
Google Gnome – Google Store - stevewilhelm
https://store.google.com/magazine/gnome
======
alexhutcheson
Almost certainly inspired by this story[1]:

'Around 2002, a team was testing a subset of search limited to products,
called Froogle. But one problem was so glaring that the team wasn't
comfortable releasing Froogle: when the query "running shoes" was typed in,
the top result was a garden gnome sculpture that happened to be wearing
sneakers. Every day engineers would try to tweak the algorithm so that it
would be able to distinguish between lawn art and footwear, but the gnome kept
its top position. One day, seemingly miraculously, the gnome disappeared from
the results. At a meeting, no one on the team claimed credit. Then an engineer
arrived late, holding an elf with running shoes. He had bought the one-of-a
kind product from the vendor, and since it was no longer for sale, it was no
longer in the index. "The algorithm was now returning the right results," says
a Google engineer. "We didn't cheat, we didn't change anything, and we
launched."'

[1] From "In the Plex" by Steven Levy
[https://books.google.com/books?id=V1u1f8sv3k8C&pg=PA60](https://books.google.com/books?id=V1u1f8sv3k8C&pg=PA60)

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scrollaway
Dear Google,

My browser (and by my browser I mean YOUR browser) is sending the header
'accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.8' on every request, because it is configured
to prefer pages in English.

Therefore, THIS is not what I want to see when I load a page:
[http://imgur.com/AcugEjZ](http://imgur.com/AcugEjZ)

Please stop detecting language based on IP when there's a perfectly good
setting for it. People travel, you know? You do it on Blogger too - shame on
you. :/

~~~
Buge
I wonder how many people there are with browsers sending en-US but who want
non-English results.

The current behavior might make more people happy, at least in the short term.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I don't think there are many. Typically the browser gets the locale from the
OS, and the OS is sold with the locale of the place where it's bought. I don't
think I know anyone who has the browser in en-US without their knowledge.

~~~
Noughmad
Almost everybody with pirated Windows.

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k-mcgrady
Anyone else tired of the April 1st stuff? Lots of stuff has been showing up
since the 31st too. I used to enjoy the holiday because it had some built-in
restraint (no pranks after midday) and I'll admit for the first little while
internet companies getting in on it was fun. But they've ruined it by over
saturating it. How many pranks does one company need to put out?

Edit: In fact it might inject more fun again if Google and everyone else only
showed the pranks up until midday based on your location and if you were
interested you had to find them before then or you wouldn't get to see them
live.

~~~
sixQuarks
It's kind of cringeworthy that Google is still doing this. They're not the
small, "cool" startup anymore. It's like the popular kid from high school who
kept hanging out in the parking lot years after graduating

~~~
GrinningFool
Or it's just silly and the people working there like to have a little fun like
everyone else?

~~~
k-mcgrady
It's not though, they clearly put a lot of effort into these things. It's just
a marketing exercise.

~~~
sixQuarks
yeah, that's the thing, they're putting in so much effort on these - it's like
a PR thing.

------
hprotagonist
I'm saving my money for google XFCE.

~~~
remir
No need to save much, it will certainly be cheaper! ;)

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MikusR
I get "Not available in your region."

I love geolocked April fools even better than the regular ones.

~~~
notatoad
I, unfortunately, didn't get geoblocked. I could tolerate geoblocking if if
meant april fools jokes were limited to a single day instead of encroaching
onto May 31 as well.

~~~
Buge
I don't think they're encroaching quite that far...

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khazhoux
There's a brilliant Dead Kennedys song called "Halloween," about how you plan
all year for that one night you'll cut loose and dress crazy... but that night
you're still self-conscious and hiding in a mask, and nothing's changed. The
next day and the next year, you'll just brag about that one night, but there
was nothing there and nothing in between.

That captures best my feelings about these tech gags. You wanna be silly and
funny? Awesome, do something silly and funny. But don't wait for the
Corporate-Approved Silly Day, and then just run the formula ("take product X
and dress it up like endearing or ridiculous product Y"), and then expect me
to be delighted by the joke, which I didn't participate in, and I could have
predicted at this point since 2008.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiySknl9zs0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiySknl9zs0)

[http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/12529/](http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/12529/)

~~~
TillE
That's such a good reference, and a great explanation of why today is so
irritating. It was always a dumb holiday, but thank the internet for turning
it into corporate Halloween.

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AlexB138
I suppose it's a bit stingy, but the fact that this is basically a semi-
stealth ad for the Home, and the giant ad for the Home on the page, is a turn
off on this. Cramming ads even into "jokes" kills what little fun there is
left in April Fools.

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jeffjose
OK, Gnome is better than saying OK, Google. I still can't believe Google
decided NOT to give its personal assistant a name and personality.

~~~
lobotryas
That was actually smart of them. To "google" has something has become a new
verb in English. You'd never hear someone say to "siri", "bing" (sorry, MS),
or "cortana" for something.

Instead, you can go and "ask" google directly to do something for you.

~~~
mertd
The one you left out (Alexa) is very common.

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hartator
I do remember a time when Google was making real product announcements too
good to be true on April, 1st. I guess this time is done.

~~~
pdelbarba
I was a little taken aback by the giant ad for google home at the bottom as
well...

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nthitz
The internet has ruined April Fools day.

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stevewilhelm
It's April 1st somewhere.

~~~
flavor8
At least it's on a Saturday this year.

~~~
pjmlp
I guess it depends on the calendar being used. :)

Actually, for those using other calendar systems, is April fools day today or
some other day?

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solipsism
Why would I use this? Knowing Google they will probably cut support for it in
a couple of years, leaving me with a gnome-shaped brick.

~~~
pavanky
Or following the recent trend, they could launch 3 different alternatives
doing the same thing: Google leprechaun, Google elf, and Google troll.

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ph33r
For a brief second after reading the title, I thought I might be getting a
Google Drive client on Linux... jokes on me!

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thesmallestcat
Was hoping this would be GNOME-related.

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otto_ortega
Achievement Unlocked: Mocking a competitor's product (Amazon's​ Alexa) on
April's Fool

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vanderZwan
I kind of want this to be real, if only so that someone will hack in the Gnome
insults from Fable 3:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXJn2CL2Vk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXJn2CL2Vk)

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sealub
This is good, but my personal favorite was Google TiSP. :-)

[https://archive.google.com/tisp/index.html](https://archive.google.com/tisp/index.html)

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Mikeb85
Damn, after reading the description I wish it wasn't April Fool's. I'd totally
get one with the dino floatie and little lawn chair.

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dwighttk
April Fools day is the worst. Thanks Internet.

------
lobotryas
When I first saw the gnome I thought it would eventually tie into HL3, but
alas, these dreams are still only dreams.

------
infogulch
"Google Gnomes are real, but only in our hearts — for now. Happy April
Fools’!"

------
yincrash
The YouTube video triggered the Google search on the tablet I was watching the
video on.

------
hartator
Ads are getting smarter.

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kobeya
I'm geoblocked. Can someone explain what this is?

~~~
stuart78
It is an April Fools joke. Like Google Home, but gnome-shaped and for
'automating your yard'.

~~~
kobeya
Thank you.

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arjie
Haha. I enjoyed this and I like the April Fools jokes.

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oldgun
It's April 1st already.

~~~
marcuskaz
Time to log off the internet, thankfully it's on Saturday.

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d--b
April 1st, got it.

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magma17
shut up and take my money

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packersfan0000
It's actually a real product, my roommate has been working on it for the past
months. I think it was initially supposed to be launched last summer, but
there was a bunch of technical issues + scope creep and it's only happening
now. Seems like a misstep to announce this so close to April Fool's Day, but
apparently the higher ups couldn't tolerate any more delays. I understand the
confusion, but if you look at the site you can see it's actually available for
sale.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Wouldn't it be really cool if this post is true and they launch the product
next week?

I mean, I know it is a joke.

