Relatives Got You Down? Check Out BigQuery and Redshift
December 25, 2018
I read “Redshift Vs BigQuery: What Are The Factors To Consider Before Choosing A Data Warehouse.” With Oracle on the ropes and database technology chugging along, why pay attention to old school solutions?
The article sets out to compare and contrast BigQuery (one of the Google progeny known to have consorted with a certain Mr. Dremel.) Amazon has more database products and services than I can keep track of. But RedShift is one of them, and it is important if an intelware company uses AWS and the RedShift technology.
Which system is more “flexible”? I learned:
In the case of Redshift, if anything goes kaput during a transaction, Amazon Redshift allows users to perform roll-back to ensure that data get backs to the consistent state. BigQuery works on the principle of append-only data and its storage engine strictly follows this technique. This becomes a major disadvantage to the user when something goes wrong during the transaction process, forcing them to restart from the beginning or specific point. Another key point is that duplicating data in BigQuery is hard to achieve and costly. Both the technologies have reservations regarding insertion of streaming data, with Redshift taking edge by guaranteeing storage of data with additional care from the user. On the other hand, BigQuery supports de-duplication of streaming data in the most effective way by using time window.
The write up points out:
As compared to BigQuery, Redshift is considerably more expensive costing $0.08 per GB, compared to BigQuery which costs $0.02 per GB. However, BigQuery offers only storage and not queries. The platform charges separately for queries based upon processed data at $5/TB. As BigQuery lacks indexes and various analytical queries, the scanning of data is a huge and costly process. In most cases, users opt for Amazon Redshift as it is predictable, simple and encourages data usage and analytics.
Which is “better”? Not surprisingly, both are really swell. Helpful. But the Beyond Search goose was curious about:
- Performance
- Latency for different types of queries
- Programming requirements
But swell is fine.
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2018
Happy Holidays: Google News May Be Mortally Wounded
December 25, 2018
I read “Google Says EU Rules Will Force It to Cut News Services.” My first reaction was, “There goes traffic to the news Web sites.” Then I thought, “What traffic?”
The write up reports:
Google has claimed it will be forced to slash the range of news thrown up by its search engine if European rules to protect copyright owners come into force.
Those copyright rules were, in part, triggered by Google itself. The click loving newspapers took a middle of the road approach: Not good, not bad.
Now the EC has cranked out a copyright regulation with Article 11. The lingo refers to “neighboring rights.” The idea is that Google has surfed on hard working journalists’ work. I assume the fraudulent stories in Der Spiegel are not included. (Yikes, a back link. Trouble looms for the Beyond Search goose.)
If the GOOG sticks in a link, the GOOG has to pay the publisher. It gives me a headache to think about the “who”. Many newspapers are pastiches of content from a wide range of sources. The copyright sensitive Associated Press is not going to be happy if one of its syndicated stories is not handled in a way that makes the AP’s legal eagle happy.
To sum up: The Google News death watch has begun. Will the GOOG survive or will it succumb to the EC’s immune system?
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2018
Ethical Compass Update: Truth, Fiction?
December 20, 2018
I read “Google Sabotaged Edge, Hints Former Microsoft Intern.”
The question is:
Who is telling the truth?
Let’s run down the possibilities about the spin on this doctored ball.
First, Google fiddled some code to make Edge look even less appealing than Microsoft’s LinkedIn integration? Definitely possible.
Second, the “intern” is blowing smoke. Fifteen minutes of fame stuff. The inability to craft some bulletproof code maybe?
Third, the publications reporting the story are going with zippy stuff that attracts clicks.
When I read, statements like this, I wonder what’s real and what’s fake:
For all his hints about duplicitousness, Bakita doesn’t outright accuse the firm of being Machiavellian. “Now I’m not sure I’m convinced that YouTube was changed intentionally to slow Edge,” he writes. That wasn’t the case for everyone on his team, with the former Microsoft intern disclosing that “many” of his co-workers do believe this to be the case, so much so that they “looked into it personally.”
From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, nothing surprises me about tech giants. High school science club management methods aside, truth is difficult to discern.
Now about that 1809 update?
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2018
YAGI: Yet Another Google Interview
December 18, 2018
Google’s full page print advertisements about the free information the company makes available are awe inspiring. After reading the ad copy which reminds me I can learn something new every day, I recalled this interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Impact Lab shares an interview, originally published in the New York Times, with the company’s relatively new CEO in, “Sundar Pichai of Google: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’.” Sundar Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he proceeded to work on the Chrome browser. In 2014 he took the lead in R&D for products and platforms, and was elevated to CEO the next year. Last year, Pichai joined the board of Alphabet (Google’s parent company).
Writer David Gelles asks Pichai questions about his early life in India, his time at Stanford, and his own family’s approach to screen time, so see the article if curious. We are interested in what Pichai has to say about Google, and how things have changed. The interview relates:
You started at Google 14 years ago. Does it still feel like the same company you joined?
“When I first joined Google I was struck by the fact that it was a very idealistic, optimistic place. I still see that idealism and optimism a lot in many things we do today. But the world is different. Maybe there’s more realism of how hard some things are. We’ve had more failures, too. But there’s always been a strong streak of idealism in the company, and you still see it today.
We circled this statement:
An estimated 20,000 Googlers participated in a sexual harassment protest this month. What’s your message to employees right now?
“People are walking out because they want us to improve and they want us to show we can do better. We’re acknowledging and understanding we clearly got some things wrong. And we have been running the company very differently for a while now. But going through a process like that, you learn a lot. For example, we have established channels by which people can report issues. But those processes are much harder on the people going through it than we had realized.”
Really? That is an interesting take. The reigning CEO seems to be relentlessly focused on the positive, and on a message of constructive change. We shall see whether his actions reflect this perspective. Google itself may want to make sure that it is learning something new each day; for example, management methods which do more than generate clicks. The ad, of course, wants me to search Google for information. Nothing like clicks, right?
Cynthia Murrell, December 18, 2018
Google: Land Because They Are Not Making Any More of It
December 17, 2018
In a modest little purchase, Google has bought an office park. The Mercury News reports on the “Billion-Dollar Deal: Google Pays $1 Billion for Huge Mountain View Business Park.” It is only the second-largest U.S. property purchase this year—after their own $2.4 billion purchase of Manhattan’s Chelsea Market last spring. In fact, the flourishing behemoth has been on a property spending spree the last couple of years; Writer George Avalos observes:
“Google’s Mountain View Purchase means that in the two years since the search giant began to collect properties in downtown San Jose for a proposed transit village, the company has spent at least $2.83 billion in property acquisitions in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, downtown San Jose and north San Jose alone. Adding to the eye-popping numbers: Google’s spending activity in those four markets reaches $3 billion when including the company’s pending purchase in downtown San Jose of several government-owned parcels, along with the minimum value of a big set of surface parking lots that Google intends to buy from Trammell Crow, also downtown near its proposed transit village. Buying Mountain Vew’s Shoreline Technology Park gives Google a 51.8-acre site…”
It is suggested that Google is “land-banking” nearby properties to use later, as it continues to grow. We are curious to see how the company will leverage each these valuable assets.
Cynthia Murrell, December 17, 2018
Life with a Digital Father: An Interesting View of Employee Protests at Google
December 14, 2018
I noted “The ‘father of the internet’ says that Google employee backlash to its defense work was just ‘a lot of misunderstanding’.” Someone told me that I should locate this article.
I did.
Here’s the paragraph I circled in very bright yellow:
There is a lot of misunderstanding about the positive benefits of working with [and] in the public sector, the military being a part of that.
The speaker is Vint Cerf, the chief evangelist for Google.
The “that” is a contract with the Department of Defense.
The misunderstanding is or was in the minds of Googlers.
The “positive benefit” may be selling more work to the US government, that is, the military with an interest in smart drones to do the find, fix, and finish business.
After watching most of Google’s testimony before a committee of US elected officials, I do not understand how any Google level person could misunderstand what Google’s senior management says.
Crystal. Clear.
Stephen E Arnold, December 14, 2018
Belgium and the GOOG
December 14, 2018
In 2012, Google cut a deal with Belgium publishers over content scraping. The idea was that indexing public Web sites was not something that put a smile on some Belgium publishers’ faces. Google’s approach to settlements has warranted its own news item on a Harvard Web site.
Belgium — for the most part — is a quiet, western European country that accepts a couple of languages as standard and cranks out pretty good waffles. Apparently, Belgium does not like it when Google exposes its top secret military bases. Yes, I think exposing a nation’s national secrets is a good reason to be mad and sue. Fast Company reports that, “Belgium Is Suing Google Over Satellite Images Of Military Bases” and Google is not listening to them.
Belgium has asked Google to blur out images of its military bases from its satellite photographs. The country has also requested Google blur out its nuclear power plants and air bases as well. Belgium is not happy:
“The defense ministry made the request citing national security. It’s not clear why Google has not honored that request, as it is a standard one for governments to make of the search giant, which in the past had no problem obscuring images of sensitive military sites. We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update this post if we hear back.”
A Belgian Google representative explained that his company has worked closely with the Belgium Department of Defense before to change Google’s maps and is disappointed they are now being sued. Google plans to continue working with the Belgian government to resolve the issue.
It is reassuring that Google methods do not discriminate based on the size of a country.
Whitney Grace, December 14, 2018
Google: Death Unsolved but Health of Interest
December 13, 2018
By now, data collection has become either a fact of life for many, or a daily battle for others. One major fork in the road for users has become Google’s efforts to acquire data via healthcare. It’s a confusing dive that was made clearer by a recent TechRadar Pro story, “DeepMind’s Big Betrayal? Coming to Terms with Data-Driven Healthcare.”
According to the story:
“By moving DeepMind Health’s Stream team into the main arm of the organization – its parent company Google – concerns were raised over its commitment to patient data privacy. This came with assertions from the organization in 2016 that the patient data would never be used or connected with Google accounts and products.”
Of course, Google denies that they will merge the two datasets. However, Wired brought up some troubling history to the contrary. Namely, the company’s 2008 purchase of DoubleClick, and it’s promise then not to merge data…which, it did.
We’re monitoring Google’s progress on solving death.
Patrick Roland, December 13, 2018
MIT Thinks Google Is Reentering the Chinese Market
December 13, 2018
I was surprised to read that Google is actually reentering the Chinese market. “What Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Visit to Congress Taught Us (Spoiler: Not a Lot)” states:
Despite his best evasive efforts, Pichai confirmed Google is working on re-entering the Chinese market—referring to the controversial search project “Dragonfly.” In a series of carefully-worded statements Pichai said the project was an “internal” one and that there were no plans to launch a product in China “right now.”
I thought Google had shelved this idea. MIT sees it differently.
With rumors of about 100 people working on a Chinese search engine, I thought it was obvious that Google had no intention to make another valiant attempt to tap into the Chinese revenue stream. Chinese regulations are easy to understand: Censorship, surveillance, and social scores are steps on the path to resolving “dominant contradictions.”
As Mao Zedong allegedly said, “To read too many books is harmful.” Filtered search results are definitely okay I assume.
Stephen E Arnold, December 13, 2018
Ombudsman or Enforcement Official?
December 11, 2018
As Google’s CEO prepares to read his testimony today (December 11, 2018), I noted this passage from the prepared statement:
Users also look to us to provide accurate, trusted information. We work hard to ensure the integrity of our products, and we’ve put a number of checks and balances in place to ensure they continue to live up to our standards. I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way. To do otherwise would go against our core principles and our business interests. (See this link for the statement.)
I thought about the recent security lapse at Google Plus. Yes, that was the service which was the trigger for a compensation goodie.
But what’s important today is not the reading of Silicon Valley spin.
I suggest that the article “Facebook, Google scramble to contain global fallout from ACCC plan” may have more oomph in the long run. The Australian government appears to be inching toward clamping down on the Google and Facebook. I noted this statement:
Declaring the digital giants have “substantial” market power, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) wants to create an ombudsman to investigate complaints from consumers, media companies and marketers about Google and Facebook over issues such as defamatory comments and fake ads.
As a member of Five Eyes, Australia may be pointing the direction in which Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US will move.
In this context, the Google statement does little to change the reality of what the company does and how it operates. For example, there is employee push back. Another example, there is the behavior of senior executives. One more: There are the claims of Foundem and other vendors who allege that Google willfully took steps to swizzle the search results.
The question becomes, “Is Australia appointing an ombudsman to deal with Google and Facebook or an enforcement officer?”
Enforcement? Laws, I assume, will follow.
Stephen E Arnold, December 11, 2018
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