
If only all the other agencies of the US government were as well mannered and discreet as the Californian Coast Guard...
The two mysterious barges Google has parked on either side of the United States will be used as flashy product showrooms, a new report has claimed. Speculation about the function of the two barges has raged ever since they were stationed near San Francisco's Treasure Island and off the coast of Portland, Maine. Both barges …
Agreed,
I believe they are more likely to be used for off-shore work centers that Google had proposed years ago.
The existing quotas on the number of work visas is hindering even my office (US Based). We have a chinese AD who has passed all requirements and is simply waiting for a PR card, but the current quota is preventing it. She is highly skilled and has been working for us over 5 years.
She has been a model employee and exemplifies what a model citizen should be IMO. She's never been on social assistance and pays taxes. These ARE the kinds of immigrants we need in this country (US), not the ones who steal across our borders in the night and consume our resources without having contributed anything towards them. We need a sponsorship program in our country for those groups/individuals who are NOT able to be self-sufficient from the start, where US citizens can sponsor an individual and they will be responsible for the person and ensure they will not become a burden to our society.
~Best wishes keeping what you earned.
Why don't you just hire an American? I have worked with many H1-B visa engineers and I am not impressed at all.
The thing about the H1-B engineers is they are model employees because they are afraid to speak up. 100 hour weeks on straight salary no problem. Overlook a safety issue. Sure. Environmental concerns, not their problem. If they lose their job they 30 days to find a new one or they have to leave the country.
The reason people hire illegal immigrants is because they can treat them like dirt and pay them less. The H1-B Visa employees are only a small step up.
Exactly right Hud. AC 17:43 like most others of his ilk is looking to have his cake and eat it too. Most of the too good to be true offshore opportunities are gone and the long term costs of doing so are finally come home to roost so they are looking for the next best thing. You can smell the Tea Bagger right wing crazy just below the surface of the post as well.
---------- She's never been on social assistance
Because everyone who has is obviously a workshy parasite, right?
The trouble with you teabaggers is that you don't want systems in place to support people until you need it yourselves.
"No to Obamacare! But hands off our Medicare "
Being quiet, doing very long hours (because they're struggling) isn't model citizen.
I'd prefer it if people were more sociable and team players. Better that someone comes to you and asks for help then they go ahead and do something wrong. We've had contractors who have not followed good practice, things weren't checked into source control and they were giving free assistance to a customer who is supposed to pay for it.
Why would a company which sells mostly non-tangible products need a showroom? Their few tangible products include £199 tablets, £299 phones, the $1,500 Glass beta product, and maybe in future some self-driving cars. The first two don't have the added value to justify the cost of the boat; the Glass might at that price, but presumably the final price will be significantly lower; and the cars need an open road for test drives.
In short, I don't believe it's a showroom.
Could be for Gapps.
There are many business deals closed on some sort of junket or another of increasingly dubious utility. Having a "sales-floor" in two large cities with fancy hotels and good food too which they could bring medium to large contract negotiations into might be useful to them. The fact that it could accomplish that while publicly steering clear from the appearance of outright pandering would just serve to help them in their "do less-ish evil" quest.
It might be to weaken the case that Google is selling in the UK. The 'sales' staff roll up in a barge moored in the Thames, host all their junkets, sell all their advertising, and then sail away,
HMRC and the Parliamentary Select Committee will not be able to express incredulity at Google reporting so little UK business.
"Why would a company which sells mostly non-tangible products need a showroom?"
Think advertising.
And what better way to showcase your latest techniques than a glitzy showroom full of large, high tech screens displaying all the latest glitz glamour, and eye candy, accompanied by all the Vegas style amenities?
Such is the lifeblood of marketeers.
Now coming to a city near you!
It's funny, the value people build into a statement simply because it comes from an official body. A Coast Guard safety inspection of a barge is a check for PFD's, fire extinguishers and clearly marked no smoking areas around any stored fuels or oils, that's it. Barges fall under completely different rules than other vessels (and the inspections on those aren't intensive either.
My point is that unless they thought Google might be smuggling, they spent the afternoon hanging out with Google staff and given tickets for their friends and family to come to a future event. If you aren't on their shit list they don't even bother to look at cargo manifests, just PFD's and fire extinguishers. You don't even have to have a radio or electricity on board. Google could very well have had nukes, real oompa-loompas or a fucking fleet of spacecraft (or all the above) and the Coast Guard would never have looked.
None of that to knock the Coast Guard. Personally I believe they are the most badass of all uniformed US staff. When everybody else is looking for land the Coast Guard is heading out to sea in terrify a shark bad seas. They've got drug dealers, human traffickers, drunk dentists and very real, very bad types to deal with. Safety of a moored barge isn't, and shouldn't be, super high on their priority list.
That's just Google being honest. Nearly all non-office commercial buildings built in the US since the early 90's are just shipping containers (basically) with bricks or stucco glued on the side. If it's a real expensive building they'll use cinder blocks. Google is just stripping away all the bullishit places use to lure in the proles. Few real buildings are built anymore. Sadly.
So they are going to run their own fiber and not on US soil then, right? Let me know how that works for the. Wireless you say, well, they need to work with the FCC then. Google would also need to leave the US as well, so no more workers, no more US offices, no more anything in the US. Let me know how that will work out for them!
"Other nutjobs suggested the Bilderberg Group had persuaded Google to stash a few nuclear bombs in there, so it could blow up the US whenever it fancied getting cracking on the much-delayed New World Order project."
Bearing in mind that the initial reason for the Bilderberg meetings was to tackle the perceived anti-Ameerkan sentiment in Europe in the mid 50's it seems the retards suggesting the above have no IQ at all.
Anybody remember a story about the BlueSeed project from june 2012? All the benefits of US infrastructure and less red-tape hassle. There may even be a taxation dodging angle but I'm a tech not a beancounter so can't really comment on that aspect.
Blueseed: A commercial and residential compound that floats just beyond the invisible line that marks international waters, a dozen miles from the harbor in Half Moon Bay, Calif. "Things like visa regulations do not apply ... You can legally work on [starting] a company, you can earn a paycheck .. as you are at least 12 miles from shore."