Had a Google Now card for the album so I'd say it is available

#paullindner #paullindner

Daft Punk may have won some Grammys last night - but when I wanted retro electronic/synth I was pleasantly surprised to discover Psykosonik via Google Play

Cyberpunk themes, Nintendo  SNES ties-ins and beats reminiscent of Crystal Method The   make this some great coding music.  They'll also be my soundtrack of choice if I ever make another ray-traced 3-D demo.

#paullindner #paullindner

Anil Dash - I'm saddened that someone that I worked with and respect wrote something so out of touch with the situation that's going on here in the Bay Area.  You seem to believe the media hype that the "techies" are elitist and out of touch and that better "marketing" will help win hearts and minds.

The reality is that tech companies and employees are already doing much of what you advocate for, and doing more of it, or marketing it, won't change the situation.  Avatars, Logos, and signs won't help.  Helping people afford housing will.

Specifically:

Using Voices

Employees and company leaders already advocate for better housing and infrastructure.  Google has succeeded[1] and failed[2] to build housing in Mountain View near it's campus.  Facebook too[3].

Volunteering and Civic Initiatives

Google (and other companies) match donations 1:1 and encourage their employees to give.  There's also the following

  - Google.org 

  - Google for Nonprofits 

  - Supporting local communities via GoogleServe[5]

  - Google sponsored a huge push to fund Kiva loans last year via their own and employees giving.

I am very proud of what's been done here and how Google has made me a better donator and volunteer.

Community Involvement 

Extending benefits like food and day care to people in the community is an interesting idea.  There are problems however -- employee services are at the work places, not in the neighborhood where people's rent are going up.

Plus there are often better ways for employees to engage with the community.  I've met and talked to plenty of people while picking up trash in West Oakland.  Plenty of other people are already very active in their churches, schools and communities.

In Closing...

If every shuttle was banned the problem would still remain.  In the past 10 years San Francisco has built  17k new units of housing while adding 75k residents[6].  This is a complex issue that's not going away soon.  Marketing isn't going to change it.  Getting more housing and helping people worried about paying rent will, even while many are directly benefitting[7].

I'll leave you with the conclusions from Elias Levy's in-depth data based analysis[8] of the situation:

In the end, tech workers are simply a convenient straw man for folks to direct their anger at high rents, which are simply the result of a strong economy, the anti-development history of San Francisco, the city’s limited geography, and market forces.  In a slightly different scenario, the vilified workers could have been in biotech, aerospace, or finance.  So long as the local economy is strong, San Francisco is a desirable place to live in, and the population increases, rents, like real estate, will go up in San Francisco.  At best, we can slow down these market forces and provide a helping hand to those less fortunate to ensure they have some support dealing with these changes.

Full disclosure: I work at Google. I wrote part of this on a Shuttle from the East Bay, and would still be driving if it wasn't available.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/google-invests-sparkly-housing-development-mountain-view-calif/story?...

[2] http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=8731879

[3] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/the-houses-that-facebook-built-are-coming-to-san-francisco/

[5]  http://www.google.com/giving/community/

[6] http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Francisco-creates-its-own-housing-crisis-513...

[7] http://www.npr.org/2014/01/22/264528139/long-a-dirty-word-gentrification-may-be-losing-its-stigma

[8] http://elias-levy.tumblr.com/post/74103701680/san-francisco-eviction-protests

#paullindner #paullindner

Couple more things you might want to look at:

** While testing I saw a few errors pop up when looking for the _escaped_fragment-= version of pages.  Looks like this:

unknown domain: goodeggs-garbanzo-seoserver.herokuapp.com

Here's a quick tip I posted to the Developing with Google+ community.  Plenty more good stuff there for publishers and app developers.

Originally shared by Paul Lindner

Youtube and Google+ Embedded Posts

If you embed Youtube videos on your web site you might want to take second look at the Google+ Embedded Post feature:

https://developers.google.com/+/web/embedded-post/

Instead of using a direct Youtube embed try creating a Google+ post that includes the video and your commentary.  Embed that post on your site by following the instructions linked above.

People can still play the video in the page, but now they can also +1, Follow, and Reply to it.  This engagement will make your conversation stand out in the new Youtube.com comments section.

#paullindner #paullindner

Youtube and Google+ Embedded Posts

If you embed Youtube videos on your web site you might want to take second look at the Google+ Embedded Post feature:

https://developers.google.com/+/web/embedded-post/

Instead of using a direct Youtube embed try creating a Google+ post that includes the video and your commentary.  Embed that post on your site by following the instructions linked above.

People can still play the video in the page, but now they can also +1, Follow, and Reply to it.  This engagement will make your conversation stand out in the new Youtube.com comments section.

#paullindner #paullindner