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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 08 2018, @06:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the on-the-bicycle-recovery-team dept.

Google provides colorful bicycles for its Mountain View area employees to ride. But hundreds of these bicycles go missing every week, and some have been found tossed in a local creek:

"The disappearances often aren't the work of ordinary thieves, however. Many residents of Mountain View, a city of 80,000 that has effectively become Google's company town, see the employee perk as a community service," the Wall Street Journal reported.

And for the company, here's one Google bike use case that's got to burn a little: 68-year-old Sharon Veach told the newspaper that she sometimes uses one of the bicycles as part of her commute: to the offices of Google's arch foe, Oracle. Google doesn't really want non-Googlers using the bikes, "but it's OK if you do," Veach explained.

Google has hired 30 contractors using five vans to recover lost and stolen bikes, about a third of which are equipped with GPS trackers. The teams carry waders and grappling hooks for pulling bikes out of creeks.

The company can't even confront people who appear to have stolen their bikes:

Ensuring that only company workers are riding the "Gbikes" is not particularly straightforward: some Googlers don't exactly fit the stereotype of the Silicon Valley techie. Company transportation executive Jeral Poskey told the paper he once took action when he saw what appeared to be a homeless woman on a commandeered Google bike. "If I could describe her, you would agree with me," Poskey said. "She looked all panicked, and then she showed me her Google badge."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @06:48AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @06:48AM (#619439)

    Yes! So sad! Megacorp lays out some miniscule amount of their profits from the rest of us, in the form of bicycles, and we appropriate them back? Oh, what stupid tech giants you are! Where is the free Ice Cream? Huh? And the underwriting of our roads, and the compensation for the insane inflation in housing prices in your vicinity? What? People are stealing your bikes? Lucky you get off so lightly. I could Uber Shotgun your ass, if I had the credits.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 08 2018, @07:07AM (8 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 08 2018, @07:07AM (#619443) Journal

    And the underwriting of our roads, and the compensation for the insane inflation in housing prices in your vicinity?

    Well, now that you've mentioned it, what about Google's underwriting of "our" roads and other things that they generously compensate for with the taxes that they and their employees pay? You going to give them any respect for that?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday January 08 2018, @07:34AM (5 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 08 2018, @07:34AM (#619451) Journal

      Well, now that you've mentioned it, what about Google's underwriting of "our" roads and other things that they generously compensate for with the taxes that they and their employees pay?

      You mean so generously "trickled" after dodging billions in taxes by every year, right?

      And we should be grateful they didn't go the extra mile to dodge this trickle as well, isn't it?

      Because it is only appropriate all the small fry to break from their mouth for pay the services ion the area they work and additionally the "inwastement" in useless walls and "defense", but the big fishes must be immune to this for some obscure reason which defies the rational.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 08 2018, @06:16PM (4 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 08 2018, @06:16PM (#619611) Journal

        Because it is only appropriate all the small fry to break from their mouth for pay the services ion the area they work and additionally the "inwastement" in useless walls and "defense", but the big fishes must be immune to this for some obscure reason which defies the rational.

        I'll notice the usual problems here. You haven't bothered to determine what an appropriate level of taxes is for Google nor determined whether Google is paying those taxes (either directly or indirectly). Instead, you automatically assume it's not enough and then go on some narrative about small fry hiding in the mouth of Google, only to dart out to nibble some bit of public funding when the coast is clear. I'll just note here that Mountain View has plenty of money, whether it comes from Google or other sources. Someone is paying those taxes.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:26AM (3 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:26AM (#619781) Journal

          I'll notice your argument suffers from the same problem: you assert that the level of taxes paid by Google is generous without bothering to determine what an appropriate level of taxes.
          Subjectivism all the way down, each one choosing the view they prefer.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:22AM (#619804)

            I'll notice your argument suffers from the same problem: you assert that the level of taxes paid by Google is generous without bothering to determine what an appropriate level of taxes.

            How about this; socialists should pay 90% tax and capitalists 10%. Have a nice day!

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:29AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:29AM (#619809)

              How about this; socialists should pay 90% tax and capitalists 10%.

              As long as the capitalists get to use only 10% of the services and infrastructure available for the socialists and pay-per-use for the rest, I don't have any qualms.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:13AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:13AM (#619896) Journal

            I'll notice your argument suffers from the same problem: you assert that the level of taxes paid by Google is generous without bothering to determine what an appropriate level of taxes.

            Someone is paying those taxes and Mountain View has a very ample budget. The large employers in the area, including Google, are the likely suspects. Not feeling the need to continue past that.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @07:54AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @07:54AM (#619453)

      Not nearly fucking enough, khallow, and your frigging Austrian Circle Ass knows that damn well. This is just like Uber, or W-mart, using sunk public infrastructure to make a profit by not fucking covering the cost of their employee's use of the same! This is why we really need "Uber shotgun". Say we have some private citizen, and he or she finds his/her private capital underused. And just let us say, that this capital happens to be a shotgun. Now why should not some other private citizen, perhaps without a shotgun their own self (although I am not at all saying that), be able to contract, over the appropriate app, the services of someone with a shotgun? So, to bring the scenario to full light: Google/Amazon/Microsoft drives up the rent to six times my monthly income. But, through my "UberShotgun" app, I can have a citizen with a shotgun show up at one of these overpriced housing units, and make clear to the Gentrifier there that it is really in their interest to sell at much less than the price they paid, so that housing for my and mine will open up? Disruptive tech! Y'all. You will have to adapt, or we will go back to Eddie Murphy: "C-i-l-l my landlord" (Sorry, but the video from SNL's "Mr Robinson's Neighborhood" appears to have been disappeared, in order to prevent a class war.)

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 08 2018, @06:09PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 08 2018, @06:09PM (#619607) Journal

        Not nearly fucking enough

        Exactly. Your bullshit won't ever acknowledge that they already pay for what they use.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @04:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @04:04PM (#619545)

    Ah, I had a feeling gentrification was the root cause.