How I didn't get a Google shirt
Thanks to Orwen who notified me (crap, I just reread the email and noticed that the part “I’m not going to be there because I have lectures at the time” was not written by him but quoted because of forwarding, and that he asked me if I was going to be there) I attended a presentation by Google’s VP of engineering Douglas Merrill called “Secrets of search”.
First thing that I noticed was VUT’s incompetence (not too much of a surprise) – they thought that a rather small room (for cca 200 people) was enough for presentation of someone important from Google. Turns out it was not. So it was a bit difficult to fit in even though I came 10 minutes earlier.
Douglas had about an hour long talk about how Google works. While I already knew most of the things (as did everyone else in the room), I wasn’t bored at all as Douglas was extremely entertaining. I think there’ll be a video of the whole event, so you can watch it (I’ll put the link in here as soon as I find it).
Douglas’ personal blog is surprising in several ways. First thing that struck me was pagerank 2. Anyone who has anything to do with Google has blog with pagerank about 7-9, two is ridiculously low. Second thing was almost total absence of computer related stuff. And the third thing that struck me was how personal things Douglas shares on his blog. This is easily by far the most sincere blog I have ever seen.
Well, as I was leaving the presentation, they were giving out very nice black t-shirts with Google logo… I was near the end of the crowd, and they ran out of shirts just about three people before me. Bad luck. Or not – I got a Google pencil.
6 thoughts on “How I didn't get a Google shirt”
ignuś 2007-10-10
since google is in many ways ethically dubious – giving out the data of chinese bloggers to the authorities, for example, which led to the imprisonment (for 10 years) of somebody who wrote his own thoughts on a blog – I would personally never wear a google t-shirt.
dunno if I will be targeted as spam when I post a link, but here goes
and yes, I do use google.
unfortunately.
ignuś 2007-10-10
update: sorry, it’s actually yahoo that helped the police to imprison bloggers.
google only censors.
tasuki 2007-10-10
Yes, Google censors in China, as we all know. This question got asked, and Douglas said that if they didn’t, they would get banned from China. Douglas said they still serve 99% results, and that they have a note at the bottom of the search page that they can’t serve all the relevant results because it was forbidden by the Chinese government.
How would you have preferred to solve the situation?
Drc 2007-10-11
Ahoj, nemáte někdo představu jak funguje cenzura výsledků vyhledávání? Napadají mě dvě možnosti: a) zákaz hledání určitých výrazů (např.: nedovolí ti hledat slovo “tibet”) b) nezobrazování odkazů pro které jsou zakázané výrazy relevantní (např.: dovolí ti hledat slovo “kuchyně”, ale nezobrazí ti stránky kde se mluví o “tibetské kuchyni”)
V případě, že se jedná o a) tak to nen tak hrozné (technicky, ne morálně) – musíš akorát chytře hledat.
BTW zkuste najít na netu tibetské místní názvy a mapy – je to docela zábava.
ignus 2007-10-11
Good to hear that question has been asked.
After reflection it seems indeed that the course taken by Google is the only imaginable one in this world… Sure, I’d like the corporation not to venture into China at all, and any other as well, but I’d also like … many other things ;p
99% seems exaggerated to me, and Google could have had more transparency in their pr about this… but that is nutpicking… Anyway I still recommend this pdf I gave a link to.. ;p
tasuki 2007-10-12
Drcu, nemam nic proti cestine, ale kdyz uz se tu rozbehla diskuse v anglictine, tak bys mohl pokracovat :P
It’s B, they allow you to search for whatever you want, but will not return the relevant results. Still, they still show the note that the results are censored because of chinese government.
Ignus, first, I like how you subtly correct my English without being too obvious about it – thanks ^^
Google is a company, they want profit… and there is plenty of money in China, so they can’t really afford not to operate there.
As for the 99%, it was obviously not the exact number, but I personally think that it’s a huge understatement – you have no idea how many pages are about Britney Spears, porn, flash games, useless blogs (ahem), etc. Most of the internet is total crap, and I believe they only censor a very small (though maybe the most important) part.
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