Inside Google's London Complex

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has some interesting pictures of Google's new London office which is incidentally looking to boost its 200-man headcount. Also, a Doodle 4 Google contest was held in conjunction with the office opening for schoolchildren."

Comments

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why Google needed doodles drawn for them. They have a search engine filled with thousands if you turn off the adult protection.

Re:Hmm

[Denyer]

"Moderate SafeSearch is on"

Yeah, someone really misfiled that one... (although Tripod have removed the site in question. It's a photo of a penis, for those who don't feel like clicking the link.) Possibly it got selected by a human at Google, the image was switched or defaced, and then was automatically updated by a crawler bot.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

its an algorithim.. do you really think Google has enough man power to search the entire internet for images and index them on a regular basis?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider it highly likely there's a cursory evaluation/checking process for a small subset of results, since images can't solely be taken from context in pages and image recognition isn't yet that advanced.

Otherwise it would be far too easy to bomb Google's "safe" results with porn, and the problem isn't that widespread in my experience.

Prizes

[The New Andy]

The winner of the Doodle 4 Google contest is Lisa Waiwaina, age 11. For her doodle, titled "Day of the Child," her prize was an upper case "G" of frosted glass, and her school won an interactive whiteboard.

Obvious jokes:

1) Much better than those non-interactive whiteboards which ignored your marker completely.

2) Does the whiteboard display advertising relevant to whatever you draw on it.

3) "her prize was an upper case "G" of frosted glass" - when you put it in those terms, yes that prize does sound like a joke.

Re:Prizes

[Army of 1 in 10]

2) Does the whiteboard display advertising relevant to whatever you draw on it.

That's nothing that the right Firefox plugin can't handle! ;)

Re:Prizes

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Much better than those non-interactive whiteboards which ignored your marker completely.

That's usually the marker's fault, dude... Well, unless some prankster soaped the whiteboard to make it "non-interactive"

Re:Prizes

[neiljt]

That's just silly -- whoever heard of a whiteboard running Firefox?

Re:Prizes

[Anonymous Coward]

But can it run linux?

200-man headcount?

[essence]

only men work there? no? how hard is it to say 200 person? come on.

Re:200-man headcount?

[essence]

would you be upset if it said 200 woman headcount (but of course that would include men as well) ?

Re:200-man headcount?

[aussie_a]

Wow, get over yourself. Most English speakers have a male bias in their speech. Deal. It's this sort of political correction that drives me up the wall.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

would you be upset if it said 200 woman headcount (but of course that would include men as well) ?

Yes, because it would be far from normal english.

From the dictionary.com's usage notes about man:

Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was a human, and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to a male human and a female human respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for a male human, while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for a female human. Despite this change, man continued to carry its original sense of a human as well, resulting in an asymmetrical arrangement that many criticize as sexist. Nonetheless, a majority of the Usage Panel still accepts the generic use of man, although the women members have significantly less enthusiasm for this usage than the men do. For example, the sentence "If early man suffered from a lack of information, modern man is tyrannized by an excess of it" is acceptable to 81 percent of the Panel but a breakdown by sex shows that only 58 percent of the women Panelists accept it, while 92 percent of the men do.

While women are less accepting of the general use, at least according to that information, a majority still is.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely and while we are at it lets standardize on a world language, and make everything politically correct so that we can accost the non-adopters. I bet if you petition long enough it might be a crime to disagree.

Once again quit nitpicking, you get angry over simple laziness. How about getting over something that truly matters, like the salary gap in genders, or workplace sexual harassment and accept man as a non gender specific term for those to lazy to write out person. Focus on the issues, not the labels.

Re:200-man headcount?

[essence]

I do focus on lots of real issues. I'm not a slashbot. It took me 2 minutes to write that comment, in the hope that it would make some people think. Sure, most people are used to using man to mean both men and women, including allot of women. But writing person instead of man does make it more accessible to women (and men) who might be offended or alienated. It's not that hard to change the little things like that. I find it interesting that so many people get upset that i pointed it out.

and no, i wouldn't want to make it a crime to disagree. Creating laws for this sort of thing doesn't work. People don't like being forced to do things. The only solution is discussion and action by people, not the state.

Re:200-man headcount?

[gihan_ripper]

I completely agree with your comment. As a (male) professional mathematician, I see outrageous overt sexism in the academic commmunity, but whenever anyone suggests the use of gender-neutral terms they are often lambasted (largely by the older generation) as politally correct weenies.

The point that many science geeks completely fail to realize is that 'labels' are important. Our use of language deeply affects our relationship with the world and the manner in which we perceive our environment and fellow human beings.

At a certain very old university, I've known a number of mathematicians who were extremely distressed by the display of a "Men of Mathematics" poster. Yes, our current use of the English language allows us to describe any collection of workers as male, but this is an anachronism, harking back to a time when only men did "real" work. In the same manner, it used to be commonplace, well into the 20th century, to refer to someone who drove a hard bargain as a Jew. Now tell me is it mere 'political correctness' which prevents us from using the word Jew in this way, or is it that we have become a more enlightened species?

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

how hard is it to say 200 person?

If you say 200 person, some politically-correct-nazi will jump out at you, and chasticize you for not saying 200 perdaughter.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

person??

Excuse me, but some of them might be perdaughters.

Re:200-man headcount?

[koekepeer]

"It's not that hard to change the little things like that."

it's also very easy to not attribute meaning to something that isn't meant to insult or discriminate.

"I find it interesting that so many people get upset that i pointed it out."

you are projecting. how do you know they are upset?

one reason people might react is because they don't like being told how to speak. "live and let live" - might make things a lot easier for everybody.

many people who get worked up about these issues forget that in 99% of the cases people don't mean anything by what they write. it is the responsibility of the reader to take something seriously or not. when in doubt, *ask* for the intention of the writer :-) this way you are always sure and you don't need to read into someone's responses, jump to conclusions, and upset the other in the process :-) it's "the principle of not fighting". very useful.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Jetekus]

Oh please. You answered your own complaint there. Noone in their right mind would possibly think that only men work there, and anyone who speaks fluent english would understand that that is an anachronism.

Did you know that when referring to a group of people of both genders mixed together, the french use the MASCULINE plural form of adjectives? Why not go after them? Oh yes, because it's part of the history of the language, as is the english example.

No women I know think that this is somehow a male plot to slowly eat away at their confidence, but maybe my friends are a little more secure than you.

Oh and my Algebra and Geometry lecturer (at Cambridge, England) refers to plurals of students and mathematicians in general as female. Haven't seen any men complaining yet...

Re:200-man headcount?

[koekepeer]

"Now tell me is it mere 'political correctness' which prevents us from using the word Jew in this way, or is it that we have become a more enlightened species?"

if you were truly enlightened, would it even affect you if someone called someone else a jew? why do, in issues of (presumed) discrimination/racism, people invariably assume the worst in other people? maybe because we *all* are prejudiced?

methinks a better way to increase the peace is to stop assuming and projecting our own prejudice onto others. works a heck of a lot better than pointing the finger and saying "you are bad because you are prejudiced". this while, in fact, you are saying: "you are bad because you just said something i associate with being prejudiced", revealing your own prejudice in the process. hypocrisy invokes conflict. understanding and acceptation creates peace.

Re:200-man headcount?

[ggy]

Hmm... It's a building full of geeks. So I'd say the chances are quite good! ;)

Re:200-man headcount?

[Onymous Hero]

including allot of women

What are you, fucking 10 or something?

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, please, look around: isn't all this silly mad obsession about politically correct words precisely meant to distort the attention or hypocritically hide the real issues behind a curtain of beeps and flowers?

Don't say 'man' but torture? C'mon.
Sorry for OT.

Re:200-man headcount?

[gihan_ripper]

No women I know think that this is somehow a male plot to slowly eat away at their confidence, but maybe my friends are a little more secure than you.

Oh and my Algebra and Geometry lecturer (at Cambridge, England) refers to plurals of students and mathematicians in general as female. Haven't seen any men complaining yet...

Perhaps your friends are more secure. But unlike you, my colleagues are not in Michaelmas term of their first year, but rather are senior mathematicians at an older English university.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Moses_Gunn]

Feeding a troll here, but this irks me. I haven't researched this DEEPLY, so I may be wrong, but this is my understanding of the issue. Most languages (including those that I have studied: German, Spanish, and Arabic) have gendered nouns. For instance, in German the word for "the" is der, die, or das for masculine, feminine, and neuter respectively. Somewhere along the line, English lost this feature, and nouns no longer have gender. However, originally, the word "man", in the context of referring to "mankind" was of NEUTRAL gender. Thus, not only is today's use of the word "man" to mean "people" NOT sexist, but is actually gender correct.

Read more here under the "Etymology" section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man

Not to mention the fact that it doesn't sound STUPID like "200-person". ;)

Re:200-man headcount?

[LSD-OBS]

There's hidden evidence in the pictures. Why else would there be an entire floor devoted to a toilet cleaning company unless we're talking about 200 geek men?

Re:200-man headcount?

[Goth Biker Babe]

Mod that funny! That is so right!

Re:200-man headcount?

[essence]

"It's not that hard to change the little things like that."

it's also very easy to not attribute meaning to something that isn't meant to insult or discriminate.

Of course most people don't mean to insult or discriminate. The language is entrenched in our culture.


"I find it interesting that so many people get upset that i pointed it out."

you are projecting. how do you know they are upset?

Well the AC up furthur called me an 'anally retentive prick'. The usage of prick mainly indicates this.


one reason people might react is because they don't like being told how to speak. "live and let live" - might make things a lot easier for everybody.


Just saying its ok because somebody didn't intend it to be sexist doesn't mean it's not sexist. And just to pass it off and say live and let live just feeds patriarchy. It not easier for everybody, maybe most people, but not everyone.

If we want a society that is free of sexism, patriarchy, then we have to become conscious of how we are executing those very things, whether it's sexists language, or sexist behaviour. Then we have to make an effort to change it.

Re:200-man headcount?

[thousandinone]

"Just saying its ok because somebody didn't intend it to be sexist doesn't mean it's not sexist."

I would argue that because spoken language as it is today is a creation of mankind, that there is no absolute meaning to anything, and when it comes down to it, the only meaning associated with something one says is the one that you associate with it. Sarcasm and satire come to mind. What it comes down to is, your words only carry the meaning that you apply to them, and if someone else chooses to interpret it incorrectly, the problem lies with them and not with you. After all, s/he is the one getting all worked up largely over nothing. The feminists who would go up in arms over the usage of the word "man" instead of "person" are the type who are just looking for something to raise hell about.

I find the whole concept we have of speaking in a "politically correct" manner to be foolish and offensive. So in the interests of not offending me, please be "politically correct" by not forcing your "political correctness" upon me.

Re:200-man headcount?

[thousandinone]

400 arms, 399 legs, 199 penises and 2 boobies.

Re:200-man headcount?

[koekepeer]

my point exactly

Re:200-man headcount?

[essence]

I'm not forcing anything upon you. I'm trying to have a discussion. You choose to read my words.

I also think your argument is pretty lame. People say things with intent all the time. and it can be correctly interpreted by another person.

The point I was getting at is that our society has sexism (and allot of other negetive things like racism) entrenched in it, and people don't even realize they are being sexist. It's usually the people who aren't oppressed by sexism who are most vocal against people like me who make such observations. I'm guessing, but I bet most, if not all, of the attacks on me posted in this thread were made by men.

Re:200-man headcount?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Somewhere along the line, English lost this feature, and nouns no longer have gender.

You'll have language geeks tell you that English has neuter forms, they're just the same as the masculine forms. In "if someone wants a fight, he'll get it", "he'll" is not masculine, but in "if Bob wants a fight, he'll get it" it is. It just so happens masculine and neuter forms collapsed together at some point. You need context and a brain to figure out the gender.

This either makes English highly efficient or highly offensive, depending on your level of education and political correctness.

Re:200-man headcount?

[themusicgod1]

"it used to be commonplace, well into the 20th century, to refer to someone who drove a hard bargain as a Jew. Now tell me is it mere 'political correctness' which prevents us from using the word Jew in this way, or is it that we have become a more enlightened species?"

That phrase is still commonplace here, especially in the jewish community.
It depresses me.

Re:200-man headcount?

[JPortal]

Pretty hard. "200-man" comes more naturally than "200-person".

Plus politically correct people suck.

Re:200-man headcount?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, now that you mention it, there's a few other words that offend me.

Like "Hebrew". It's time it became "Webrew".

And "Hurricanes". Okay, they name them after men now too, but can't we call them "Themicanes".

And "Manufacture". Come on, a lot, if not most, of those sweatshop workers are women. It's time for "Personufacture".

"Himalayas". Completely unacceptable. Should be replaced with "Theyarelayers".

Re:200-man headcount?

[essence]

Imagine if you went to the googeplex and all the employees were gathered for a meeting, some of them being women. Now imagine if the boss said 'these are the 200 men I employ'. That would really suck. Why should writing it on a webpage be any different.?

Re:200-man headcount?

[hao2lian]

Or you could be normal and say "200 people".

(Or you could be semi-normal, hate the word "people", and write "200 persons", but that ruins my condescending comment.)

Disappointing...

[Anonymous Coward]

...No matrix-entrance chair, no bridge, no engineering... What kind of a starship is this googleplex?

Since when...

[mulhall]

...is a picture of an office block news?

Re:Since when...

[ksheff]

some people are obsessed with what Google might be doing. I guess they have nothing better to do.

Re:Since when...

[agapits]

maybe it's because of the lighting. no, maybe because of the beautiful windows.

Re:Since when...

[Oscaro]

Of course Google and Slashdot are big friends.

For that reason EVERY slashdot page includes the much-discussed google-analytics scripts (see here) are included on every page on this site.

Just check a page source code...

Re:Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am waiting for the time when slashdot can go ~48 hours
without kissing the "google". Next thing there will be a
news entry for the way in which the restrooms in the Moutain
View offices are cleaned!

Or maybe a mind expanding entry on what Larry had for lunch.

GOOGLE + SLASHDOT = "All the non-news that fits"

Re:Since when...

[hobbit]

The news is that Google is hiring.

Not one comment (in 116 at time of writing) has actually discussed that (except to quibble about whether or not they're hiring women).

Slashdot's readership brings it on itself.

Hey google where's data center photo?

[vivekg]

Drawing by kids are ok, office is just like any other modern office but what I wanna see some pics of data center .. This is what I know so far, photo:the early days of Google's data center http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1709

Re:Hey google where's data center photo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember seeing a great webcast/video once about google's data center - cant seem to find it right now but I know it's out there ...

Re:Hey google where's data center photo?

[MORB]

Here's a photo from even earlier days of Google's data center: http://orangehues.com/blog/2004/12/google-and-grea t-mousetrap-fallacy.html

PICS - MIRROR

[Eightyford]

If you don't want to click through 15 pages of ads you can view the pics here: just pics though, no text

Re:PICS - MIRROR

[Jugalator]

http://www.eightyford.com/google/02-googleplex.jpg

What the... Oh right, this is England. :-s
Anyway, where's the male kids?

http://www.eightyford.com/google/06-googleplex.jpg

Cute, the trademark sign in a heart!
I'm sure they'll grow up to become good business(wo)men. :-)

Re:PICS - MIRROR

[Eightyford]

06-googleplex.jpg
Cute, the trademark sign in a heart!
I'm sure they'll grow up to become good business(wo)men. :-)

I think the "g" looks like Raphael the ninja turtle.

Re:PICS - MIRROR

[Eightyford]

And the "g" on this one too: 12-googleplex.gif

Weird.

Re:PICS - MIRROR

[duffbeer703]

The in thing these days is to marginalize male children. Since males dominate everything, recognizing females in class before males, giving them special incentives, etc is considered a "progressive" thing to do.

Re:PICS - MIRROR

[greenrd]

No, you dumbass, we have these things called "girl's schools". This photograph is obviously a picture of a class from a girl's school.

Datacenter pictures

[this great guy]

We have often read about Google's datacenters on /. but AFAIK we have never seen any picture of their datacenters. So if somebody has something to say/show about this (even insiders :P), please reply to this post.

Re:Datacenter pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

The video from this link has amazing info and pictures of the datacenters.
http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.asp?rid= 2459

Re:Datacenter pictures

[coolcold]

The picture of their data is below:

a Google bangalore saga

[Gopal.V]

Some guys from Yahoo Bangalore recently stalked google, apparently they came back quite unimpressed.

At least one sign...

[Justen]

It must be a sign that Slashdot folk are aging (and maturing, and having kids, etc.) when photos of elementary school children on a field trip is now a top story.

justen

Great doodles

[Lewisham]

I love these doodles! Google should have a user-submitted doodle every day; spice it up a bit.

Maybe there's a Greasemonkey script here...

Non-karma whoring link

[Anonymous Coward]

looks to be slashdotted, heres the non-karma-whoring cache

http://zdnet.com.au.nyud.net:8090/insight/software /print.htm?TYPE=story&AT=39223136-39023769t-100001 02c

Re:Non-karma whoring link

[killa62]

wow, i like how this link doesn't work and how 2 mods wasted 2 mod points modding a non-working link up...
this link works tho
http://zdnet.com.au/insight/software/print.htm?TYP E=story&AT=39223136-39023769t-10000102c
and yes, karma whore me plz
kthxbye

Googleplex

[jurt1235]

Isn't that the name of the new mediaplex, but than sponsored by Google? What movies do they run this weekend?

Re:Stanislav Lem

[jacobu9]

Are you sure you posted in the right place? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/21/045241 &from=rss I think that is what you wanted....

And from New York...

[pomo monster]

Curbed.com has a photo tour of Google's new office in Chelsea (15th at 8th), for which they just signed the lease a few days ago. At 311,000 square feet, it's over three times the size of their previous midtown space.

The floor's not much to look at now, but I'm looking forward to seeing it fully decked out when they throw a party someday (keeping my fingers crossed!) I'll invite y'all.

All the children drew "tm"

[anzev]

It's interesting to me how all the children drew the TM mark in the upper right corner of the image. I wonder... :-) Starting young I see... Maybe it's so we can say "In soviet Russia, the TM draws you in the upper right corner" :-), or "imagine a beowulf cluster of thesee"

Re:All the children drew "tm"

[badevlad]

In Soviet Russia the TM sign was not used. We began to use it when USSR was broken. May be because of this the Soviet Union was broken?..

Re:All the children drew "tm"

[zqad]

If you look with your eyes, you may see that in 2 of 5 pictures, the TM is clearly done after the kids are done with the drawings.

Plus they probably had the original Google-logo with the TM to base their doodles on.

Re:All the children drew "tm"

[KylePflug]

If you look with your eyes, you may see that in 2 of 5 pictures, the TM is clearly done after the kids are done with the drawings.

I'm glad you pointed that out. I'd been looking with my feet, and hadn't seen that.

Re:All the children drew "tm"

[artifex2004]

If you look with your eyes, you may see that in 2 of 5 pictures, the TM is clearly done after the kids are done with the drawings.

Plus they probably had the original Google-logo with the TM to base their doodles on.

Sure looks to me like these were just xerographed logos, that they colored with crayons and markers. Meaning the TM wasn't added after, it was there all along, just ignored by some children. So perhaps counter-jokes about kids starting young ignoring trademarks and copyrights are more appropriate. 2 in 5? 40%?

God help us all...

[Eternal Vigilance]

God help us all if Brad & Angelina meet Jen & Vince during a tour of some new Google office space.

"Don't cross the streams."
"Why?"
"It would be bad."

Re:God help us all...

[aug24]

"Don't cross the streams"

The last time I heard this line was in the loos at The Hobbit pub in Southampton. Keith nearly pissed on me doing the actions.

Funny though.

J.

Re:God help us all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cottaging?

Aghh

[t_allardyce]

Why do all modern buildings have to look so cheap? That's nearly as bad as a 60's concrete monstrosity.

Re:Aghh

[MSBob]

Exactly. Especially in a city like London. Compare the 100 years old buildings and the one from the seventies.

Two thousand years from now, archeologists will wonder what happened to the world in the twentieth century. With all the cheap looking crap produced in that century they will no doubt assume it was a time of great poverty in the history of Western Europe.

Considering that all those beautiful buildings of the past were built by a society that was much less affluent it is really shameful that we forgone all traces of aesthetics in the name of "high efficiency" which actually means "high entropy".

Google's office in Ukraine

[badevlad]

I will wait for Google office in Ukraine. Why they forgot about our country? :)

Re:Google's office in Ukraine

[themoodykid]

And Poland! They forgot Poland!

Re:Google's office in Ukraine

[zlogic]

You are not alone, they've forgotten Russia too :-(

Maddox anyone?

[scrwvwls]

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ir ule

Interresting

[davlucas]

I don't know how was made the test, but it seems to me very symbolic that the 10-11 y.o. children recognize the google graphic policy.
Well, most of them should have internet at home, BUT I'm not sure they can draw logo of other big firm as easilly as they did with the google one.
Concerning the google desks, I suppose these desks are for the commercials entity, as the technic ones don't really need desk all over the world. At least, I don't see the interest to rent a building if the same can be done from home.
In a nutshell, congratulations for GOOGLE which is the only one 1999 startup to have succeed.

Google moonplex

[poeidon1]

Now the next remains is pics of google moonplex and moodles :D.

Huh

[NitsujTPU]

the office opening for schoolchildren

Why did the office open for schoolchildren?

Re:Fucking crashdot slowd

[Rib Feast]

Actually it's a 24" Dell monitor, they don't make a 23"

(sorry had to be a nerd)

Pictures

[smallguy78]

Sooo lots of pictures of google doodle, a few lounges and a plaque showing that they share their offices with Rentokill.

I suppose if you appreciate artwork of 10 year olds it's an interesting scoop.

Re:Pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

I like seeing what 10 year olds come up with. If no one cared about what I did when I was 10, I probably wouldn't be doing art and graphic art for a living right now.

I like Google as much as the next geek but...

[pandrijeczko]

...yet again, just another corporate exercise in the "brand brainwashing" of our kids ala Macdonalds, Disney, etc.

google-analytics on Slashdot

[Oscaro]

I know I'm going almost off-topic, but I think all slashdot readers should know that the much-discussed google-analytics scripts (see here) are included on every page on this site.

Check the page source and see for yourself.

No, another sign

[pedantic bore]

No... It must be a sign that slashdot readers are mesmerized by Google when a doodle contest held on Google premises is a front-page story. Hey, we might get to see what their cubicles look like!

Slashdots apparent obsession with Google makes People Magazines "bennifer" story look like an idle fancy. Let's move on.

Why London

[artg]

London ?

With all their money and the choices available in the UK, couldn't they find somewhere pleasant instead ?
Try Bristol, Bath, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and make an office people will actually want to work in ..

Re:Why London

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that's where all the IT expertise is?

Re:Why London

[Psiren]

Yeah, that's just what Cambridge needs, another bunch of socially incapable "intelligent" people. Sometimes it amazes me that these people manage to get past their teenage years without killing themselves in some pointlessly stupid way. They may be shit hot in their chosen field, but they have the common sense of cheese sandwiches.

Re:Why London

[Netscryer]

7 million people disagree with you (including me). London's great :-)

Re:Why London

[mjmartin_uk]

Yup, I agree, London is great!

Re:Why London

[Bertie]

Is that why those seven million people are so irritable and miserable-looking all the time? It's one of the most hostile environments I've ever encountered, full of self-important pricks who think they're Really Busy and In A Hurry and woe betide you if you get in their way. The mayor's transport policy seems to be to make it so annoying to drive your car that you'll give it up and use the inadequate, unreliable, overpriced public transport system lest you go on a killing spree. There can't be anywhere in the world that gives so little for so much money. Those people are mostly there either because the jobs are, or because they've been conned into thinking it's where it's at. Like the man says, if more companies set up somewhere pleasant, we could start getting away from this silly London-centric view of things and maybe London would be less of a dump.

Re:Why London

[the Jolyon]

London's great, the public transport's fine, I'm smiling on the inside, don't get in my way and I won't be hostile.

Re:Why London

[whereiswaldo]

I hope Google opens a Canadian office at some point. Not everyone here wants to move to the US to work for them.

Re:Why London

[hobbit]

You've never lived in Edinburgh.

Re:Why London

[16K Ram Pack]

To do that, you'd have to start by taking away the state money that goes to London. Move out the opera house, the ballet, the football stadia, some more branches of government and most of the BBC. And cancel the Olympics.

All that state money comes from the rest of the country and subsidises the London economy (both directly and indirectly), which drives more people towards it and raises the house prices that cause so many problems. It causes a mass of jobs to be created there and impairs opportunities across the country.

Google NYC

[RTSKABJ]

Pictures of the new NYC Googleplex have been posted online as well, here.

Elitist

[Cwaig]

Looks elitist to me - those photo's don't show regular London primary school kids. They look distinctly like the privately educated kid's of rich families, from an all girls public school nearby in Chelsea. Probably the school attended by the Google UK management's kids...

Note: for those of you lucky enough not to be familiar with London, that's some of the most expensive real estate in the world. And in the UK, public school == fee paying school. Ie. Only the rich and privileged get to go there.

Re:Elitist

[vrai]

The competition was open to 25 schools in the area around the new offices. Now, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't 25 independent schools around Victoria; so I think it's safe to assume that at least some of the children came from the state sector.

Not that would have been anything wrong with excluding the state sector. If I'd just opened some nice new offices the last thing I'd want is a bunch of trainee mobile phone thieves and dodgy cigarette salesmen running around them.

Isn't that...

[bobbo69]

...the old Enron building?

When techs add to London congestion?

[Morgaine]

I've never understood why tech companies locate to areas of extreme congestion and high prices like central London, when their personnel would gain so many benefits from just a small shift outwards from the centre by 10-15 miles or so.

It's an online business, for crying out loud. Why submit your people to the torture of daily commuting into a sardine can, and the costs that go with it?

This doesn't apply just to Google of course, but Google is an excellent example of the problem.

And no, it's not because that's where the fat pipes are, not anymore.

Re:When techs add to London congestion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never noticed that large cities like London tend to have transport links that radiate out form their centres to the rest of the country? They also tend to have the best catchment for high quality staff, the best social/entertainment/shopping infrastructure, the best policing, the best office buildings and the best telecoms and power infrastructure.

Re:When techs add to London congestion?

[tommertron]

Central Toronto isn't exactly central London, and my company isn't a tech one, but I'm so glad I work downtown. It means more choice for lunches and drinks after work. And because living downtown means I'm not forced to drive to work (which I would if I lived in the suburbs) it means I can actually go out for drinks afterwards without worrying what to do about my stupid car.

Re:When techs add to London congestion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your experience doesn't actually pertain to the point being made though, since you actually live in town rather than commute like most employees working in Central London.

It's pretty much guaranteed that no Google employee lives near Victoria Station, except by some highly unusual coincidence.

While there are some nice places to eat around there, the blackness that you wash out of your hair each day from taxi fumes etc makes the whole experience unappetizing. And the stress of commuting cannot be washed out at all.

Re:When techs add to London congestion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never noticed that large cities like London tend to have transport links that radiate out form their centres to the rest of the country?

You use the word "best" a lot, but if you assess those links for congestion, you'll find that they are the worst in the country.

"Best catchment for high quality staff" doesn't actually relate in any way to siting your company right bang in the centre of London. The capital is extremely well connected all around its periphery, and the centre is by FAR the worst point of this transport network because of congestion.

People travel to where the work is, except for the most fortunate (ie. the top experts) who have a wider choice. A company as respected as Google can get high quality staff wherever they site themselves, short of the Outer Hebrides. Extreme central London is a *disincentive" to many top-quality people who have the option of working in more salubrious and less environmentally stressful surroundings.

Re:When techs add to London congestion?

[Ponyegg]

Absolutely, central London is an unmitigated sh1tehole, I'm so glad I don't have to work there anymore. However I now work in the Docklands and whilst when I first moved here (7 years ago) it was far quieter in the past 4 years all the banks have moved in and the pin stripe brigade has muscled into to all the bars and what few pubs we have. Most of the coporate suits, merchant bankers and coked up city wide boys make going out for a quiet relaxing beer after work a nightmare.

I bet it fits inside a 40-foot box :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, make that a 1212cm box.

Sausage machine

[clsc]

Am I the only one that get reminded of the Sausage Machine in the The Wall movie when looking at picture 2?

LADIES!!!

[Ced_Ex]

only men work there? no? how hard is it to say 200 person? come on.

It's pretty hard. Ask my high school PE teacher. He would walk into this all male gym class and promptly yell out, "Alright LADIES, get your asses up and on to the track, DOUBLE TIME!!"

"Men", "ladies", those two, amongst many others are interchangeable in the English language so it seems.

Re:OUTGOING

[millennial]

4 8 15 16 23 42

Yeah sure.

[jotaeleemeese]

Many bits of London are very pleasent. If you have not made an effort to enjoy London is your own failure, old Londinium is not to blame.

If you want to live in a place with a few sleepy cows and funny sheep you are welcome, those places do not compare with the cultural and social posibilities of London.

The killer is that Paris is just 2.5 hours away.

No brainer frankly.