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Dogfoods past

googlegroups.com == dogfood history

I counted 44 dogfood google groups (!) including these classics:

butterandcream-prod (wha?)
friendsofallen
openbonfire
snickersmocha

Enjoy it while you can, GDPR will probably force the cleanup of all these...

 

JOMO

This is a must-read deck. Very happy to see these concepts being taken seriously.

I also find Pomodoro very useful to help focus.

One thing they missed was ADHD and meds used to treat it.

go/jomo-research

 

EBT

Googlers, don't be smug, doesn't look like Google Express supports Food Stamps either..

[And at least Amazon offers discounted Prime membership to people with EBT cards.]

That said if you don't have the learned experience of being poor you might want to check out today's talk "Growing Up Poor In America" - Lisa 'Tiny' Garcia at 11am PT

Livestream at http://go/tiny-kim

[original image sourced from https://imgur.com/MUuZ9sr]

 

6p

So one more Nexus 6p / Android post.

A teammate offered me a 6p test device as a loaner. Has the asset tag and everything. *Yay!*

Turns out it was factory reset with a test account on it. *Uhoh!*

But no worries there's an internal unlock tool. (http://go/androidunlock) *Yay*

Ugh it's broken for some odd reason:

https://buganizer.corp.google.com/issues/68021469

Techstop basically gives up at this point and say try out http://go/skylab -- basically saying that the device is a paperweight.

If we can't manage a shared pool of devices I fear what hell our enterprise customers go through. Also imagine if a fired employee Factory Resets their phone before they leave. Instant brick...

Anyway, enough ranting for today. I need to save my energy to deal with my wife's repeated question: "let's just go buy iPhones -- Are you some kind of masochist or what?"...

 

Google Store

Google Store, please take my money :(

- FWIW this is the chrome bug where time goes backwards
- And to add insult to injury I now have 4 pending charges for the failed orders.... At least having my card declined let me know that this was the case
- Filed http://b/72589737

 

6p

Wow, so this is what the Google Store offers for a clean/working Nexus 6p trade-in...

 

SIDLP

*And you may ask yourself, well*
*How did I get here?*

_The Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project (SIDLP) - is to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and "universal" library, proving uniform access to the large number of emerging networked information sources and collections. These include both on-line versions of pre-existing works and new works and media of all kinds that will be available on the globally interlinked computer networks of the future. The Integrated Digital Library is broadly defined to include everything from personal information collections, to the collections that one finds today in conventional libraries, to the large data collections shared by scientists. The technology developed in this project will provide the "glue" that will make this worldwide collection usable as a unified entity, in a scalable and economically viable fashion._

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9411306

 

Phones?

So what phone should I buy now that Nexus Support has basically told me to pound sand and I'm off the Nexus/Pixel train? Had every phone since the G1.

I think of the amount of money spent on wall-to-wall Pixel TV ads and wonder how a small amount of that would have helped placate our most loyal customers...

 

6p Bootloop

Nexus 6p Bootloop :(

And we're not making it right for users and sending people to Huawei, who are now closed. And all my spare phones are micro-sim.

The playbook for the people on the phone is a depressing read:

https://support.google.com/playops/hardware/answer/7519413

We have a huge hoard of cash, surely we could do right by our users?

Oh and this is my 4th 6p...

 

Pillow

Received a travel pillow as a gift. "for when you're tired on the shuttle"

 

Story of your life

Well worth watching. The blog->book is an interesting thing I didn't know about and I found the email -> blog solution for communicating with her future grown-up children clever.

Slides are here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14fAzIdLrfKt6K313UraEJATFsjFsqTEumNun4ufhtiU/edit?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.tv/2017/12/10/brianna-privett-the-story-of-your-life-using-wordpress-as-your-memor...

 

Seeing Whole Systems

Nicky did a great talk at Long Now called Seeing Whole Systems. Would anyone be interested in screening it here?

http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/aug/07/seeing-whole-systems/

But for now revel in visualizing the prisoner's dilemma. Also check out loopy http://ncase.me/loopy/

http://ncase.me/trust/

 

Wildfires...

Reminder that SoCal wildfire donations are being matched.

https://g-give.googleplex.com/campaign/2017-Southern-California-Fires

There's a tile memorial at Rockridge Bart for the Oakland Firestorm. Gets me every time.

 

 

gThanksPlus?

Looks like G+ sharing was added to gThanks in

https://b.corp.google.com/issues/9972517

But the shares it creates now are pretty bare-bones and you have to really hunt down that G+ share button...

Oh and big congrats to all the people getting Kudos and PBs lately. Y'all are awesome!

 

Lightspeed Ready!

Inside an AT&T pedestal cabinet in Oakland...

 

 

 

 

Twenty Eight Bucks

It took a bit of searching to figure out why I received a check for 8. But if you get one here's why:

This is a wage and hour PAGA action arising from Defendant's failure to pay wages in a timely manner at the end of each pay period. Labor Code § 204( d) requires employees to be paid out by the seventh (ih) day following the closing of the pay period if employees are paid on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Defendant, who paid its employees on a bi-weekly basis, had a consistent policy of paying the wages of its employees on the eighth (8t11) day or later following the close of the respective pay period, and thus, beyond the time periods as allowed pursum1t to Labor Code § 204. This PAGA action is being sought on behalf of Defendant's other aggrieved employees.

In addition to the PAGA action, Plaintiff also asserts individual claims for wrongful termination in violation of public policy. Specifically, Plaintiff engaged in protected activity by removing alcohol from the workplace (due to fear for her personal safety and the safety of co-workers), and to prevent sexual harassment. However, by exercising such rights, Plaintiff was terminated from her employment.

Defendant's Position

Plaintiff was employed by Defendant from approximately January 27, 2015 to April 12, 2016 as a Program Manager. In late March 2016, a Google employee reported that several personal items had gone missing. Google's asset investigations team confirmed through video evidence that Plaintiff had taken the reported items. During its investigation, Plaintiff provided inconsistent accounts of her actions, which Google deemed to lack credibility. As a result, Google terminated Plaintiffs employment for violation of company policy and the dishonest conduct she exhibited.

Google denies that its payroll schedule was inconsistent with section 204 of the Labor Code. Moreover, Plaintiff cannot show that she or any of the members of the group she seeks to represent were aggrieved. An award of civil penalties under PAGA would result in an award that is unjust, arbitrary, and oppressive

https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_State_Santa_Clara_County_Superior_Court/16CV301321/Baid...

 

California Fires

Two new local charities available for gift match for California Wildfires so it's not just the Red Cross now:

http://go/california-fires

Still *0k* to match.

Also I learned that Google Docs has a 'mobilebasic' suffix which generates a simple lightweight doc. Many of the emergency resource docs are using this:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ZhXDNaL260p5OempaFbCrsYBe_5pvNvDqV7xcwn95s/mobilebasic

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ZhXDNaL260p5OempaFbCrsYBe_5pvNvDqV7xcwn95s/mobilebasic

 

The Ethical Regulator

[Part of a new Collection for Cybernetics as I explore this fascinating discipline..]

Hey there, it's the trolly problem again...

_Ethics modules can be treated like *ethical device drivers*, so that to be fully operational, a hypothetical gun-carrying, tax-advising robot that can drive on roads requires valid ethics modules for gun-law, tax-code, and traffic-rules. Without all necessary modules for the appropriate legal jurisdiction, the robot’s gun, tax advising, or driving capabilities are automatically disabled._

http://ashby.de/

 

Google Now Everywhere - 2012

Not strictly "social" per-se, but there were a number of cross overs from iGoogle. Also relevant as Now is undergoing some historical changes of it's own..

- Pixie Labs ended up moving their games to Google+ Games (remember Farmville?)
- The gadget infrastructure from iGoogle (GGS) was used heavily for the +1 button, OpenSocial, PeopleSense and others. +103390686048441232976 might even still carry a pager for this old infrastructure...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XS9u1D-pFSxTcrbTZRa43CV7VKHztHzWLDCzrj0csJ4/edit?_escaped_fragme...

 

Relativity

Google is both a particle (consumer) and a wave (enterprise). We need some kind of general product relativity instead of a newtonian model...

... or quantum mechanics vs classical physics, you get the idea...

 

 

 

7 Years at Google today

*
Hired to work on web protocols. Immediately detoured to the needful work of building a social network. Learned a lot along the way.

I don't have a lot of sage wisdom to offer other than be humble, humane, and empathic. That goes a long way.

That and banjo. Always have banjo.

Looking forward to 7 more years of causing trouble with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLINm2bchY

 

Mario Kart - Bay Area

Maps and GBUS work pretty well split-screen, especially useful to know if you're going to get to the stop on time.

 

Google Assistant (circa 1973)

Google Assistant as envisioned from 1973's "Designing Freedom"

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=8pOruwSkOisC

Much of what we implement today was predicted then. We also forget that people once derided and feared "The Computer".

This work is quite accessible and reading it gave me a better understanding of complex dynamic systems, relaxation time, variety, Ashby's Law and the nature of bureaucracy. Also originally broadcast on the CBC as a lecture series:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1973-cbc-massey-lectures-designing-freedom-1.2946819

 

Got Hair?

I hope we've made a breakthrough in user follicle detection for these maps notifications...

 

Only Variety can absorb Variety

It's such a simple concept that makes sense.

_...for every factor outside of your own control that can have a positive or negative influence on your ability to meet your goals, you need to put a compensatory control in place to allow you to respond._

Gaia service bits, D3 policies, gSuite vs Identity only -- the number of states for an account is dizzying. But by Ashby's law if we don't have mechanisms to absorb that variety bad things will befall the control software and we'll be unable to achieve homeostatis or even viability.

http://talesoftheenterprise.com/2013/06/mr-ashbys-bright-idea/

 

ess see ohhh

World's worst SEO choice for a band name. Second only to the musician named dash-M-dash -M- which g+ cannot even render.

I guess I'm supposed to use Archie to find this...

http://ftp-band.com/

 

User Trust Research

Found some research around measuring User-Trust.

• First, developers can learn that trust concepts can be operationalized into specific attributes or questions that can be examined in research and designs.
• Second, one of the key findings is that trust seems to be related to beliefs about another’s ability, integrity, and benevolence.
• Third, trust and risk are related concepts, and factors that reduce risk perceptions, such as reducing uncertainty, can be beneficial for increasing trust or decreasing the need for trust.
• Fourth, ease-of-use characteristics, such as the ease of finding information and completing transactions, can affect trust.
• Fifth, external factors or context that may seem to be unrelated to the situation can affect trust, such as the characteristics of the truster and the type of risk involved in the transaction.
• Finally, trust probably develops in stages. In the first stage, superficial interface properties, such as colors and designs, can have a large effect on initial trust decisions. Later, users may make trust decisions based on more reasoned analysis of information. Eventually, long-term trust decisions are based on direct experience and personal service.

https://www.researchgate.net/

 

Google at the Edge of Chaos

Looks like we once had an Ethnographer on staff. This is the only notable mention of Complex Adaptive Systems I found. But it is interesting reading back from 2011....

https://sites.google.com/a/google.com/google-culture/home/google-at-the-edge-of-chaos

https://www.google.com/a/google.com/ServiceLogin2?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fa%2Fgoog...

 

VSM

Doing Perf and listening to some lectures on VSM and it finally all starts to make sense.

I can see organizational patterns now in ways I could not before. Still grappling with the math though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model#__sid=rd0

 

Google Forever

Greetings Area 120. Google Forever has also made it to the final pitch round.

We have plenty of opportunities for people to pitch in on sustainable bizdev models, decentralized engineering and more. But one role we'd love to fill is a UX/Design/Frontend leader. Here's our job listing. Please reach out if you're interested!

https://grow.googleplex.com/opportunity/job/2000000020689

Are you interested in building user experiences and critical user journeys that work for generations? Do you want to help people preserve their most important digital memories?

Consider joining the Google Forever Project. We're a proposed Area 120 project that's already made it to the final pitch round and we need you!

Our project is creating the software that will power a business and ecosystem that will last for decades and centuries. We're starting with a way to preserve the world's most valued Photos in an easy, simple sustainable way.

As a lead/founding frontend member of the team you will have considerably freedom to set the direction and tech stack while working with our passionate engineering and business teams. You will also be able to explore experimental user interfaces and user experiences that might be used in the far future.

If accepted to Area 120 you will have the chance to work on this full time. We also will accept any and all people who want to help us achieve our vision!

See http://go/google-forever or contact Paul Lindner to discuss how you can contribute.

 

 

Mastodon Enterprise Edition

Federated social networking is relatable to dasher...

Seems like it might be interesting to provision following for new users.

_5. To improve the experience of brand new users, we’ve added something in the old tradition of MySpace Tom — except instead of following some central Tom, new accounts will start off following their local admins (this can be adjusted by the administrator). That way, on your first login you are greeted with a populated home timeline instead of an empty one._

https://hackernoon.com/mastodon-and-the-w3c-f75f376f422?gi=5de3cfdbd29f

 

Proud Code

GoogleCloud asks: *What was the first program you wrote that you were proud of?*

_Please include what language it was written in and a brief description. Feel free to go out of bounds if you have a creative answer!_

My response:

At age 17 I was published in Compute!'s Gazette. The small utility, named ML Runner, is tool written in Commodore 64 Basic and 6502 Assembly. It converted machine language binaries into easy to use BASIC programs. The result was a better, easier way for users to execute code.

You can see the actual short code on page 98 in the June 1987 Issue here:
https://archive.org/details/1987-06-compute-magazine

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTVpBafCZghSvaYi6sf8JRbncaOqh153gwtxJE00D0pCcB7g/viewform?...

 

Crashplan to home customers: bye bye

60 days isn't a long time for people with lots of data. I have a feeling it's going to take legislation to get companies to do the right thing here (and that includes us too, Google Drive notice is 60 days as well...)

Also facepalm on the earnest CEO video at:
https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/consumer/nextsteps/

https://twitter.com/crashplan/status/899995190852820994

 

iTunes

Amazing to think how far we've come from the 2003 iTunes launch.

... and they started out with only 200k tracks.

 

Justice and Closure

The memo damage has been done and now we're left with the mess. Here are some ideas on how to make amends:

- Everyone ever interviewed by Damore is offered an onsite interview.
- Everyone peer-reviewed for promo is given an automatic appeal.
- Everyone peer-reviewed gets their previous calibrations revisited, and comp retroactively adjusted.

 

Friday Night Dance Party

_Just move on up_
_Toward your destination_
_Though you may find, from time to time, complication_

Complicated week eh? Just remember we have each other and when we work together we can make the world a better place!

And thanks to the brave souls that communicate wisdom. (especially since I've been a bit absent from these discussions)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z66wVo7uNw

 

Kill all Normies

So decided to finish "Kill all Normies" to get my head around "what hath the internet wrought" and how technology has affected society.

The book is a little shallow, especially if you were paying attention during gamergate. Read on if you want a sickening tour of the worst that's out there.

Given Techs great power I believe it behooves us to expand our concern to the outsized level of influence we have. We all built this platform. Behold. (Including what may be the weirdest set of recommended books from Play.)

 

Pick One!

If you could save *one* digital object forever, what would it be? Leave it in the comments.

Oh and have we planned a DiRT test for nuclear war? I couldn't find our classified secret list of bunkers on moma.

And a pity that we never built that moon-based datacenter....

 

Missile Mail

tired: drone delivery
wired: missile delivery

If you look back you'll see the parallels between Google and the Postal Service....

http://99percentinvisible.org/article/firing-off-letters-u-s-postal-services-cold-war-missile-mail-p...

 

Jungle Gym

Question for Jungle Gym -- how does it stack up against the Q&A feature in Groups? It seems that there's some overlap here that needs to be shaken loose. Maybe something for Daniel when he returns from his travels..

https://support.google.com/a/answer/126169?hl=en#__sid=md0

 

Now if only I could go back in time and reshoot my high school photos...

_“We’ve had high school students take their senior pictures with it and we even had someone take wedding photographs in front of it,” Horn said. “A lot of people contact me through its Facebook page (The Tardis) for scheduled photo shoots. I built it to make people happy, so we don’t charge for photographs with it.”_

http://www.bloomingprairieonline.com/news/sci-fi-comes-kenyon

 

Battle for the Net

I read that we were going to participate in Net Neutrality protests today. I loaded up google.com to see if we were doing a home page promo. I didn't see the logo load and thought that this was a very sublime way of calling attention to content blocking. So I waited for a spinner and call to action...

haha; no. Instead it was this super heavy doodle that took forever to load over GBUS wifi.

Ah well. Looks like we're sending an "email" to our "listserve" (itsthe90s.gif) of committed diehards, and posting a video playlist hidden somewhere on youtube (couldn't find it, can you?)

https://sites.google.com/a/google.com/moma-news/july-2017/ourparticipationinthenetneutralitydayofact...

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

 

LinkedIn...

Some 10 dimensional trolling by LinkedIn...