Google wants the entire world

Conditions: Sunny.


Recently there's been a lot of hoo-ha relating to google's ambitious plan to digitise every book in existance. The controversy has come mainly from Microsoft, so people have scoffed. But the point could be legitimate: do Google have the right to scan every book in and make them availiable to users for free? Of course Google are not allowing total access, they simply allow you to see a few paragraphs surrounding a hit to a search that you've submitted, a feature I've used myself and found quite useful. Ultimately, I think google might have crossed a line in allowing access to books without permission, and no doubt the lawyers are busy as we speak.

But I think the real victims of this plan may well be the small suburban libraries, and the people that use them. The big libraries may survive, albeit dustier and with less staff, but the smaller libraries will probably have to close if everyone were able to find what they want from their home computer. That's a shame.

Indeed there may come a time when we view libraries in the same way we view museums today. Something to do in the name of culture, or a day off, but certainly not the first stop in the quest for knowledge. It's a pity, because I like how libraries feel, but this is the relentless progress of humankind. Link for more.



March against a war nobody supports

News over the weekend about various protest marches about the Iraq war, focus on the numbers being smaller than expected. This is a surprise? No-one really supports the war anymore, and the powers-that-be are trying to get out of it. So the message has gotten across, just a shame it's taken 4 years to do it.


Extra: The U.S tactics in long-term interrogation are starting to bear fruit. Evil, bad fruit, from an evil bad tree. Special quote:

The CIA denies that Mohammed was tortured, but evidence to the contrary has been building for years. Two years ago, a CIA official told ABC News that he had been water-boarded, and had won the admiration of his interrogators because it took him two to two-and-half minutes to start confessing - well beyond the average of 14 seconds observed in others.

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