1. John H Woods Silver badge

        @Don Jefe

        ... and the other reason shipping containers are such a useful architectural resource in the states is that the USA doesn't manufacture enough stuff to return the containers that arrive - and it isn't economical to ship them back empty.

  17. ja

    Trash Barges

    They are going to dump old servers into the deepest parts of the Ocean. The Marianas Trench in the Pacific and Dildo Tickle, in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Trash Barges

      Yep, they can buy all that old Sun (sorry Oracle) kit from that other lord of SF Bay, Larry Elison and dump it on 'The Rock'. Perhaps that can lock Larry up there at the same time?

  18. BongoJoe
    Black Helicopters

    Two coasts...

    Since it's over on two different coasts I wonder if it is a quantum computing project or demonstration.

  19. Sureo

    It may be to get their datacenters out of US jurisdiction and away from the snoops.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So they are going to run their own fiber and not on US soil then, right? Let me know how that works for the. Wireless you say, well, they need to work with the FCC then. Google would also need to leave the US as well, so no more workers, no more US offices, no more anything in the US. Let me know how that will work out for them!

  20. The Alpha Klutz

    how can we believe such an ugly structure is a show room and party venue?

    I know what party boats look like.

  21. Stephen Gray

    "Other nutjobs suggested the Bilderberg Group had persuaded Google to stash a few nuclear bombs in there, so it could blow up the US whenever it fancied getting cracking on the much-delayed New World Order project."

    Bearing in mind that the initial reason for the Bilderberg meetings was to tackle the perceived anti-Ameerkan sentiment in Europe in the mid 50's it seems the retards suggesting the above have no IQ at all.

  22. Chozo

    Floating Office For Tech Startups?

    Anybody remember a story about the BlueSeed project from june 2012? All the benefits of US infrastructure and less red-tape hassle. There may even be a taxation dodging angle but I'm a tech not a beancounter so can't really comment on that aspect.

    Blueseed: A commercial and residential compound that floats just beyond the invisible line that marks international waters, a dozen miles from the harbor in Half Moon Bay, Calif. "Things like visa regulations do not apply ... You can legally work on [starting] a company, you can earn a paycheck .. as you are at least 12 miles from shore."

  23. Craig 28

    Noone noticed?

    They're planning on filling two barges with marketing types? Google just accidentally built two B arks.

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