Quote:
Originally Posted by VirtuosiMedia
If you've been thinking about buying a new software book (or any book, for that matter), you should check out Google books first. How should the information creators be compensated?
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I like paper books, especially for this. I like being able to read in the sun, in a chair away from the computer, and a bunch of other situations where a real book is vastly preferable to a virtual one. I've bought 3 or 4 technical (
that means $50+) books that I discovered through Google Books. I don't know how many people will read them online for free (
which is painful!), how many will be introduced to new books and buy them, and the most important question, what the average difference is for the people writing those books?
Quote:
Originally Posted by VirtuosiMedia
Excitement at finding free books aside, Google is really serious about their quest to catalog and store all of the world's information.
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With a
major hedge. Sort of like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, and how it's changed the stated goal of scientific endeavor from learning everything, to learning everything
that can be learned. Subtle, sure, but Google doesn't want to catalog the # of sheets of TP I used after I had my coffee this morning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VirtuosiMedia
On one hand, that's really cool, but on the other, it's also very disturbing. Should all information be free and publicly available or should some things not be disclosed? Who should control access to the information? Tough questions, all.
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Important questions - not all of them are very tough.
Some things should not be disclosed - most of them things nobody wants disclosed. Here comes another hedge. If John Doe rapes someone, he doesn't want that known, but who cares? Aside from that, I think there's a gradual progression from yes to no, and it's something that privacy advocates have been debating forever. Still, authors can opt out of Google Books, and Big G respects this.
But, at the end of the day, if we tolerate video cameras watching us drive through a stop light, I don't think cloud computing is more egregious in most cases. (
And I say that, vs Google, because a lot of other companies are doing similar things.) Just some thoughts to contribute to an excellent thread.
