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Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

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131–140 of 250 posts

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#131

How does the data get to/from the platform? Microwaves? Can that work from a slightly moving platform? My wacky guess would have been off-shore offices for employees that can't get H1Bs.

google's new balloon network http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2301895/google-talk...

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#132
post #20

Great article. It's nice to see journalists do actual investigative work, even if it is for something like this. Today's "journalism" seems to be all link-bait opinion pieces mixed in with copy-pastes from twitter.

They shoulda searched craigslist: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/off/4148978964.html

Those stools...where do you put your knees??

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#133
post #126
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or put a "Report a Pirate" bounty and crowdsource it.

but how do you confirm the validity of the reports

There are two types of reports, fraudulent ones and real ones. The fraudulent ones will come from everywhere, while the real reports come only from pirate infested harbors. Therefore just subtract the mean report density and what remains should be random fluctuations around zero plus the real reports. So if a harbor has more than some threshold of reports, then it is pirate invested.

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also "by and large" is a nautical term meaning (roughly) "whether sailing against the wind or sailing with the wind".

and a common phrase (though a little less used than in previous generations) meaning 'generally'

Confirmed about the generational decline: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=by+and+large&y...

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#135
post #37

I hope they fit it with sub-surface portholes and webcams. The article keeps saying "huge", but really that's tiny for a ship. Google could buy an old cruise liner and fit several of those inside. Or maybe Google is going to buy more little ships and plonk one of these in each? I hope that they have adequate security, because all that gold and copper is worth stealing for some people.

I think they will use a RAIS [0] design.

[0] Redundant Array of Inexpensive Ships

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#137

There are actually 4 "vessels". Look at the names -- using binary :) BAL0001 BY AND LARGE LLC * * C & C MARINE & REPAIR LLC 2010 Freight Barge 2164.0 249.6 BAL0010 BY AND LARGE LLC * * C & C MARINE 2011 Passenger Barge (Inspected) 2520.0 260.1 BAL0011 BY AND LARGE LLC * * C & C MARINE 2011 Passenger Barge (Inspected) 2520.0 260.1 BAL0100 BY AND LARGE LLC * * C & C MARINE 2012 Freight Barge 2164.0 249.6

They are all attached to one TREQ

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#138
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is somewhat of a tangent, but how is the tech scene in Portland, ME? It's my hometown and I've had thoughts at various times about returning and setting up shop.

The "scene" is cool. There are local meetups, some small, some mid sized. Monktoberfest just drew quite the crowd. As the other commenter said, there ain't much for investment though, and the companies are a mix of web boutiques, large companies (Unum, Idexx, etc), and a startup here or there. I work remotely, which gives me the benefits of being in Portland while making a NYC salary, but even when I was working for…

+1, I've been working remotely from Portland for 11 years now, great place to live but tech jobs are scarce vs. Boston, NYC, SF.

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#140
post #90

The middle of the ocean could be a a very high margin location for IaaS hosting. Due to speed-of-light delays, some of the ideal locations for hosting high-speed trading arbitrages are in the middle of the ocean. Being half way between two exchanges would allow you to notice a small difference in price of some commodity in two different exchanges and buy and sell microseconds before your competitors on the mainland k…

If this actually worked, there would be boats sitting in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific with computers on them. I have no idea if they are sitting there, but I'm pretty sure if it was an idea that worked, it would be done by now.

It's a fairly common (and silly) dismissal of any new effort that "if it worked, someone else would already be doing it".
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