GoogleCreep
I am not one who gets carried away by the theme of Google's Big Brother creepiness. I realize this is a major concern for many others, whether or not they're writers, but I try to keep the focus on copyright law and policy, balanced with information enhancement. As Clarence Darrow pointed out at the Scopes Monkey Trial, with innovation and progress we often lose a little something even as we gain a lot of something else.
That said, I've had two online experiences in recent days that return me to that theme, with a vengeance. One is the discovery that my very first published national magazine article is now displayed at Google Books. It is from the June 1970 issue of Baseball Digest, when I was 15 years old. See p. 37 of http://books.google.com/books?id=dzIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc&cad=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
I'm not claiming infringement here. Just creepiness, down to my very bones.
The other experience was being reminded by Eric Rumsey (who is becoming one of my favorite bloggers and twitterers) of one of the most hilarious life-imitates-art parodies ever published by The Onion. See "Google Announces Plan to Destroy All Information It Can't Index," August 31, 2005: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076.
That said, I've had two online experiences in recent days that return me to that theme, with a vengeance. One is the discovery that my very first published national magazine article is now displayed at Google Books. It is from the June 1970 issue of Baseball Digest, when I was 15 years old. See p. 37 of http://books.google.com/books?id=dzIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc&cad=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
I'm not claiming infringement here. Just creepiness, down to my very bones.
The other experience was being reminded by Eric Rumsey (who is becoming one of my favorite bloggers and twitterers) of one of the most hilarious life-imitates-art parodies ever published by The Onion. See "Google Announces Plan to Destroy All Information It Can't Index," August 31, 2005: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076.
posted by Irv Muchnick at 10:10 AM
2 Comments:
WOW! You were published as a teenager? Congrats! :) My goal one day is to be published. If you're interested in seeing my website (since we're both into wrestling) it's at www.wrestlingupdateonline.com.
Thanks for the kind words :-) ...
Re: Baseball Digest - Like you, maybe, I was surprised that Google chose BD as one of the magazines to put in GBS ... I used to read it cover-to-cover in the 60's, not quite up to the time of your article in 1970.
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