Mission Mission

[via Humphry Slowcombe's twitter]

Holy cow!

Watch:

[via 3D City]

Bernalwood today did a great post about drone politics, and there’s a pretty great discussion going on in the comments section too, but commenter “queenie” stole the show with this epic piece of poetry:

The leash-less dawgs are all a-bark,
HARK! — there’s a spy in the sky above the park!
Out from the cafes, out from the homes,
the Bernalites look up and see DRONES.
They’re buzzing up a storm of infernal noise,
military-esque these ain’t no toys.
Camo-clad controllers, moms and dads with strollers,
in the same damn Bernal bubble,
you know there’s gonna be trouble.
Some say it’s fine,
some say it’s good,
taco-copters to deliver my take-out food!
but you know you’re gonna pay
when your taco lands
in some un-picked poop
in the playground sands.
So welcome to the future
and expect to see more
How do you like dog crap
with your Al Pastor?

Welcome to the future, indeed! Good work, Bernalpals!

Read on for lots more discussion.

[Photo by Mat]

I mean it’s way more powerful than Google Image Search, which completely failed at the same query:

None of these results are what me and my German pen-pal were looking for.

Also, did you know the German word for slug is basically “naked snail”?

First things first, let’s be clear about one thing:  a hate crime is an act perpetrated against another due to their race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.  It often results in the death or persecution of entire groups of people, and it is deplorable.  It most definitely does NOT include a confrontation over a highly controversial and expensive piece of intrusive technology.  There’s no need to go all Tom Perkins over here.

Now, on to the story.  Over the weekend, tech writer Sarah Slocum vented on Facebook:

OMG so you’ll never believe this but… I got verbally and physically asaulted and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some wanker Google Glass haters, then some *bleeeeeeeeeep* tore them off my face and ran out with them then and when I ran out after him his *bleeeeeeep* friends stole my purse, cellphone walet and everything..

Of course, other patrons of Molotov’s someone working across the street had a different take upon reading the article:

That is not at all what happened. It was after last call, she was wasted and being a bitch, someone called her a glasshole and her boyfriend tried to fight the dude, and got his ass whooped. The glasses fell off her face and someone picked them up and gave them back to her. Nobody robbed her either, this [person] is making all this shit up. Go Molotovs!!!!!

At this point I thought the name sounded familiar, and I realized I went to school with her, so I reached out with the above version of events.  Sarah went on to continue defending herself on Facebook:

I wasn’t being any sort of a bitch until after I was flicked off, called a bitch, had dirty wet bar rags thrown at me and had people invading my personal space and trying to rip them off my face.

Your “friend” must have been one of the people who robbed me or who were friends with the robbers and tech glass haters at that bar and must have been the wasted one because they can’t even tell the difference between males and females or remember the story correctly. No glasses fell of my face. Those were my friend’s prescription glasses who defended me and got in a fight with the guy that ripped the glasses off my face and ran out of the bar with them. And if anyone got their ass beat it was the guy that that assaulted me and ran outside the bar with the Google Glasses. The only injuries that my friend has is a scrapped knee. And actually he was jumped by two other **** while he was fighting the douch bag.

I was minding my own biz with a computer phone. Everyone has a computer or phone these days. And what have they done to the city? Given people cool cellphones?? And awesome technology that we all use and take for granted everyday? I realize that I represented the tech millionaires and billionaires in their eyes, but that isn’t me and I didn’t even pay for my Google Glasses, one of my developer friends gave them to me because he wasn’t using them and doesn’t currently have time to develop an app for them right now.

Now, the whole story sounds pretty crazy.  There’s conflicting versions of events and a lot of alcohol involved.  Someone else even sent me this message on Facebook:

I wouldn’t normally comment on such things but i actually met this girl on the street after the incident happened. Couple of things: It was 2am on a friday night when i met her she was less than sober (she had had approx a small child full of vodka cran’s) secondly from what she told me it sounded like she left her bag and phone unattended in a busy bar on a friday night. Her friends were so riled up (and obnoxious) that they almost started fighting with me when i argued it maybe wasn’t the smartest idea to wear google glass and film in a punk rock bar and leaving a bag and phone unattended wasn’t the wisest of decisions. I left her feeling sorry only for myself that i had spent 5 minutes of my life in her groups bosom.

So I don’t know what happened.  What I do know, however, is that it is absolutely moronic to label this as a hate crime, as Josh Wolford thought fit to do.  Perspective, people.  Please.

(Now, if you want to go ahead and call it a HAIGHT CRIME, by all means be my guest)

Well, that’s one way get some of the corporate buses off the streets.  According to an article on VC Post, the embattled tech giant has reserved the former office of Howard Quinn, a newspaper and catalog printer that went out of business in 2012 primarily due to the rise of digital publishing (you can still see the failed last-ditch effort “Digital Printing” sign on the building in the image above the banner is actually from H&H Printing, who moved across the street and are still in business).

Since the NE Mission area is mainly zoned for manufacturing, the new location will most likely serve as a lab for start ups acquired by Google that specialize in wearable technology and robotics, like that frightening techno-hound that will soon be running down insurgents and protesters alike in the near future:

A neighborhood resident quoted in the story provided some background:

“When Google is buying companies, they don’t want to work in the big corporate building in San Francisco or Mountain View. So they are acquiring something cool in the Mission where engineers want to work.”

While some believe that said “coolness” may arguably be leaving the city along along with out-priced artists and musicians, our pal Andy raises another important question:

“Hopefully city officials learned their lesson with the Twitter payroll tax cut fiasco and will quit the special treatment of these companies.”

I suppose we’ll see…

[Link via Mission Local, Image via Google Maps of course]

Just to make you all remember who’s really in control!

More on Techcrunch.

Previously:

• Honestly, the only way for the protesters to get the Google bus out of the Mission is for them to stage a pedestrian getting run over by one
• The Google Bus: “If you want an iPhone, a Facebook profile, and Google Maps, this is part of the price you’ve gotta pay”

Yesterday’s corporate shuttle hearing at SF City Hall brought out supporters from all sides of the transportation controversy to have their opinions heard regarding the recent proposal to allow the shuttles to share public stops with Muni buses for a mere $1 (instead of hefty $300+ fine leveraged on normal citizens who get caught using the stops).  Community members came to describe how the presence of these shuttles has affected their daily lives, while tech workers attended armed with scripted talking points provided by Google itself.

I’m not going to cover the entire proceedings, as SFist’s Andrew Dalton has diligently provided a full account already, but the main arguments of each side were as follows:

• Tech:  If these shuttles didn’t exist, we would all just drive to Silicon Valley instead, and traffic would be terrible, pollution would run rampant, and the entire world would soon end.
• Community: Private corporate shuttles shouldn’t utilize public infrastructure in the first place, but the fact that they also cause Muni delays and contribute to excessive rent increases for housing is unacceptable unless the companies involved provide a meaningful contribution to the communities they are disrupting

In the end, the Board sided with Tech and will charge private shuttles a pitifully insignificant $1 per bus, per stop used.  Which is ridiculous.  The fact is that these shuttles are used as a recruiting tool, making it convenient to transport tech workers (who might otherwise choose to work in the city) down to the South Bay without them having to interact with undesirables.  God forbid they use the public transit already in place.  God forbid their companies invest in said public transit to help bolster its ability to ferry workers of all stripes around.

And no, these people wouldn’t simply drive to work if the buses didn’t exist.  Most would either move closer to their work or find jobs here in the city.  Basically, it’s how a company like Menlo-based Facebook can compete for young talent against SF-based Twitter.

Look, I get it.  Muni, BART, and CalTrain aren’t perfect.  But they’re not bad, and with a little help and some extra funds, they could be a lot better.  However, based on the Board’s decision, this help isn’t coming anytime soon.

[Photo by Steve Rhodes]

Previously:

• The Google Bus: “If you want an iPhone, a Facebook profile, and Google Maps, this is part of the price you’ve gotta pay”

I’m sure your ‘gram feed, like Stokemonster’s, was full of sky shots yesterday evening.

This is exactly why the #GoogleBus is a good thing. @MissionMission @SFist @SFExa #tech #smartcities #SanFrancisco http://t.co/FrN61vjtsc

— Adrian Covert (@AdrianCovert) November 18, 2013

Let’s see:

[GIF by The Atlantic]