Google barge revealed: Artistic structure with 'fish fins'

http://blog.sfgate.com/matierandross/2013/11/07/google-barge-revealed-artistic-structure-with-fish-fins/

by _s • 13 years ago

40 14 13 years ago

blog.sfgate.com

Well that's somewhat underwhelming.

That seems to be a trend with google now. I know that whenever I see something big and secretive happening around google I keep thinking "Is this when they are going to reveal their AGI?!" and it just turns out to be a party barge or google hangouts.

sytelus• 13 years ago

I wonder if this is the realization of idea for creating more space in extra ordinarily expensive SF bay area. This barge can very easily serve as new office/commercial space in the city where every inch counts. A barge of this size can accommodate roughly 500 office workers as per my rough quick and dirty back of the envelop calculation. The cost of the "land" is simply the cost of the barge which is made using recycled shipping containers. I bet this would be magnitude cheaper than cost of actual land in same nearby area.

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

Good luck with that environmental impact study.

confluence• 13 years ago

This is why I try and avoid speculation. A portable Google store? What a let down. Here I was imagining massive portable data centres.

ovi256• 13 years ago

A data center can be placed on commodity cheap land. A store has to be close to where people want to be, so on expensive real estate. The floating solution is very elegant, I hope they pull it off. Looking forward to floating boutiques all along the Seine.

iurisilvio• 13 years ago

Awesome! Wait for the ads there!

Nicholas_C2• 13 years ago

Exactly who is By and Large? That’s a little unclear, but it’s reported to be firmly connected to Google. Some have noted that it looks like a play on the word “barge.”

I thought it was a play on the company from Wall-E?

ZeroGravitas• 13 years ago

Since they've apparently got sails on this thing it's even more likely to be this:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/by_and_large#Etymology

Nicholas_C2• 13 years ago

The company in Wall-E is a play on this, and then the barge company was a play on the Wall-E company. Or so I thought.

krschultz• 13 years ago

The entire "what is that barge in the bay?" story line seems like a carefully constructed PR campaign, and I for one am opting out.

surrealize• 13 years ago

Does this read like a red herring to anyone else? Some of the quoted text sounds like a google-joke:

“The artistic structure combines innovative architecture with a bit of nautical whimsy,” says the proposal, “creating a surprising environment that inspires conversation, community and ‘a-ha’ moments.”

wil421• 13 years ago

Do I have join Google+ to get on the barge?

brent_noorda• 13 years ago

Any moment I expect to hear that Google has hired Henry Winkler to jump this thing in a leather coat.

Google barge revealed: Artistic structure with 'fish fins'

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