

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

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krschultz
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.

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adamnemecek
Well that's somewhat underwhelming.

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AndrewKemendo
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.

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sytelus
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.

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waterlesscloud
Good luck with that environmental impact study.

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

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Nicholas_C
>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?

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ZeroGravitas
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](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/by_and_large#Etymology)

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Nicholas_C
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.

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wil421
Do I have join Google+ to get on the barge?

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surrealize
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.”

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

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ovi256
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.

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iurisilvio
Awesome! Wait for the ads there!

