HMS Bags of Money

I'm skinny dipping today with other geo-moguls in one of the most beautiful inlets in the deep blue sea. Sean has invited me on the HMS Bags of Money for a break. The work is done for Where 2.0 and now all that's needed is another lambrini and coke.

I've been riding one of the segways on the rolling deck of the BoM. I tell ya it confuses the shit out of the thing, it doesn't know if it's going back or forward.

Meanwhile back in blighty things aren't all ship-shape on the good ship Titan^H^H^H^H^H MultiMap. The Borg is slowly tightening the iron grip and fucking everything up. Last week they redirected their flagship map product to whats left of Seans bungalow plan. Things went South and the plug was pulled.

You think we'd make that kind of screwup at the 'gol? Puh-lease. We had a good laugh anyway. It's like watching those lemmings at Yahoo!

Back to me. Why does ol' Ed need such a vacation? I've been figuring out where all our aerial pictures come from:



It took me two and a half years to figure them all out, and half explains all my BA Miles. Every photo had to be dated and Google don't let you fly first class so it was my one way to rack up enough miles. By flying all over the world and dating these photos I've managed to claim a BA Infinity card and will never fly Club World ever again. A big day for me !!

So click the blue circle and think of ol' Ed !!

Sent from HMS BoM

The problem with the World

Is people....

Why the fuck do people get up in my face all the time, I just want to get to my fucking plane. I spend so much time negotiating around the proles at airports, I've calculated that I've lost 6.2 man days this year so far being annoyed by stupid people.

We don't have stupid people at Google, by definition. Google. Smart. Google. Smart. See? No jackasses pulling a semi across three lanes of traffic when ol' Ed is in the driving seat, and no I don't feel sorry for them. Theres a welfare program for dumb people and it's called Microsoft. No free food but then what do you expect !!

Just look at these people standing around !!



This is better, no people !!



I sublimed in to my new chair at the BA lounge though. T5 BA lounge is an excellent mix of the old and new, the refined and the baroque woven in to a tapestry of relaxation. Just as an example, they've transferred some staff from other BA lounges at Heathrow together with some new subtle faces. This means ol' Ed gets some new conversation but they don't forget the lambrini and coke.

Before I had time to fully soak in to the atmosphere I had to fly out and run another event, ol'd Ed is needed worldwide !!

Sent from a BA lounge

421 shades of blue

Oh man what a party! I only woke up yesterday and I've spent 24 hours in bed popping paracetamol until I could move again !!

I had one of the drones write a post on how we name oceans.

That's the offical line, but I have a truthiness solution: When I can't sleep on a BA flight, I look out the window and come up with shades of blue to call that patch of water. I'm up to 421 shades in a nice KML files. Baby blue, cyan, cyan-magenta-blue, sky blue, windows vista blue.. and of course blue level googler blue.

Sent from a BA plane, looking down on 'Jimbo Wales language blue'

Come to my party

Come on, you know ol' Ed would never leave the 'gol, 'specially not until the free food runs out !!

Remember !! Its the Fake Ed Party tonight !!

• free prawn cocktail crisps for the first 5 guests


• free beer if you look at 5 pages of ads

And the beach balls are all ready to go !!

Sent from a BA Lounge !!

Time to Move on...

The following is an agreed statement that was posted earlier today on the Google Intranet,

“Ed Parsons is leaving his post as Chief Mapmagician of Google to pursue new challenges in the increasingly dynamic Geographic Information (GI) Industry.

Since his arrival in April 2007, Ed has developed Google’s IT strategy and has led Google Research labs. Ed has been instrumental in moving the organisation’s focus from mapping to the creation of geographic information.

Ed is keen at this stage of his career to help develop more innovative areas of the GI industry. His decision comes as Google is focusing on a period of a consolidation in its strategic IT development and direction.

Larry Page, Googles chief stoner, says “We wish Ed every success for the next stage of his career and offer him sincere thanks for his contribution to the direction of our IT development and research activities.”

For those of you who want to say goodbye to Ed personally his last working day will be Friday 4 April 2008.”

I am not is a position to add any more to this statement, but of course I am sorry to be leaving a great group of very committed GI professionals, the future for me is not completely clear at this point - but whatever it turns out to be, you will read it here as it happens !!