

Mysterious Google barge is a massive showroom, “party deck” - gabemart
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/mysterious-google-barge-is-a-massive-showroom-party-deck/

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skaevola
> The barges are held under an LLC called By And Large, apparently a reference
> to Pixar’s “Buy n Large” of WALL·E, which is itself a reference to the
> phrase “by and large.”

Really?

~~~
splawn
also, take out the "y And L" and you are left with the word "Barge"

~~~
nilliams
You could also say By and Large is simply 'Cockney rhyming slang' [1] for
Barge.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang)

~~~
waqf
Unless you have a citation for its being used in the East End, to comply with
EU labelling requirements you should rather say that it is "Cockney-style
rhyme-based language product".

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joezydeco
It seems to make a bit more sense now. A reconfigurable store that can be
dragged in and out of high-rent areas like NYC and SF.

Others have done this before, like Target's holiday-season barge that they
parked at Chelsea Piers in NYC:

[http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/15/news/companies/target_boat/](http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/15/news/companies/target_boat/)

~~~
chubot
But why would one barge be in the Treasure Island, while the other one is in
Portland ME? If you're targeting SF, Treasure Island makes sense. If you're
targeting NYC, a million other places make sense besides Maine, like NJ.

Nobody in Maine is gonna buy a damn Google Glass! :)

~~~
wiml
See, the thing about barges is you can _move_ them.

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001sky
This would make sense if it disaggegated itself into containers (ie, for
rail/ships), but the moving the barge itself not so much.

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dragonwriter
Actually, if this is really the purpose, the whole point would be to be able
to relocate it _without_ disassembly/reassembly.

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cpeterso
Is moving a barge really worth the time and cost?

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RyJones
It turns out to be relatively cheap (in dollar terms) to move a barge. In time
terms, not so much. If you wanted a floating party barge to hit the US coasts,
I'd build one on the east coast and one on the west, just to save time going
through the canal.

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surrealize
I can't believe people are taking this theory seriously. "Party deck"? Lol,
nice work whoever planted this story!

~~~
timdorr
And why are they building a similar one in Maine of all places?
[http://www.businessinsider.com/google-has-reportedly-
built-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-has-reportedly-built-
another-mystery-barge--this-one-is-floating-off-the-coast-of-maine-2013-10)

~~~
numbsafari
Because Maine, of all places, has high-quality and affordable ship-builders
with a lot of expertise outfitting these kinds of vessels. Also, it's a banana
republic, so it's easier to do things quietly.

Notice that, despite the fact that the local Portland paper (which is
admittedly garbage) has tried to cover this in-depth, they haven't been able
to get any information whatsoever about what is going on. Indeed, most of what
they have reported is basically just ripping things off from SF reporters.

If you want something done and done quietly, it's best to go somewhere you can
easily manipulate the local officials.

Of all places: Maine.

~~~
BrandonY
> it's a banana republic

Milk republic? Potato republic? Egg republic? Atlantic salmon republic?

~~~
ctdonath
"Banana republic" means something. Look it up.

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swamp40
This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Which, based on my past experience and predictions, most likely means that it
is _true_.

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api
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age)

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jonnathanson
Seems very similar to the Pier 57 container-built floating mall/exhibit
space/tourist destination under development in NYC. I wonder if the same
developer (Youngwoo & Associates) is involved?

[http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-pier-57-incubox-shipping-
contai...](http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-pier-57-incubox-shipping-container-
mall-set-to-open-next-april-in-nyc/younwoo-pier572/)

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ZanyProgrammer
The thing I don't get, is how is a barge a seaworthy vessel? If they are data
centers, it doesn't seem like a barge is something that would be seaworthy,
sitting out in the ocean for extended periods of time.

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jff
Well, that actually makes more sense to me, I was wondering how exactly they
planned to get a datacenter's worth of bandwidth out to a ship. Sure, you
could run a cable when you're in port, but the rest of the time your
datacenter gets to enjoy satellite networking, yay!

~~~
blcArmadillo
There are lots of cables in the ocean:
[http://www.submarinecablemap.com/](http://www.submarinecablemap.com/).

~~~
jff
And the barge should... toss down a fishing line to it?

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quink
If this really is it then I'm rather disappointed by Google's lack of
imagination here.

Surely you could put that money to better use.

~~~
logicallee
comments like this are probably why it's kept secret. I mean I'm sure you know
what it takes to change society as fundamentally as Google glass does/would,
and you don't need to wine and dine and woo anyone. Good luck with your
approach.

~~~
quink
Google's market cap is $350 billion.

They're at a point where if they need to woo and wine and dine people into
accepting their new supposedly revolutionary product on a party boat, then
that's just about the biggest sign of a failure ever. Please tell me where the
Google Web Search party boat was? The GMail party boat? How about the Android
party boat? The Google Chrome party boat? Did they need a YouTube party boat
after they bought YouTube or didn't they need a party boat because YouTube
party boated before?

If you have a product, make it awesome like any of the above and that should
be enough. If the first step to changing society as fundamentally as this is
hyped to do, then inviting hipsters and celebrities of the bourgeoisie onto a
party boat for some Gatsbying leaves me rather disappointed.

Like someone on Ars Technica said:

> I guess this is what happens when a company has more money than it has uses
> for and slips into hedonism.

You know what would be cool? If they sailed this thing out to the open sea,
and worked together with a company that's laying some transoceanic fibre and
tapping into that. And Google might in that way have a data centre in
international waters. Would it be useful? Who knows. But it would be a cooler
thing to do with a bloody barge than this.

~~~
yohui
Google search, Gmail, Chrome, and YouTube are all free to use, hence low
barrier to adoption. Android devices cost money to buy, but the software is
open source and free for OEMs.

Glass, on the other hand, needs to sell buyers on a whole new product
category. Also, as a very conspicuous accessory, it needs to make a strong
positive fashion statement.

Do I know that a floating expo is the best way to accomplish what Google's
setting out to do? No, but I'm not convinced it isn't.

As logicallee was saying, if speculation concerning nautical data centers
hadn't percolated, nobody would be upset if/when that proves unfounded.

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benologist
Summary of [http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/31/googles-
secret-r...](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/31/googles-secret-
revealed-barge-to-offer-high-end-showrooms-party-deck/)

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pirateking
L. Page's Raft - where people wear antennas on their head.

~~~
adamfeldman
The Raft and antennaheads together refer to Snow Crash[1], a most excellent
novel by Neal Stephenson

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

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ihsw
Sounds like a great way to conceal an espionage/reconnaissance operation.

Or maybe it's a self-driving ship.

~~~
praptak
It's obviously a decoy to turn our collective attention away from something
much more sinister.

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mtraven
Nothing stops a party barge:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9Wblb3zJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9Wblb3zJo)

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outside1234
will Sergey's party jet be able to land on it?

will togas be issued?

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tomphoolery
Ooh is this where Burning Man Decom is next year? ;-)

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Zigurd
Department manager takes "Google X" literally, gets budget for giant rave
barges.

Seriously, no. Someone is having a good laugh over at Google.

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frank_boyd
They definitely have excessive cash to spend.

~~~
VikingCoder
I think this is probably cheaper to build than it would be to RENT that much
square footage for a month in SF or NYC.

~~~
praptak
But if you don't really need _that_ much square footage, then it's sunk (heh,
heh) cost anyway.

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gabemart
previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645469)

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eunice
google's very own 'sea org'

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pagekicker
Nauseating.

~~~
evan_
Good point- do you think they issue seasickness pills before you get on? Or
maybe it's moored well enough that it doesn't rock?

~~~
jlgreco
People have been partying on yachts since yachts were invented. Seasickness is
probably not a significant concern.

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gibwell
Seems highly unlikely unless the next generation Google Glass is a quantum
leap ahead of the existing one.

I'm not a naysayer about the product in general (although I am not a fan of
google), but I _have_ used Glass, and it is far from being a usable consumer
product.

Iteration _will_ change that. However I have doubt that that have got to that
point yet.

If this is article is accurate, then I think the operative words are
'invitation only'. The idea would be to get massive celebrity endorsement to
create desire without real consumers actually experiencing the product.

So far Glass has done a great job of making Google not look like a boring
copycat. If they can keep this up and launch a great product at some point, it
will turn out to be a masterpiece of marketing.

