Google's Floating Datahaven

PDG writes "Google has pending plans to take its data centers off-shore, literally. By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters, they are able to save money on taxes and electricity (using wave based power) as well as reside their operations outside the jurisdiction of governments. There is mention of hurricane and other caveats, but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable. Seems like a chapter out of a Neal Stephenson novel." You might recall earlier discussions on the same subject.

Comments

Re:Google & guns

[david.given]

Shooting people who obviously intend harm to you or your property is not a morally ambiguous situation: you shoot to kill.

Nonsense.

'Hey, kid! Get off my lawn! I just planted that and you're damaging my grass!' *bang*

In the more general case, any outright statement like that is an invitation to sociopathy, because it's very easy to redefine the word 'harm' to mean whatever you like. ('Hey, kid! Stop downloading that MP3! You're harming my contractually obligated musicians!' *bang*) Not to mention that 'obviously intend harm' is a very fuzzy terminology; consider the case a number of years ago now when a drunk UK tourist in the US got lost, tried to knock on someone's door to find out where they were, and was shot dead.

Oh, yes, and your second sentence translates to 'I was only following orders!'.

Try:

'A judicious approach of force, up to and including deadly force, when faced with a threatening situation, is morally defensible.'

Unfortunately that's a rather less snappy phrase and as such is rather less likely to be popular among those predisposed to violence.