Soylent Red

As many of you know, I've been in Innsbruck in Austria since Monday, giddily drinking in the promises of new and improving Google technology.

Never in my life have I seen so many demos and previews of so many amazing products and so much cutting edge technology that I wasn't allowed to talk about. Over the last couple of days I've shifted from an eager, childlike curiosity about how everything is implemented, what technology its based on, where and how it runs—to a resigned sense that there's not a great deal of hope that I'm going to understand the answers to any of those questions. But boy do I want to use it!

This evening I leave Innsbruck for Soelden, where we'll be joined by all of the non-engineers for a day of skiing and partying. I've never skied before, but I'm generally a fan of going downhill so I think I'll enjoy it.

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment

According to BBC News, Microsoft has offered over $44b for Yahoo! I'd hate to see this go through, because I still think Yahoo! has some people capable of making significant contributions to the Web, and the only significant contributions I see from Microsoft are roadblocks and hurdles to the overall development of the Web.

Someone suggested Google should park a trailer outside Yahoo!'s offices to interview their engineers, with the suggestion that they can either stay where they are and learn to use Microsoft's tools or they can come work with us on something more fun.

The worst part of all of this is the prospect that I might have to switch to using Picassa.

Obviously the standard disclaimer applies here. None of this is the opinion of Google, the bit about the interview trailer is a joke, Google has made no statement on the subject yet, if they do it won't be through this blog (ha!), and so on…

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment
• Toggle Comments [1]

At least these perks used to be secret. Thanks for posting them on the web, Cracked.com. Now everyone will know that,

New Google employees each receive a keepsake Google hacky-sack filled with pulverized sapphires.

This is even worse than the time xkcd let slip that we learn the secret of levitation after 256 days. By the way, I learned it about two weeks back. It's pretty obvious once you think about it.

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment

Randall Munroe, creator of the world's best web comic xkcd, visited the Googleplex in Mountain View recently. Apparently they baked him a cake shaped like the Internet. Watch it all, but especially check out the Google Doodle he does at the end.

If Ireland had cool people like this they might come visit me in Dublin…

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment

I've just payed to renew this domain for the next year, so I guess I better start using it. It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, what with starting work, Good Good Friday in Nottingham, and now I'm in Mountain View, California.

Yesterday I took myself on a self-guided walking tour of San Francisco. I wholeheartedly recommend walking across the Golden Gate Bridge (photos to come). On the other hand I cannot in good conscience recommend walking to the Golden Gate Bridge from downtown San Francisco. My feet hurt. I'm reminded of this story. Here's a map of my approximate route, though I actually took a more up-and-over approach than a go-around approach to the hills.

I set out from the Caltrain station at 11:30 and got back there at 18:30. That's local time. In GMT those times translate to some time next Thursday. Of course I managed to get a Golden Gate shot glass, not to mention reams of photos of the bridge, of Alcatraz Island and of some really steep hills.

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment

Search Google maps for directions from Dublin, Ireland to San Francisco, California and look at step #46:

Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 5,572 km

I was rather hoping to fly…

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment
• Toggle Comments [3]

I don't know if I mentioned before that my starting work next week looked like it was going to prevent me from spending the Easter weekend in Nottingham with the Joinees. It turns out that my manager will be away at the end of that week, so I can take the Thursday off even though it's only my fourth day on the job. Thanks to the bank holiday on Friday and the public holiday on Monday, my first weekend will be five days long. I just needed to book a hotel, because I still had my flights.

The following weekend, I'll be flying to California to spend three weeks at Google HQ in Mountain View, near San Francisco.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and get a machine-readable passport.

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment

My eyes hurt from spending the whole day with dilated pupils so I'll make this brief. In the words (possibly) of Charles Manson, bullets to the rescue:

• I was offered a job on Friday. I have accepted. I start in three weeks. There will soon be a disclaimer that the opinions expressed on Soylent Red are mine and not those of my new employer.
• I spent the weekend in Clare (the county, not a girl). It was fun.
• I have resolved to spend St Patrick's Day next year in New York. People appear to be interested in this idea.
• I had an examination at the Wellington Eye Clinic today. I'm an ideal candidate for LASIK. In fact, post surgery, I will have better eyesight than I could possibly get from corrective lenses because they can fix the asymmetry in my corneas as well as my myopia.
• I love Lamp.

• Permanent Link
• Add Comment
• Toggle Comments [10]