Google to splurge $82m for exclusive airport exec enclave A plan by Google and British partner Signature Aviation to build a private airport terminal for the executive jet-set has received strong backing from local officials and looks likely to get approval. The plan calls for an $82m extension to the San José International Airport with hangars, ramp space, and an executive 17,000 …
Where will they put all this? The airport is hemmed in on all sides by roads (101 goes past the northern end of the runway and Interstate 880 goes past the southern end, for example) and existing buildings and facilities like car parks. There is some vacant property nearby (at least at the last time the sat got a pic for google maps), but it's the other side of Coleman Ave from the airport.
WTH did they not just offer to upgrade the NASA/ex-USN facilities?
The traffic access/exit is probably superior, and it would mean execs coming and going could probably be processed faster, since previous USN traffic purportedly had enough volume to competed with SJC.
I guess NASA/AMES was not as prestige-loaded. Hell, Google could probably have built their own Space:1999-like transport tube to get to the campus/es, lol!
There was a huge outcry about Google founders leasing this historic site. There was even an article here. And so now they can't lease Hangar One, aren't going to refurb it, and need another site. A shame as now taxpayers are out not just the lease payments but the cost to replace the coating on a buiding that's leaching PCBs into the soil.
Given that Fitch downgraded the San Jose airport bonds to BBB+ last year, any chump change the airport authority can get will be welcome to cover the increased borrowing cost of the downgrade. Googlets can easily obtain a chopper for transit down 101 by just requisitioning one from the maps division. Hopefully they won't lose their luggage a la Heathrow. Of course there's that nasty curfew thing that San Jose airport has (no fly zone 11:30pm to 6:30am) that self-anointed peninsular hero Larry Ellison managed to nail to a coffee table. Though so far I've not heard if he's actually "violated" it (moved it to a different airport...San Martin, maybe, next to the Wings of History Air Museum?). Wonder what the Googlets will do about Larry's precedent on the noise curfew.
Bad analogy. If we actually replaced 1970's coal plants with new coal plants then the amount of carbon released would fall dramatically due to the new technology included in new plants.
Greens protest against doing that, because the left wing of their movement is more interested in protesting than the actual outcome of their protests.
There is a new technology that allows you to burn carbon in oxygen while generating less carbon-dioxide?
Yeah, apparently if you burn less coal to generate the same amount of electricity (shockingly there are more efficient turbines available now than 40 years ago) then by reducing the amount of coal burnt then you reduce the amount of carbon-dioxide released for the same electricity output.
And that's before including carbon capture and other stuff that one could add into the design of a brand new coal plant.
I'm not sure I understand why Google need so many private jets. IBM employ 400k people and only feel the need for a single private jet. Microsoft don't appear to have a private jet, they employ 94k people. Apple don't seem to have a private jet, although Steve Jobbs did, they employ 73k people. Google employ something like 22k people and seem to need a fleet of eight private jets. Eight, I mean seriously? It seems to beg the question, what is so important that Google execs have to jet around the place in a way which standard first class travel isn't acceptable? Are they going to airports the standard airlines don't serve? Are they going at some sort of odd time not served by airlines? Or are they just living it up feeding their own egos, but being happy that they're the good guys, because they company motto tells them so?
I think that one of the most dangerous things that Google have is the motto, it re-enforces every day that you work for a company who don't do bad things. This means that you can do whatever you want, because it can't be bad, you work for Google, after all.
While the number of jets might be an issue, it's quite normal for companies to charter them from operating companies, so the comparisons might be misleading.
As for why, a private plane sidesteps the security procedures that airline passengers undergo, and even without that, getting from airport gate to 'plane is faster. There's more than that, but private jets have become so pervasive in the USA business world that not using them could be seen as a bad sign.
Not that Google needs the money, but suppose Google begins offering limited flights access (not enough to be commercial) to exclusive first-class fliers. Granted, there may not be frequent-flier miles and perks, but Google could probably do something like this:
Book a flight with us, and fly faster and more luxuriously if we're along or close enough to your route. What's the catch? You pay for the flight, but the money goes to charity, mostly 501 (c) 3, and to schools near your typical destination.
Then, Google could:
-- currry favor with those schools to buy Android-based tablets
-- set up physical Google Labs academies or "boot camps" of sorts
-- win affection of small nearby towns that get a boost in some way if creativity expands their way...
Global warming / cooling and endemic pollution, the death of all sea life, global starvation etc... - "Oh lets all be fuckwits and get private jets."
Modern telecommunications - "Fiber optics, Satellites, undersea cables....? Telecommuting and video conferences? - Nope - lets buy JETS - big ones - and fuck it - we won't even share planes with other people... - because our arsehole egos are too big for that shit."
Too Big, Too Greedy, Too Much Cash...... the drugs, corruption, suicides, over doses, murders, political corruption etc.... the end is coming for them.
Too Big, Too Greedy, Too Much Cash...... the drugs, corruption, suicides, over doses, murders, political corruption etc.... the end is coming for them.[Google} ..... Oh4FS Posted Sunday 10th February 2013 00:45 GMT
I don't think so, Oh4FS, whenever they realise that information search is trumped in all spheres and at every level in those spheres by intelligence presentation and knowledge dumping..... Prime Content Pumping and Pimping.
And you aint seen a Cash Cow until you feast your eyes on that AIMother.
So, what is King, Ace, Knave and Queen of Hearts and Minds in the Prime Content Intellectual Property and Internet Server Provision Markets to Earth and her Minions and Cohorts? Is there a Primed Daily Bell Ringing Service running Engaging Bulls and Enraging Bears? And is ITs Base Global Communications Head Quarters in Space with Roots and Routes to Earth or Vice Versa?
And yes, ok, they are a dumb Holy Grail Trinity of rhetoric questions but they just have to be asked in any novel noble vulnerability penetrations test engaged with higher intelligence into SAP and SCADA Systems Security and Protection Duties for IT be the Designated Target Source and Resource?
* And as easily done as said, whenever one knows what one is doing and what needs to be done and shared. I Kid U Not.
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. .... Leo Tolstoy has a graceful saving counterparty in The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent ….. Fundamentals of Chess 1883
Whenever the wheels come off the Ponzi National Debt Treasuries/Bonds/Gilts Wagon and there is no Johnny Rotten Foreigner ready, willing and enabled to buy and/or supply Worthless Toxic Sub-Prime Waste Disposal with Fiat and Federal Reserve Currency Scrip Delivery and Acceptance, which forces such sales and auctions to be bought up by oneself in a Treasury and/or by clones and/or proxies of oneself in Treasuries, in a parasitic cannibalistic feast with an unhealthy artificial feed which seeds a corrupted base HFT algorithm poisoning home source wells and trading floor markets ..... as is evidenced in a depressed situation with wholly unusual and unexpected market gains of surprising/dubious provenance [and there have been a lot of those recently, haven't there?] ...... will such Flash Cash Largesse AdVentures be ever more prevalent as the Private and Pirate Sectors of Smarter Humanity seek Novel Advantage in Public and Government Sector Incompetence and Ignorance and Arrogance as IT Crashes Systems of Perverse Inequitable Profit Control.
PS .....Try to control yourself and resist the sticky sweet temptation to downvote the messenger when curing the problem is the only question to answer correctly. :-) However, with so many deaf, dumb and blind to the real/virtual nature of their virtual/real existence, and how they be regarded and treated as no more than just pawns for sacrifice in the Greater Great Games in Intelligence Plays with Global Operating Devices and SMARTR Virtual Machines, is Einstein not wrong in his observation ......... "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not even sure about the universe."
* And Ayes
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