A few years ago, when Picasa was only an application and it only worked on Windows machines, I worked at Google and jumped on some of the earliest betas of Picasa Web Albums. Consequently, I managed to grab the username jordan.
Fast forward a couple years and suddenly that username begins working in a strange manner with Google Calendar. People enter “Jordan” into their calendar invites, and they show up, quite mysteriously, on my calendar. This results in all sorts of hilarity when my friends, who I share my calendar with, see all the fun things I have planned.
A few weeks ago I had horse camp. That was fun. Today I am going with my friend Kim to get gas at Costco.
I’m very excited for Friday, when I’ll be travelling to Virginia to receive an award! Don’t worry, I won’t let the recognition go to my head. Sunday I’m serving food to the homeless with a youth group.
The 14th of every month I have a recurring reminder that “he” asked me out on July 14. I love incremental anniversaries!
I think the most disconcerting events to show up are the multitude of doctor appointments. Most days show at least one. A stranger to my calendar would think I was either the most diseased person in existence, or that I was the world’s biggest hypochondriac.
Being a former Googler, one question I get asked a lot by my friends is “How can I get a page about me removed from Google?”
Almost always, my response is “don’t get published”.
Seriously. Google will make available any content that they know how to get to. “They” being the Googlebot, a tool that Google uses to find pages on the internet and make those pages available as a result when you search. So if you don’t want to be on Google, then simply don’t affect the world in a way that you would be notable at all.
Now that’s a sad lifestyle, when you really think about it. You should be happy to be in Google’s index! But if something about you is published, and that information makes its way online, and you really don’t want it to be there, you do have hope. You just have to get that information removed or have the author block Google from indexing that page. If you are nice enough about it, most webmasters will at least remove your name from the page(s) in question. Â Then give it a few weeks for Google to re-index the page and you’ll be fine.
Pride this year was kind of special for me. Since coming out eight years ago, I’ve always stayed on top of politics and news relating to the LGBT community at least a little but since the release of Milk and the passage of Prop 8 I’ve dropped my old passive interest ways and become a bit more activist about things. So having the opportunity to march with the Gayglers and AIDSCare Chicago made the whole pride experience a lot more meaningful for me.
I think part of what really surprised me was the sheer volume of people that turned out. I’ve gone for the past few years and knew it was a big event but I don’t think it’s really possible to understand the scope without being in the parade. People were shoulder to shoulder the entire route and in many cases the crowd went so far back from the street that I wondered if everyone could even see the parade or if many were just there for the experience. For someone like me who grew up in a small town and didn’t know a single gay person until 17, that kind of gathering really has an impact.
I think my favorite sight from marching down that proud path was one woman with a picket sign that read “Proud to have two moms.” How great is that? There were a lot of these people out in the crowd, brandishing their signs of hope and support for our community. An old coworker of mine came with his wife and daughter. It was beautiful.
Of course after the parade it was back to the same celebrate and have fun drinking and eating amongst friends old and new, as it should be. But I wanted to take a moment of pause from the circulation of pictures and drunkeness to say thank you to everyone who participated in Pride 2009. For me, your presence was moving.
It’s been over a month since my breakup with Google.
It wasn’t a an angry parting. My former employer was wonderful in many ways actually. This post isn’t about that though.
This post is about technology!
Those who knew me three years ago know that I went to work for Google in one of their more secretive groups. Secrecy will probably always remain important for Google’s data centers. After all, when you are serving up well over half of all the searches performed each day, infrastructure counts.
It was still quite frustrating for me when I couldn’t really talk about my job, especially since it felt so ridiculous. After all, I was not some research scientist for the latest top secret military operation (or was I) – I was fixing computers.
Google has gradually opened up about this particular area of expertise however, and the latest came as shock to me. And of all places, it came through a twitter post from a friend I used to work with in Hwops (that’s what you get when you shorten Hardware Operations, dummy.)
So here it is – the cnet article that tells more than I ever could tell my friends about the insides of a Google data center: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10209580-92.html.
And, fwiw, it was a really freaking cool job…
Don’t be evil. It’s a simple mantra that spells out one of the basic Google philosophies. But not being evil can be simple inaction. It is possible to not be evil without being good. That isn’t the case though.
Today, Google announced it has signed an amicus brief supporting several cases that are challenging California’s Proposition 8, the first US law to strip a right from a minority that they were previously afforded.Â
Just as we need more gays, more lesbians, more transgenders, more straight allies, we also need more corporate support to push forward the gay right’s movement. People need to be outspoken about the issues and so do the companies we work for. If you work for a company that is quiet on these topics I encourage you to reach out and find support wherever it is possible. Start an LGBT diversity group, talk to human resources about diversity hiring, seek out your public relations department and ask them to issue a press release in support of your LGBT employees and in opposition to hate laws such as Prop 8. Heck, you can even go to your VPs and tell them how important it is that your company support this movement.
In other Google-related diversity news, the company is now a sponsor of Chicago’s AIDSCare Fat Saturday Ball. Kudos!
