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Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

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Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#171

Post by haldean »

mvnoogler wrote: post #38
mvgoogler wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you are getting this from - do you have any personal experience to draw from? It doesn't match my experience. In almost seven years at Google I've worked on amazingly interesting projects - from hardware to user-facing products. I've never once, in my entire time, had any level of management tell me that I should be worrying about selling ads or monetizing my projects. The consistent message has be…

I have the personal experience! I'm a new hire, and I got assigned to somewhere that doesn't align with my interests, at all... other than the fact that it's "not front end." Hoping switching is as easy as everyone says!

It is! I was assigned to a team I was not particularly passionate about and around 8 months later made my way to exactly where I wanted to be. It can be done!

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#173

Post by zeroxfe »

skidoo wrote: post #159
rokhayakebe wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you must make money to pay for your living and take care of your spouse and kids so that they may have a better future than the life you have lived, is your agenda number one to make money regardless of what you tell your friends you are working for?

No it's not. You can support your family without enabling an evil corporation in sneaking billions in tax evasion schemes. Greed destroys. Capitalism destroys. No paint job fixes that.

> Capitalism destroys.

All systems destroy. Destruction is a natural phenomenon. The difference is that capitalism creates more than it destroys, and (empirically) creates more than any other economic system.

> Greed destroys.

On greed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#174

Post by pnut »

praxeologist wrote: post #82
untog wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're comparing apples and oranges. Are you seriously suggesting that we could duplicate or triplicate all the roads in the country to allow competition between private road companies? (and your example is a bad one - here in my area of NYC, Time Warner absolutely does have a monopoly, I have no other providers to choose from. So it makes sens that someone regulates them.)

>Are you seriously suggesting that we could duplicate or triplicate all the roads in the country to allow competition between private road companies? If you want to seriously consider alternatives to the status quo or at least be able to capably debate those like myself who do propose total privatization of roads, I'd point you to Walter Block's The Privatization of Roads and Highways . free PDF/epub here: https://mi…

The US government is abolished, but the legal system is preserved? Not how it works. There would be a vacuum and a brutal rush to reappropriate resources according to rules other than property rights, which ceased to exist along with the government.

Government evolved from much worse scenarios. What's to stop me from building a militia and taking over a town? Taking your house and wife? I've got overwhelming force and I say they're mine.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

sidcool wrote: post #56
abalone wrote: post #20

I don't understand the desire to do vague announcements. Why bother announcing at all until you have something more concrete? What does "time to get to work" even mean here? Doing what?

This is a huge undertaking where public support and co-operation is paramount. They cannot come out one day and tell people what they have done and what to do. They need to give a heads up. Is it only me or does HN take all announcements cynically?

> Is it only me or does HN take all announcements cynically?

Given that most announcements turn out not to be worth the space they take on server HDD, it's hardly surprising.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#176

Post by sorbits »

avar wrote: post #84
Animats wrote: post #63

Someone needs to develop a public toilet that's self-cleaning but doesn't cost more than some houses. The problem is making it homeless and drug dealer proof. SF has had major problems with their self-cleaning toilets.[1] Portland succeeded, but theirs is armored to contain a velociraptor and provides limited privacy.[2] [1] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/occupied-san-francisco-... [2] http://www.citylab.com/de…

Hasn't this already been invented? With the problem being that most westerners don't like the solution because it looks unfamiliar: * You install a squat toilet * It's cleaned by flooding the entire toilet area with water, which once turned off all washes down into the toilet * No toilet paper, you clean yourself with water

That’s how many public toilets work in China.

Many of those I saw were pretty disgusting, and my travel companion reported that it also applied to the toilets for the opposite sex.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#177

Post by vicpara »

*Larry Page said: “By improving urban technology, it’s possible to significantly improve the lives of billions of people around the world. With Sidewalk, we want to supercharge existing efforts in areas such as housing, energy, transportation and government to solve real problems that city-dwellers face every day. Every time I talk with Dan I feel an amazing sense of opportunity because of his passion for all the ways technology can help transform cities to be more livable, flexible and vibrant. And when you combine that with his experience as an investor, in NYC government, and as CEO of the large information company Bloomberg LP, I can’t imagine a better person to lead these efforts.”

Let's get serious. This initiative is not about toilets, smart flushing and homeless.

I'm fine with it as long as I don't have to have anything always connected to internet, sync data in the cloud and be forced to agree/manage/monitor gazillions of privacy changes, terms and conditions where companies decide to update and change their data protection acts, the ways the share, store and manipulate my data.

Maybe we should firmly keep big technology companies, already in tune with the NSA friends, get closer to our families and private lives. The last thing I'd want is Google, Bloomberg, IBM, Facebook and Cisco circulating all my activities (toilet flushes including) for the sake of my children, future nephews and my neighbours to NSA, have my own cars or my own house lock me out because Palantir discovered about my passion for Moroccan tea or my kid flies a Chinese quadcopter in the backyard.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#178

Post by acdha »

aphexairlines wrote: post #150
acdha wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize we're all programmers but why does this have to be a complex self-cleaning toilet rather than, say, hiring a few people to clean them? It's not like there aren't plenty of people looking for steady work and humans have the advantage of being really flexible when something breaks in a novel manner.

Because within half an hour of being cleaned those toilets will be unusable again.

a) Do you really have flying bathroom defacement squads? Most of the places I've seen, even once a day would be fine.

b) In the few locations with particularly bad problems, isn't that really telling us that e.g. the problem is not something which can be solved by technology as opposed to, say, funding mental health programs?

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#179

Post by varelse »

mvnoogler wrote: post #55
varelse wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former Googler here: After an epic blind allocation fail, my attempt to switch to a project that made use of my talents enraged my manager and he reported me to HR. I left for greener pastures shortly thereafter and HR has apparently banned me from ever returning now that there is relevant work for me.

Oi. Hope I grow to love my assignment, or can at least switch "cleanly."

If you're a new college grad or just new to the industry, Google rocks. But, if you have "a very particular set of skills. Skills I^Hyou have acquired over a very long career" then Google will most likely arbitrarily assign you* to whatever arbitrary team needs seatwarmers at the moment. And FWIW, my skills were considered irrelevant to Google the year I joined, but suddenly very relevant barely a year after I left.

*Unless you're an acqui-hire, and then Google once again rocks because you get both the perks and the interesting work.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#180

Post by CardenB »

harigov wrote: post #29

It's interesting that Google chooses to create new companies for problems orthogonal to its core purpose, instead of choosing to diversify itself as a company into multiple industries. Is this a common phenomenon or is it something that is new?

I would also love to read about some similar companies, but I don't even know how to go about finding them.
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