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Snakes in a plain... old... office building!
April 3, 2007
Posted by Dan Bentley, Software Engineer
Act 1: The Googler who cried snake
Sunday April 1st, NYooglers (a word for New York Googlers I can't convince anyone else to use) receive an email about a python. I assume it's either
Guido van Rossum
talking about his
programming language
, or, because it's April Fool's, something like
Gmail Paper
or
PigeonRank
. Boy, am I surprised when I see the following message:
"Over the weekend, a pet snake belonging to a Googler escaped from its cage. The snake is a 3-foot long, brown-and-grey, ball python named Kaiser. Ball pythons are non-venomous and are commonly kept as pets. Tempting as it might be, this is not an April Fool's joke! We are sending this message to alert you to the situation and to let you know what to do in the event that you see the snake."
Act 2: A community unites
Monday morning in the office, we react. Some laugh, some debate whether it is actually a joke, and some stand away from walls and corners. At least one considers buying rubber snakes en masse. The bathrooms have slightly fewer occupants than usual.
Signs are posted in our microkitchens informing us of the situation and reiterating that Kaiser is not venomous and probably hiding behind some cabinet. My favorite sign reads "Single Ball Python (female): Down to earth gal seeking a sincere long term relationship. I have a heart of gold and enjoy quiet evenings in the aquarium, time by the heat lamp, and being held. If you are interested in a woman who desires a quiet settled-down lifestyle and a good future, I am your perfect fit."
Act 3: Google widens lead in search as Kaiser is found
Monday, April 2nd, 10:45 PM, we receive another Facilities Manager email: "After consultations with a herpetology expert at the American Museum of Natural History, our team of Google security and concerned volunteers located Kaiser relaxing behind a cabinet earlier this evening, and he was returned safely home with his owner." So, it all ended happily, and Kaiser is now at his owner's home to stay.
Epilogue
By Tuesday, life at the East Coast 'Plex returns to normal. We go back to building
great products
, hosting
cool events
, and
using telescopes to take pictures of ourselves
.
Thank you!
All of Google NY would like to sincerely thank our building landlord,
Taconic Investment Partners
, for working in partnership with us on this sensitive search and recovery mission.
This year's Anita Borg Scholarship winners
April 3, 2007
Posted by Meredith Carroll, Staffing Programs Coordinator/Diversity Program
It's that time of year when we happily announce the winners of the 2007 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship. We're awarding 20 $10,000 scholarships to these outstanding young women -- graduate and undergraduate students who are completing degrees in computer science and related fields -- with our congratulations. The
full list of winners is here
.
We invited all 50 scholars to Mountain View to meet each other, tour Google and participate in a workshop on educational and career issues for women in computer science. The day also included discussions with Google engineers and executives, representatives from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and former scholarship winners. This event is part of a larger Google Scholars’ Retreat in partnership with the winners of the 2006-2007 United Negro College Fund and Hispanic College Fund Google Scholarships.
Running the Relay Del Sol
April 2, 2007
Posted by Chris Holstrom, Technical Writer
At Google we like to do things fast -- that's why you get search results in a fraction of a second, and that's why 12 speedy Googlers traveled to Phoenix this past weekend to run the
Relay Del Sol
. The Relay Del Sol is a 187-mile overnight relay race through the Arizona desert.
Between the time Dan Brown started us off at 6 pm on Friday night and the time that I crossed the finish line at 1 pm Saturday afternoon, we each ran three grueling relay legs. Some of those legs were in the dark of night, with coyotes howling in the distance and us wearing lights and reflective gear to make us visible to cars. Other legs were in the heat of the desert sun -- and cacti don't provide much shade.
Through it all, we stuck to our aggressive goal pace of just over six minutes per mile. It was good that we could run that fast, because we faced some serious competition from the
MarathonGIS
team. After about 130 miles, they were just seconds behind us.
We responded to the challenge, though, and really turned it on for our third set of legs. As we approached the finish in Scottsdale, we had built up a solid lead. I knew that victory was within reach when I took the handoff for the final leg.
When I approached the finish, I saw my team waiting to cross the line with me. I pumped my arms in the air and flashed a huge smile, overwhelmed with the amazing teamwork and tremendous personal efforts that everyone contributed to the race. We came across the line together as the
first place team
. It was a great victory for us and an incredibly fun weekend.
Here's our team:
Back row, left to right: Belsasar Lepe, Eddie Higgins, Don Faul, Tom Phillips, Dan Brown, Sean Knapp.
Front row, left to right: Nathan Stoll, Chris Estwanik, Chris Holstrom, Jared Jacobs, Katie Hotchkiss, Bismarck Lepe.
Deadlines for submitting to testing, scalability conferences
April 2, 2007
Posted by Amanda Camp, Software Engineer
Some of the most interesting conversations I've had working in the Kirkland office have been sitting around the lunch table. Bringing together smart people working on tough problems and encouraging them to brainstorm seems to generate the most innovative new ideas.
The fact is Googlers love to discuss new ideas, and not just with each other. That is why we we're planning two conferences to share ideas. We want to hear about what other people in the technical community are doing to face the same hard problems we work on. Our
Seattle conference on scalable systems
is in June, and our second annual
Test Automation Conference
will take place New York in August.
There's still time to submit a proposal for either one. The Testing Automation Conference deadline for submissions is
Friday, April 6
(email
gtac-submission@google.com
).
As for the Seattle Scalability Conference, if "Beowulf" doesn't remind you of English literature, or you didn't know "Selenium" is also an element, you're just the person we're waiting to hear from. Here's a list of some of the topics we'd be interested in (you may have others):
Scalable algorithms:
Parallelization techniques (fully automatic or programmer-assisted)
Programming models and languages for multiprocessor systems (e.g., transactional memory, systems of communicating objects)
Algorithms that function in the face of system failures (flaky hardware, os bugs, network failures)
Scalable systems:
Managing large computation clusters (configuration, upgrade, repair, status monitoring)
Managing failure (automatic failure detection/diagnosis/repair)
Opportunities and challenges of multi-core architecture
Job management systems/schedulers for large compute clusters
If you have an interesting approach or an exciting new solution to any of these, send an outline of your 45-minute presentation to
scalabilityconf@google.com
by
Friday, April 20
.
Live art day
April 2, 2007
Posted by Kevin Gough, Senior
Product & Marketing Manager, Enterprise
A few months ago we had a well-known spray can artist named Vulcan paint a set of
Google Mini search appliances
for a Japanese launch event. They came out really hot, so this past Friday we invited him to come to the Google campus in Mountain View and do a live painting during lunch time.
It just so happened that our new Executive Chef from Beijing—a master ice sculptor in addition to his culinary talents—was also on campus. So during lunch
we had spray cans and chainsaws flying
, which led to the creation of two really cool pieces.
For those of you in the U.S., we've made pictures of the Google Mini search appliances as well as other art hanging at Google available to
download to your cell phone
.
Also check out this very cool time-lapse YouTube video of the painting coming to life by hip-hop filmmaker Kevin Epps.
About the New Orleans imagery in Google Maps and Earth
April 2, 2007
Posted by John Hanke, Director, Google Maps/Local/Earth
This weekend, there has been
a lot of discussion
about our imagery of New Orleans in Google Maps and Google Earth. I thought I'd give you some background that may clear things up, and also let you know about new imagery of the region now available.
In 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, a very motivated group of volunteers at Google worked with NOAA, NASA, and others to post updated imagery of the affected areas in Google Maps and Google Earth as quickly as possible. This data served as a useful reference for many people -- from those interested in understanding what had happened, to friends and families checking on the status of loved ones and property, to rescuers and relief workers. Shortly after the event, we received a voicemail thanking us for
the role Google Earth played
in guiding rescuers to stranded victims.
Several months later, in September 2006, the storm imagery was replaced with pre-Katrina aerial photography of much higher resolution as part of a regular series of global data enhancements. We continued to make available the Katrina imagery, and associated overlays such as damage assessments and Red Cross shelters, on
a dedicated site
(
earth.google.com/katrina.html
).
Our goal throughout has been to produce a global earth database of the best quality -- accounting for timeliness, resolution, cloud cover, light conditions, and color balancing.
Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments. Nevertheless, we recognize the increasingly important role that imagery is coming to play in the public discourse, and so we're happy to say that we have been able to expedite the processing of recent (2006) aerial photography for the Gulf Coast area (already in process for an upcoming release) that is equal in resolution to the data it is replacing. That new data was published in
Google Earth
and
Google Maps
on Sunday evening.
Make no mistake, this wasn't any effort on our part to rewrite history. But it looks like this April Fool's joke was on us.
Project Teaspoon
April 1, 2007
Posted by Michael Krantz and Marissa Mayer, TiSP Product Team
That's what we call it here at Google, anyway. What you'll call it is a godsend: free wireless broadband throughout your home, a host of optional breakthrough applications -- all with just one quick, easy self-install.
Learn more about Google TiSP (beta) today
.
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