Google sends reporter a GIF instead of a 'no comment' | Hacker News Reader

Google sends reporter a GIF instead of a 'no comment'

wired.com

209 pointswgx60 comments

My favorite Google "No comment" response is still their response to Randall Munroe about his analysis of how big their data centers are:

https://youtu.be/I64CQp6z0Pk?t=2m59s

Those that already read the "What If?" section might want to jump to 7:10, which is when he explains what happens after he publishes the article about punchcards[1]. I mean, it's a nice talk, and if you haven't read the article then totally watch it, but as I already read it...

[1] http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

why are google the largest user of tape drives?

They have a lot of data, which means they have a lot of data to back up. Tape drives are still the go-to method for backing up huge amounts of data.

for paranoia reasons i thought they were using it for permanent storage.

maybe they are using it for some sort of rolling backup.

Rolling backup is at least one use case. This is why they only guarantee data destruction after 180 days (at least per the last document I read about it) for Apps customers.

"How Google Backs Up the Internet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNliOm9NtCM

claims google play music doesn't use deduplication for legal reasons. holy shit.

Gifs and memes are how we will get to "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" and "Shokath, his eyes uncovered"

Shaka, when the walls fell...

For anyone who, like me, was unfamiliar with this reference: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darmok_%28episode%29

Excellent excellent post, that episode was brilliant

Thanks!

"His arms wide.."

I'm sort of confused by this gif. I wouldn't look at it and say "that girl turning her head in one direction repeatedly means no comment". If it were funny, and actually had some sort of "denied" slant to it, then fine, but this particular gif makes no sense to me as a response to a request for comment. I guess when you have as much money as Google does you can be as disrespectful to reporters as you like, but at least try to be entertaining.

I guess the gif could be read as "nuh uh! No telling!"

I read it as "I dunno", I can't see it meaning "no comment" at all. It's more a shrug if anything.

I think this meme usually comes with the phrase 'dafuq?'.

If you really want to decode the comment, it looks like it's from the Disney Show "Good Luck Charlie" [1] and the actress in the clip is Mia Talerico. You could watch every episode to try and find out what she was saying.

I know this because I have a nine year old daughter (but to be fair, it's not the worst show Disney make).

It looks more like a mix of disbelief, surprise, and astonishment to me.

"Google's spokesperson just shook their head"

Reminds me of the GIF Detectify got from Google after getting into their production servers because of a vulnerability in the "Google Toolbar" portal [1] :

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/blog.images/google/niceme...

[1] http://blog.detectify.com/post/82370846588/how-we-got-read-a...

So the security team thought it was worth such a crazy amount that they made a gif to describe it...and then they sent him $10K? That isn't very much for a major bug like that.

Well, whats good for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary should be ok for Google.

http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2015/3/at-the-flick-of-...

How can an officiel website say "even when a president tries to unlawfully refuse to enforce our laws" ? It doesn't seem very neutral, I wouldn't except such an article to challenge the decision taken by the president of a country.

The president of the US is not the president of congress. Checks and balances and all that.

The whole article is criticizing a decision he made, which caught me off guard as well.

It's the website of the House Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, and hence can and does challenge the President. In turn, the White House website, which is controlled by Democrats, can and does challenge Congress.

Both sites could, of course, adopt a stance of editorial neutrality. I would prefer they not, though -- both are fundamentally political organizations, so to do so would be eliding their true nature.

Not to mention that the whole purpose for the three branches of government is so that each branch will "check and balance" the other branches. The fundamental structure of the system is based on the premise that each branch should not be neutral with regards to the other branches.

Doesn't surprise me. I released a couple easter eggs when I was at Google (notably [festivus] and [let it snow]), and the official response PR prepared for one of them was a poem. It's part of Google's quirky culture.

This is internet and hacker culture; Google just happens to have a disproportionate amount of people who fit into those categories there.

That's cute, but this instance is unlicensed commercial use of Disney's copyright material.

Where I worked nothing went to the press before legal review. It seemed burdensome but I'm sure it saved the company's hide on numerous occasions.

How do you know it's unlicensed?

Disney is not going to sue Google over this...

Google also did this when they had the Google Toolbar remote exploit vulnerability reported and the guy asked about the reward, a good read on its own:

http://blog.detectify.com/post/82370846588/how-we-got-read-a...

Google. Such an adorably hip, cool underdog.

Am I alone in thinking this is utterly infantile behaviour?

It makes me rather sad that the art of correspondence (the beautiful letters of bygone times) is now gradually being replaced with Facebook Messenger and animated GIFs.

No, you're not. Plus I thought we left animated gifs back in 2013 where they belong (or was it 2012?).

On a more interesting note, someone should revisit Giambattista Vico's theory about language. The closest that I could find on the English internet after a 30-second search was this (http://www.philosophypathways.com/fellows/fahey.pdf - PDF link):

> Vico borrows the three ages of human history from the Egyptians. As shown above, the languages which corresponds to each are, first, the mute language of signs and physical objects; second, the language of symbols, comparisons, images and metaphors. The third is vernacular or epistolary language.

It seems like we're about to fall from the third stage ("epistolary language", which you mention) to the second stage, that of "symbols, images and metaphors". Now, what that means exactly I don't know.

This particular one is a funny-once, as Manny the narrator character said to Mike the newly-conscious computer in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

(Manny also said something like, the second time it's half-funny, with a geometric progression downward.)

It's possible to look at the glass as half-full: People can still write nice letters, and sometimes do (often by email), but they also have other avenues of creative expression.

If it's an exception - no. It's fun and it gives a new fresh look to big, evil corporations (but Google is not evil anyway [1]). If it were a rule - yes, definitely infantile and weird.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/101923422

If you're looking for meaningful answers about propriety, I strongly doubt you'll find them on CNBC.

The expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" applies here. Sometimes it can more accurately express their reactions and feelings.

If you're demanding maturity, don't throw out petty, overblown insults. It's hypocritical.

Infantile? Maybe.

Infantile == bad? No.

A term like "infantile" when used in a derogatory manner is predicated on the idea that being young is something to be ashamed of. You should avoid it.

I wouldn't call it infantile, just playful in a way that Google no longer has the personability to pull off.

I am a huge, huge fan of imageboard culture, which reaction gifs are _undeniably_ derived from, but I believe just as strongly that it's not something you should let "leak" into normal communication, especially not professional communication. So yes, I agree.

As somebody who has a SO who works at Google, thus giving me a bit of insight into the culture, I can factually say that gifs and lolcat-like memes have already started replacing the English language there.

With all those broken email readers, how can one even assume that a gif will animate when the recipient opens the email?

I'm sure Google would have been devastated to find out their joke answer wasn't properly animated in their recipient's inbox.

I, for one, fully support our gif-replying internet overlords.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31250/gifs/thumbs_up.gif

Didn't wired.com just overhaul their site? Very slow and clunky on my end...

I dont understand how that GIF represents "no comment". To me it looks more like an "I don't know" or "I've no idea" statement.

Also, I don't see why this is news. GIFs have been used like this for several years now. Reddit is replete with such usage.

It's just that the official answer from a giant multinational to a journalist is a funny gif. The typical answer is a LOT more formal.

It's like the President inviting me to dinner and I answer him with a "thumb's up" gif.

No, it's like you inviting the President to dinner and he sends you a gif.

Or do you consider yourself more important than the president?

I usually get memes from Google official responses.

I think this response is connected maybe to yesterday's facebook (f8) event...

Google PR are such a bunch of fucking clowns.

Well, so is Richard Lewis.

Well, not that I get to deal with PR departments very often, but I much prefer one that has a sense of humor over one that hasn't.

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