I work at Google as well.

In addition to the other reasons people have mentioned, I would not rule out the idea that Larry and Sergey just think it's a cool idea that will make the world a better place. I know they would not pursue it if there were not some payoff down the road, but I also believe they are pushing it for altruistic reasons as well.

I know that sounds naive and I don't expect many people to believe it, but then again you don't see many $300 billion companies that are run by comp sci grad students.

Anonymous Coward acting superior. News at 11.

What the hell are you talking about? The NSA doesn't have any accounts on Google servers. Where did you get this information? Oh, you just made it up.

Dude, the first thing you cite is a speculative article that was printed when Snowden first released incomplete information. Within weeks it was also revealed, BY THE SAME SOURCE, that Google was not cooperating with the NSA but rather that the NSA was tapping into the transatlantic cables and stealing information. Any data between Google datacenters is now encrypted, by the way.

How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you are posting bullshit like this? Does it make you feel important or something?

Boy, are you full of crap. When has Google cooperated with the NSA, any more than the law requires? What reports? Post credible links or GTFO.

I actually work with Jim Gao. His design doc was already open in another tab when I saw this article. Jim's a really smart guy. Really nice guy too.

I can't talk too much about it. You have a huge amount of electricity coming into the DC, on the order of a lightning bolt, and it has to be intelligently choreographed to make the best use of it. Then you have to carry away the heat. There is a lot of machinery to do that, and by accurately predicting where and when power is going to be needed, both for servers and for cooling, you can allocate your resource (chillers, transformers, fans, etc...) most efficiently. It's complex. It involves weather patterns and coolant flow rates and even minor things, like when the heaters turn on to keep the oil in the generators at the right viscosity in case of an emergency. You need to know all that stuff to decide where to best route (provision) the power. If you statically allocate power to cooling and other subservient systems, you lose the opportunity cost to use that power for more server machines. The more intelligently you can control things in real time, the more efficient you can be.

The coolest part is Jim had a clever idea, wrote it up, and it became reality based on its own merits. Jim is relatively new and junior at Google, but that didn't matter at all.

Like gmail, and search, and docs, and everything else except the handful of projects they did cancel with a huge amount of forewarning and ample substitutes?

No, it really isn't.

First of all, homicide is not the same thing as murder. Homicide is when you kill another person. Murder is an unlawful homicide with malice aforethought. Manslaughter is an unlawful homicide. There are all sorts of legal homicides, like self defense and accidents.

Seconds of all, by driving a car on a public road, you are assuming a duty of care to those around you. Other people in the streets are reasonable relying on you to push the breaks when necessary. Watching a train hit some people... there was no duty of care there.

So, watching someone die, and not going out of your way to save them, then is not murder. Occasionally, some state of town will attempt to criminalize it, with a so-called "Bad Samaritan" law. It doesn't work in practice. There are too many thorny issues. In legal terms, such actions should be left to the courtroom of the conscience.

Killing someone by inaction is definitely not murder. At least, not in the United States. There is no default duty to act to save someone. You might have a duty if you are a life guard or a scuba instructor or a police officer. But, by default, there is no duty to act.

An Olympic swimmer can stand on the beach and watch a little girl drown. It's not a crime. It's not right, but it's not murder.

The answer, of course, is that it was a civil trial. The Feds and criminal penalties have nothing to do with it.

Only, that's not what happened. No one said anything about fixing salaries. They just agreed to not go out of their way to steal employees from each other. Nothing stopped you from going to one of the ten to get whatever price the market would bear.

And you are free to have ten people sit around a table and decide what price you are willing to work for.

The market was still free. Everyone was free to seek a better job at a competing company. Nothing was stopping them. A few companies decided not to COLD CALL each others employees. People at Apple were free to go interview at Google, and people at Google were free to go interview at Apple. Everyone was completely free to negotiate whatever price the market would bear.

It comes down to this: There was a small group of people who were willing to ditch their current company for a pay raise, and now they have the gall to complain that they have to actually call the other company. Boo fucking hoo.

Techno-hipster crying "Wolf!" Quick, alert the media.

So, you do realize that "voyeurs, pedophiles and creepy stalkers" are using any of the many available spy glasses that don't obviously have a camera on them, right?

My wife and I were turned down for a house rental because there was a sex offender with the same first and last name as me.

It didn't matter to them that the sex offender had a different age and middle name.